Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
Gym training this weekend!
Unlike the last time I was there I fully plan to remain focused and drill certain movements. Far to often when I go to the gym, I do so many different things that I get better at none of them. I'm going to try very hard to buvkle down and become familiar with moves that I can perform outside of the gym so my training isn't wasted.
I want to work on aerials and sideflips as a high priority followed by round offs, back handsprings, and gainers. Aerials are basically cartwheels with no hands that rely on rotational momentum generated by a kicking leg. Sideflips are how they sound, a fully tucked flip over a sideways axis. Gainers are backflips thrown while moving forward.
I have the power and understanding required to do these techniques, but I lack the confidence to try them outside. I am thoroughly excited to train at the gym again this weekend because for me, it is a huge release.
Unfortunately, all the mats and soft floors won't stop my from crashing back to reality when I get back and have piles and piles of work to do. Such is life.
In non-parkour related news: my Computer Science project is immensely tough. I work in a team that is working with a group of higher level students. We are basically helping to build and implement part of their system, and I feel way over my head.
In fact, everything I've done in that class has been incredibly difficult for me. I'm not really sure why it's so hard though. Maybe it has something to do with the material being taught terribly first semester.
Anyway, those are my pleasures and frustrations.
Unlike the last time I was there I fully plan to remain focused and drill certain movements. Far to often when I go to the gym, I do so many different things that I get better at none of them. I'm going to try very hard to buvkle down and become familiar with moves that I can perform outside of the gym so my training isn't wasted.
I want to work on aerials and sideflips as a high priority followed by round offs, back handsprings, and gainers. Aerials are basically cartwheels with no hands that rely on rotational momentum generated by a kicking leg. Sideflips are how they sound, a fully tucked flip over a sideways axis. Gainers are backflips thrown while moving forward.
I have the power and understanding required to do these techniques, but I lack the confidence to try them outside. I am thoroughly excited to train at the gym again this weekend because for me, it is a huge release.
Unfortunately, all the mats and soft floors won't stop my from crashing back to reality when I get back and have piles and piles of work to do. Such is life.
In non-parkour related news: my Computer Science project is immensely tough. I work in a team that is working with a group of higher level students. We are basically helping to build and implement part of their system, and I feel way over my head.
In fact, everything I've done in that class has been incredibly difficult for me. I'm not really sure why it's so hard though. Maybe it has something to do with the material being taught terribly first semester.
Anyway, those are my pleasures and frustrations.
Friday, April 2, 2010
I'm proud of myself this week. I feel like I have worked very hard, both in my academic life and in my personal life. I've had a bunch of school work, but that can be said for anyone towards the end of the last semester in college. It's crazy how much time it takes up though. I am actually using more time in college for school than I was in high school with 6 classes giving out mandatory homework a day, band practices and football games, parkour training, and having a social life. It's crazy, but not all that surprising I guess. I knew I'd have to work hard, but I figured that would be to learn the concepts which was how it was last semester. Instead, I'm working hard so I can do arbitrary homework.
I'm my training life, however, things are going great. I should let my body rest though, because I can feel it start to break down. The parkour training at SPSU has become a little more regular and a lot more intense. Now, I have incorporated distance running, sprints, Quadrupedal Movement (QM), vaults and passments, and ad hoc techniques that are rarely practiced into just the warm up! I get a better total body work out outside using only my body than any of the guys pumping iron in the weight room. I'm not saying weight training is bad, but to see what I mean, do QM for 10-20 meters. You work muscles you didn't know existed.
I'm currently working on planche progressions and they are going well. Though I must admit, it's hard to progress on an upper body exercise when your arms are dead tired from two training days in a row. For anyone wondering, a planche is where you support your entire body weight on your hands in a pushup position. A planche looks like this:
Straddle Planche
A Good Video on Progression
As you can see, they are extraordinarily difficult. I hope I will be able to get straddle planches by the end of this coming summer.
Speaking of parkour, my parkour community decided to have a little fun yesterday (April Fool's). One of the guys on Overflux (our forum) posted that his knees were in too much pain from parkour and that he had to stop. I wished him well along with a few others and then his training partner started attacking him for always whining and not training and yada yada. It became a big s###storm (or rather the illusion of one) and I made a post that can be summed up like this: "wtf?". After posting I immediately realized what the date was and replied saying: "At least no one "hacked" the site, dicks :p" (Referencing the previous years April Fool's Joke). All in all it was a great day.
More Awesome Videos:
Natural Method - MovNat
Poetry In Motion
Tapp Brothers
I'm my training life, however, things are going great. I should let my body rest though, because I can feel it start to break down. The parkour training at SPSU has become a little more regular and a lot more intense. Now, I have incorporated distance running, sprints, Quadrupedal Movement (QM), vaults and passments, and ad hoc techniques that are rarely practiced into just the warm up! I get a better total body work out outside using only my body than any of the guys pumping iron in the weight room. I'm not saying weight training is bad, but to see what I mean, do QM for 10-20 meters. You work muscles you didn't know existed.
