Marley
A strong Knee pit grip is needed before working on this move and you’ll see several related tutorials to help you prepare or improve on this trick. You don’t need to pull on the foot to be or feel secure in this pose. If you rely mostly on pulling on the leg, you can injure your knee. It’s much safer to wait and build up the strength of your hamstrings to hold this pose.
Strengthens: HAMSTRINGS / GLUTES /OBLIQUES/ ERECTOR SPINAE (THE BACK)
Awesome – I’d been wondering how to do this but I didn’t know what it was called! Thanks Veena! 🙂
Is that the name of the comet??
Oh it’s different from the one i know…that mean a new move to learn 😀
I don’t know Linda. Tigger, most perform this by grabbing the hooked leg, I don’t.
That’s the way I learned, Veena – by grabbing both the hooked leg and the free leg. I’ll have to try it this way!
Grabbing the hooked leg can put too much pressure on the knee, so I don’t recommend it 🙂
You can also cross your feet like in a knee hold and make it no hand, less painful than grambing your leg 😉
If you make sure to push your hips forward and press the bottom thigh into the pole as you grab the foot of the hooked knee, you can open your hooked knee slightly and roll the pressure of the pole out of the knee socket and more into the back of the top thigh! but yes, definitely not for everyone to grab that top foot 🙂
The problem with teaching to grab the top foot is that most will not realize or remember, even when you tell them, to use the hamstring and bottom thigh to hold the pose. So often they rely only on pulling hard on the foot :/
I should add that, once your familiar with proper positioning grabbing the top foot shouldn’t be a problem!
It’s easier to correct and watch for in person 🙂
Yaaaay I wanna learn this!
Veena, when I let my hand go, I become almost completely vertical, instead of horizontal. O can do the other kinds of knee holds and the jasmine no problem so I don’t think it’s knee strength holding me…
Are you using the lower leg to push into the pole? And keep in mind you need a strong contraction of the back.
I love this move, when I cross my feet it doesnt look pretty though, so it’s good to see it open. Ill practice that. Love the new format with the extra dismount in a little bubble.
I want to try this!
this is a terrific modified inversion for my injury. I’m compiling a list right now of moves that don’t put a lot of strain on the arms while I’m healing.
Working on this today and I must say I am so glad I have my crash-mat because it caught about three or four face-plants ^_^ I think I really need to focus on squeezing that hamstring and pushing on that bottom thigh!
I pulled so hard on the hooked leg that I injured my lateral gastrocnemius. Every1 at the studio heard the cracking snap. It hurts so much. =(
Yikes!! 🙁 this is why I feel it’s so important to learn all knee pit grips without pulling on the hooked leg!! Wishing you a speedy recovery!
Thank you Veena! =)
I wish I’d seen this before I practised at the studio. I was told to pull on top leg to hold myself up. Now my thigh hurts so bad that I’m limping…it’s been 4 days already…..
🙁
My instructor decided to help me with “Marley prep” when I asked her to show me this tonight. Haha. No worries. I think I’ll work on what she showed me before I try going into the full deal
Yes, it’s not something to rush into! 😊
So glad I decided to finally come back to this and try it this morning. Nailed it! I found securing the hooked leg with the free one first and then letting go, or grabbing the free leg instead of the hooked one, is a lot easier. And it’s painless.
And safer for the knee ðŸ‘ðŸ»ðŸ‘ðŸ»
Had fun with the Marley today and surprised myself by not face planting! Thought it might be too difficult as I am still mostly an intermediate poler.
Played around with Marley again today. Veena, when you do this move with the free leg ankle crossed over the knee of the hooked leg what is this called? Or is it just a Marley variation I must have seen somewhere?
Same move 😊 But not recommended if you have knee issues.
Okay thanks. It made me feel safer.
Excited to try this again for #svbackarchmarch and play with some of the arm variations !! Thank you for this lovely video. I’m definitely in the “no grabbing my leg when in a knee put grip” camp and it’s good to see that validated here. My progress may be a bit slower but when I can nail it I feel 100% secure.
It’s a great move to help strengthen the hamstrings!
😩 this Marley is a bit scary for me …I shall attempt what I can for SVbackarchmarch challenge… but I already know it’s going to be a struggle. 🙈
Just work on it from super low and you’ll be fine 😊
I just can’t let go 🙁
Don’t worry about lettingetting go right away, just keep at it and get your body use to the postion and build the strength needed in the legs and core. 💖
Thank you Veena! 😊
Much like another user mentioned, I also injured my lateral gastrocnemius pulling on my top leg the first time I tried this move. I can hold a (very non-flexy) cocoon no problem and have a solid knee-pit grip, so I’m going to try this method of Marley. Thanks for the lesson, Veena! 🙂
[…] a look at these links if you’ll like ideas for how to safely teach Cross ankle release and Marley , Feel free to review the grips mentioned here […]
[…] at the links for my tutorials that provide ideas for how to safely teach Cross ankle release and Marley without pulling on the foot. Below is a recent Reddit comment that was added to my reply expressing […]