Heel Up Question

Seth1987

Junior Member
When I play heel up my body tends to lean back to keep balance. At least I think... I play double bass, and I'm using Speed Cobra pedals. The feel of them is so light that when I am doing heel up it feels like my feet are just floating. When I try to lean up straight I just can't do it.

So I tried using my hands to stabilize myself the other day and just play double kick heel up. I noticed that my abs started burning which means that my abs are probably weak and that's why I lean back to do this?

Has anyone else ever dealt with this when beginning to learn heel up? It's pretty damn annoying.. I thought heel up was supposed to be easy?!

Any ab exercises I could start doing to help out with this? Thanks/
 
I hope you get some answers to this from real drummers - I am a newb so all I can say is I know exactly what you are talking about. I am trying to learn to 'unbury the beater' and play heal up - it is all very frustrating sometimes. When I play heal up there is this weird balancing act going on that just ruins whatever beat I am trying to play. It is funny to watch also - my wife told me it looked like I was about to fall off the throne....

MM
 
What you do on you feet and what you do on your hands should never effect your balance. If it does your playing will be unbalanced.

Try this

Take your stool away from the drums and place your feet on the floor where you naturally feel your pedals are.

Lift your legs up from your hips (like heel up). \Do you become unbalanced? Experiment around with your seat height to try and find a way for your to lift your legs without becoming unbalanced.

Check out derek roddy to see someone play blindingly fast without it affecting his posture and balance.

Mike - You can't play heel up and not bury the beater....at least when not playing. Your foot needs to rest on the pedal to allow you to have the beater off the head.

Hope this helped guys

Dave
 
Balance - that's a great point, and one of the most important things in drumming.
Experiment with finding the best way to sit on your throne - without leaning into any direction and with full control of whatever any limb is doing. It will be a long quest...

I think unburying the beater allows to find your balance more quickly because you have less 'anchor points' as compared to burying the beaters. Unburying the beater is what I've been doing from the start and I don't miss the typical issues related to burying the beater, plus I think it's better to learn foot technique in general. (Ultimately though I'd have to learn playing the other variation, too - for sonic reasons - having more variations for more contexts.)
 
Well one thing I have noticed is that if I have my feet closer to me by having the thrown closer to the kit I have an easier time with this problem. So imagine that my knees are bent at like 70-80 degrees (not seat height, but angle from how far stretched out they are). However, I watch a lot of extreme metal players and it always looks like they have their knees bent past 90 degrees. What I mean is that there feet are farther away from their body, but that's when I have real problems.

That's why I was asking about ab exercises because try this right now...

Sit in a chair and have 90 degree angle then lift both legs straight up. Now kick your feet out about 4-6" then try this again. Feel the tension in your abs? Well I do at least... that's why I think I need to build my core to balance better.

Either way, thanks for the advice so far guys!
 
Not true. Spring tension and leg tension hold it off from burying

Ok maybe my post wasnt phrased well but if you do that you are effectively holding your leg in the air. Why do that when you can play a full leg stroke and then return to a heel down position which will allow your body to be relaxed.

Check out both jojo and thomas lang (among others) for examples.

Tension in your muscles is surely something we should aim to avoid.
 
I struggled with this for a while.

1. raised my seat height a little bit. Knees below my hips
2. moved throne back so my knees are more than 90%
3. sit further back on the throne itself, not all my weight at the front
4. definately don't lean back at all. I gain a lot of speed by slightly leaning forward, and it's comfortable / ergonomic
5. don't use my whole body to play fast, lol. I learned to relax and let the pedal rebound drive each successive beat, rather than me physically tensing up trying to wrench out more speed.
6. play with heels lower, almost flat but not quite. This is huge in my opinion.
 
Is there a reason you're only willing to try heel up?
I'll agree that heel up is indeed the easiest (and most intuitive) to learn (especially regarding metal playing) but I can relate to what you're saying with the leaning back on the throne when you start to build some speed- it's a natural reaction with heel up/ fast playing.
For me, heel toe solved the problem. Yes, it was hard to learn at first (definitely not as "natural feeling" as heel up) but it definitely helped with posture, speed and endurance.
Maybe switching to this or one of the other techniques will do the same for you.
 
Is there a reason you're only willing to try heel up?
I'll agree that heel up is indeed the easiest (and most intuitive) to learn (especially regarding metal playing) but I can relate to what you're saying with the leaning back on the throne when you start to build some speed- it's a natural reaction with heel up/ fast playing.
For me, heel toe solved the problem. Yes, it was hard to learn at first (definitely not as "natural feeling" as heel up) but it definitely helped with posture, speed and endurance.
Maybe switching to this or one of the other techniques will do the same for you.

Well I can play heel down relatively fast but I never learned to play heel up at all lol.

I'm starting off super slow with it, I'm following the George Kollias 16 week program, but after starting at 80bpm and not being able to do that for a couple minutes due to the balance problem I wanted to ask all of you about how I should go about this. I feel like I need to build up my core so I get that stability.