I'm currently working on planche progressions and they are going well. Though I must admit, it's hard to progress on an upper body exercise when your arms are dead tired from two training days in a row. For anyone wondering, a planche is where you support your entire body weight on your hands in a pushup position. A planche looks like this:
Straddle Planche
A Good Video on Progression
As you can see, they are extraordinarily difficult. I hope I will be able to get straddle planches by the end of this coming summer.
Speaking of parkour, my parkour community decided to have a little fun yesterday (April Fool's). One of the guys on Overflux (our forum) posted that his knees were in too much pain from parkour and that he had to stop. I wished him well along with a few others and then his training partner started attacking him for always whining and not training and yada yada. It became a big s###storm (or rather the illusion of one) and I made a post that can be summed up like this: "wtf?". After posting I immediately realized what the date was and replied saying: "At least no one "hacked" the site, dicks :p" (Referencing the previous years April Fool's Joke). All in all it was a great day.
More Awesome Videos:
Natural Method - MovNat
Poetry In Motion
Tapp Brothers
Thursday, April 1, 2010
SEGA Gym Day Saturday, March 27
Where to start? The gymnastics gym was great! It has been so long for me, especially since the last time I was there I received an injury that caused me to nearly bite through my bottom lip. I was attempting a wall front flip and did it but I landed while still tucked and the force of impact shoved my knees into my face. Well this time was different. I had no busted lips, ankle sprains, knee irritations, or ripped callouses. I was rockin'.
We got there and there was a Capoeira Demo Team there along with some trickers and a small group of parkour people. I introduced myself and my group that included my girlfriend and my roommate. I warmed up with dynamic kicks, stretches, and some rolling to get my blood flowing and immediately jumped in to the activities starting with some parkour vaults and quickly moving on to tricks into the foam pit.
Shortly after some more guys within the parkour community showed up and again I introduced everyone. Periodically more and more people would flow in and soon we had a large group of talented, fearless acrobats. Personally, I threw a bunch of new moves that I never thought I'd learn, or land. One of which is a flashy spin using only the hands of a vertical surface.
My girlfriend and roommate both tried their first backflips, a friend from school tried (and landed) his first wallspins and wallflips. I witnessed many amazing moves and techniques and even got to teach my personal method of retaining balance and precision jumping (jumping for one small, thin object to another).
At 6:30 we left out of the gym and got another guy to go have lunch/dinner with us at one of our traditional spots, Moe's Southwest Grill. We were HUNGRY so the food didn't last long, but we stayed in there for almost two hours talking about parkour and science and travel and all sorts of great things. That is one thing you can always rely on the parkour community for: quirky, but intelligent conversation. Many traceurs have extensive travel experience and generally love to move about and roam and explore so hearing about their times on road trips, or out of the country is always fun.
The next three days I was amazingly sore. For an entire day I didn't leave the room because of how hard I was going at the gym, but it was worth it.
To see some of these moves and fun gym times:
3Run
And for some AMAZING freerunning:
Tapp Brothers
We got there and there was a Capoeira Demo Team there along with some trickers and a small group of parkour people. I introduced myself and my group that included my girlfriend and my roommate. I warmed up with dynamic kicks, stretches, and some rolling to get my blood flowing and immediately jumped in to the activities starting with some parkour vaults and quickly moving on to tricks into the foam pit.
Shortly after some more guys within the parkour community showed up and again I introduced everyone. Periodically more and more people would flow in and soon we had a large group of talented, fearless acrobats. Personally, I threw a bunch of new moves that I never thought I'd learn, or land. One of which is a flashy spin using only the hands of a vertical surface.
My girlfriend and roommate both tried their first backflips, a friend from school tried (and landed) his first wallspins and wallflips. I witnessed many amazing moves and techniques and even got to teach my personal method of retaining balance and precision jumping (jumping for one small, thin object to another).
At 6:30 we left out of the gym and got another guy to go have lunch/dinner with us at one of our traditional spots, Moe's Southwest Grill. We were HUNGRY so the food didn't last long, but we stayed in there for almost two hours talking about parkour and science and travel and all sorts of great things. That is one thing you can always rely on the parkour community for: quirky, but intelligent conversation. Many traceurs have extensive travel experience and generally love to move about and roam and explore so hearing about their times on road trips, or out of the country is always fun.
The next three days I was amazingly sore. For an entire day I didn't leave the room because of how hard I was going at the gym, but it was worth it.
To see some of these moves and fun gym times:
3Run
And for some AMAZING freerunning:
Tapp Brothers
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