So today, I have the opportunity to spend a day with World Champion Juggler Vova! That's me!
Vova is a retired professional juggler.
He used to hold multiple world records, he won multiple championships, and he appeared
on high-profile shows, such as the Oprah Winfrey Show and the Ellen DeGeneres Show. So Vova
will teach me how to juggle 3 balls in another video, so definitely check that out. But in
this video, I will be teaching Vova how to do the muscle-up.
I'll do my best.
Let's do it!
In order to do the muscle-up, you have to have enough strength, and the conventional
wisdom is you gotta be able to do 10 pull-ups in a row, but in my personal opinion, if you
can do 5 strict good pull-ups in a row, you have the strength.
So how many pull-ups can do in a row, Vova?
I can do 15.
So you definitely have the strength to do the muscle-up. So you seem to think, but I've
tried it before and it didn't work out too well for me.
Alright, so it's all about the technique, so today I'll be teaching Vova the technique,
and I'm very confident that I'll be able to teach Vova the muscle-up today.
So Vova, so when we do the muscle-up,
we have to go up the bar with a c-shape. If you try to do like a dead hang, the bar will
get into the way.
In order to make that happen, you stand behind the bar, jump, and you create a little swing,
so this little swing is the first phase, and it's actually tricky to get right.
First of all, a lot of common mistake that I saw people make is they swing. They go back and
forth, back and forth. There's no point in doing that because that tires your arms and
also irritates your skin, so let's not do that, so just swing one time forward. Then
come down.
And then when you do the swing, you want to catch the bar with an active hang, so let
me explain to you. So when you do a pull-up, if you kind of do it passively, that's a passive
hang. Like your shoulders, okay. So you gotta engage your shoulders, depress and retract.
So when you catch the bar, you want to catch it with an active hang.
Can I try at least this part?
Or is this, yeah?
Wait; why don't we see what your muscle-up looks like right now?
Okay.
Haha, okay, so the timing is a little bit off.
Another tip that I want to mention is so in order to get into the active hang position,
I think one crucial tip is to look at the bar because if you look forward, it's a bit
harder to get into active hang.
I was not in the active hang this time, right?
You tried to, but you are not exactly in an active hang because if you look up, it's like easier,
right?
And then one thing I noticed about your attempt is that the timing of your pull is too late.
You pull when you are swinging back. Without forward？ Yeah, when you're at a very tipping
point.
That's when I pull. That's when you start pulling.
We don't want to tire out ourselves too fast, so let's get the swing right.
Okay, so I noticed that you are a little too tense when you catch the bar.
The reason I'm tense is I'm trying to do this active hang thing, so I'm worried about relaxing
too much but let me do a more relaxed one, maybe.
Yeah.
Oh, that's good. That's good. That's perfect. That's perfect. Yeah, get that feeling,
That's good.
So at the very tipping point, kick really hard with your knees.
That's called a kipping muscle-up and everyone does their first up muscle with a kip, like
this.
Oops.
Woo.
Too early?
You gotta bring your knees, higher, really like kick it up like explosively.
Oh that, oh that looks pretty good.
So let me try to imitate what you are doing, so you are kind of doing like this. You know
super tense, yeah?
But then you actually want to be more relaxed, yeah?
So like this
Looks so easy, man.
Okay yeah, so for the grip, you should be doing thumbs like this. Okay. Like this. Okay,
got it. Yeah. because if you do thumbs over, it's a little bit more unstable.
Woo, haha, there you go.
Is that count for something?
Oh, that's a chicken wing muscle-up, but that's progress. That's progress.
Yeah, because you go like one arm first and then the other arm after. So ideally you want
to do it with both arms at the same time, but when I first did my muscle, I also did
it with one arm over, so that's a totally natural thing. So just need to kick a little
bit more; pull a little bit more.
Oh!
Hohoho!！
There you go!
That gotta be within 30 minutes, right?
I think.
What the hell!
Haha.
In my lifetime, I've, I mean I never like worked seriously at it, where I just practiced
it for a long time, but I've probably tried a hundred times at least.
High five!
Woohoo!
Nice.
Yeah, so now Vova, you've got the first rep, so in order to do the second rep, it's actually
not that straightforward. When you come down, you have to make sure that you are back in
a position where when you kind of jump and initiate the swing, and that's actually not
straightforward. And then the key for doing that is to push yourself back a little bit
instead of just coming down flopping randomly, so you just gotta push back a little bit,
yeah, come down so you have a swing, small swing, and then you do the second rep.
Okay. Yeah, I can see you're moving forward. Yeah. Every one of them.
Oh!
Then you're saying
Yeah, yeah. I realize that you kind of come down with no control, so it's kind of like
stretching on the shoulder.
I think let's not get greedy today. Let's make sure that Vova have one solid rep.
This is good. Yeah!
It was a little sideways. A little chicken wing, yeah.
Woo!
Nice!
Yea!
Vova, I'm very excited to see you learn the muscle-up.
Makes two of us.
Yeah, I've been trying to do this for like on, on and off for years.
Yeah, I knew you have the strength to do it. It's all about the technique, so I'm really
glad that I'm able to help you out today. Appreciate it. And you know I can't wait to
do some juggling.
Let's do it.
Let's do it and then see you guys in the next video. Bye!
Okay, okay. So right, left, right, left, haha.