Hey all, this is a technique which is not only very useful, but also, when coupled with climb ups is a very good warm up drill:
Say you are at the edge of some sort of ledge, and there is a conciderable drop under it. To reduce the drop by a relatively large amount of 4+ feet you will need to get into the saut de bras, or 'cat' position on the side of the wall, however this is not a simple technique, as many people have the fear of falling backwards, especially when there is no rail or ledge to grab on to at the top, but just a flat surface.
The first step in learning these is to stand with both feet in line with the edge of the drop, don't go over 6' yet, for safety reasons. Lower one hand to the sid of your body and place it down on the edge of the ledge, fingers pointing away from the drop, then swing the other hand over the planted one and at the same time jumping and swinging your legs down to the drop, so you are now standing on your arms, with your legs hanging down over the ledge, so in essense you just performed half a turn vault on a flat surface
That's easy part, the next step is the mind f#ck. Using your arms, lower your body very slowly, and keep one leg unbent, alowing it to hang down, in case you fall off, and bend the other leg with the same speed as you are lowering yourself down, so it stays on the wall and rolls into saut de bras position. It is very important that you do not lower yourself outwards but directly down, as if you go outwards, you will not have enough grip to prevent falling backwards. Once you have this technique with one foot on the wall, do it with both.
Adaptation:
This technique can be adapted to help you learn turn vaults on wide walls with a flat surface, experiment with it.
Exercises to help you complete this technique:
it is all in the arms, and body co-ordination, so for the arms you will need to find yourself a bar, and perform the slowest muscle downs that you can (the opposite of a muscle up, so start above the bar and lower yourself to hanging). Drill these as much as you can until you can maintain a constant speed all the way through, so when you transfer from above the bar to below it, there is no uncontrolled drop, just a steady decent.
Good luck with it and stay safe