I've tried heel toe a bunch. I honestly just don't get it and it rustles my jimmies to the max.I wish I could learn it so I could go blazing fast relatively quick like Francesco Paoli from Fleshgod Apoc. But I just can't figure it out :/

I actually have an easier time doing heel up at faster speeds where I'm using mainly my ankle, but after watching a Derek Roddy video it's not about how fast you can go but how much control you have. That is why I'm starting off at 80bpm because I want to lock that down first. Then build up :)
 
Ok maybe my post wasnt phrased well but if you do that you are effectively holding your leg in the air. Why do that when you can play a full leg stroke and then return to a heel down position which will allow your body to be relaxed.

Check out both jojo and thomas lang (among others) for examples.

Tension in your muscles is surely something we should aim to avoid.

Sorry Dave, I disagree, I play heel up and I don't bury the beater, it's all on the rebound from the beater/batter head, it's all to do with balance, positioning and using the fulcrum point on the pedal, it's a very relaxed approach, no tension on the muscles, on the contrary, I feel more relaxed than burying the beater into the batter head. I do not hold up my leg in the air, my leg and foot comes all the way down.
 
Sorry Dave, I disagree, I play heel up and I don't bury the beater, it's all on the rebound from the beater/batter head, it's all to do with balance, positioning and using the fulcrum point on the pedal, it's a very relaxed approach, no tension on the muscles, on the contrary, I feel more relaxed than burying the beater into the batter head. I do not hold up my leg in the air, my leg and foot comes all the way down.

I've been trying to figure this out for a year now. Still struggling but it's where I want to go with my bass drum technique.
 
Aside from learning to balace, core strength is a good thing to have. If your core is weak, nothing else will opperate the way it should. (That goes for more than drumming.) While working on the other tips given to you, incorporate a core strength regimen (and never stop doing it).
 
Sorry Dave, I disagree, I play heel up and I don't bury the beater, it's all on the rebound from the beater/batter head, it's all to do with balance, positioning and using the fulcrum point on the pedal, it's a very relaxed approach, no tension on the muscles, on the contrary, I feel more relaxed than burying the beater into the batter head. I do not hold up my leg in the air, my leg and foot comes all the way down.

assuming you don't move your foot off of the pedal, how can your leg and foot come all the way back down without pushing the pedal back down?
 
So I know this is going off topic of the original post a little bit, but I actually tried this tonight while practicing heel up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGZlEZPcZUY

I did it at 60bpm... man my hip flexors were on fire(I think that's what muscle it was..)! I honestly just don't think they are developed enough yet. I'm gonna keep trying to go with this routine when I start playing for my practice session.

I'll let you know if this eventually corrects my problem of balance. Slow and steady wins the race, right? :)
 
You may be too far away from your pedals. If you are playing heel up with the pedals too far away, your legs are pushing, not dropping. As you go faster and your legs get tired, the body naturally leans back to help compensate, as it is easier to push with your body leaned back. The extreme metal guys you see sitting far away from their pedals are more than likely playing heel down, as the foot works better farther away with heel down. You can tell the way the body works by trying to use your feet while not sitting behind the drums. Move your feet out and play heel up, then move them in and play heel up. You will feel the difference in your legs, thighs, and hips. Now move your feet back out and play heel down. Notice how easily the toes go up and down. Move your feet in and repeat heel down. You will feel the tension in your Achilles as your toes raise. Sometimes it is hard to find that correct, comfortable position for speed, but when you find it your body will let you know.
 
Ok maybe my post wasnt phrased well but if you do that you are effectively holding your leg in the air. Why do that when you can play a full leg stroke and then return to a heel down position
It depends on the tune. Something fast will see you keeping your leg in the air more. Something with more gaps will allow you to go heel down between hits
 
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Hmmm, difficult question for me as I had learned my balance from a few years of practising keeping time with my left foot on the hats before I even owned a double pedal.

I would make this my suggestion, start tapping along with your left foot when you play rock beats or fills around the kit, it will stop you depending on your legs as a base of support. From memory it didn't take me more than a couple of months to get used to it, I was quite fit as a young teenager so don't recall any abdominal soreness from doing it though.
 
Hey guys, my point was that when you are not playing the bass drum your foot will (or in my eyes should) be at rest in a heel down position to allow the beater to rebound off the head.

If you try to keep the beater off the head while you are not playing a note (for instance in between 1 and 3 of a basic rock beat) without returning to heel down to rest then you are having to suspend your foot in the air so as not to push the beater into the head.


Hope it made sense

Dave
 
assuming you don't move your foot off of the pedal, how can your leg and foot come all the way back down without pushing the pedal back down?

No, when you hit the batter head, the leg/foot comes down and the heel rest on the pedal and the beater will not touch the head of the bass drum, like Dave explained below...

If you leave the leg/foot/heel up it will create unnecessary tension in the muscles and likely let the beater rest on the batter head...

Hey guys, my point was that when you are not playing the bass drum your foot will (or in my eyes should) be at rest in a heel down position to allow the beater to rebound off the head.

Here's a video which explain it better than typing words, the heel up technique starts from 3:42 to 5:45...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LQoVrPxkNk
 
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