Shamira's Tips - Practicing Hiplocks

Q: I'm working on hip-locks at the moment with your DVD. Your instructions are to squeeze each butt cheek, but I often find myself pulling up with some part of the muscle at the top of my thigh (either in the front or on the side), or pushing my whole leg and hip up with my calf. Is there anything you can tell me to help me isolate the movement?

Should I center my weight directly over my hips, to the front, or to the back? I notice in the video that your heel doesn't seem to move far off the floor with each lock, but I'm not sure how important that is.

A: First, open up your feet to practice the hiplocks. They are easier to do that way and will give you a wider range of motion. Keep your knees quite bent. That will help keep your heels down. Once you can nail it that way and keep your heels planted, then little by little, bring your feet together. Ideally, you don't want your heels to come off the floor.

Try this: at the same time you do a sharp "grab" of your right butt cheek to pull that right hip up, jut your left knee forward and think of pushing your left hip DOWN at the same time. Then do all that on the other side. Practice that for a while.

The end result is that you want your hips to go up and down instead of side to side. So the hip that's going down is important too. After that, practice the hiplocks but only concentrate on the "down" movement. In other words, instead of thinking "up, up," put your focus on the "down down." It's a head trip! But should produce some good results. And practice practice practice!

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