A New Approach

Recently, I have been giving my training a lot of difficult introspection. I have been wondering what use all this technical training is when the progression has slowed so much that I am not sure if the techniques need so much more refinement any more. I could easily continue training in this way and make progress, but it would surely be slow. In fact, I believe that it is the strength that will be gained over time from technical drilling that would be the majority of the progress made. For sure, that technical drilling would further instill muscle-memory and ensure less failure, which is definitely important, but I am beginning to think that strict technical drilling is a little more useless at this stage in the game than many people consider.

However, it has also crossed my mind that it is merely the focus on techniques that needs to done away with, not just the drilling. While I have lately been focusing much more on conditioning than I ever have before, some new and creative ideas have sprung forth in my mind. Many of these ideas have come as a result of watching videos and realizing that some movements that completely awe me are only so seemingly incredible because I have not trained the capacities to perform in such a way. It was, ultimately, the limit of the technical drilling I had been taking part of; not the drilling itself, but the manner of drilling.

When I return home in two weeks, I will shoot a video demonstrating my revelations. This is, in part, to analyze these new methods and see if they are, indeed, useful, or if I am just wasting my time and energy, but I honestly believe that it is training these methods that will lead to the progress that I want in Parkour. This has nothing to do with increasing entrance or exit distance. This has nothing to do with ensuring that I can vault something six inches higher than I could before. Quite in fact, this has all to do with the control of my body and the ability to effortlessly move through any given environment. This has all to do with learning the body.

One of the ideas that has seeded into my mind has been from a short clip of a video in which a traceur exited a roll into a stand, already in a split-foot position, threw his arms back and launched into a kong immediately. He did not take so much as a step coming out of the roll. I realized immediately that this was an ability I lack, and so I intend to train all of my vaults, wall-runs, etc. coming out of a roll, trying to minimize the necessary steps coming out, and understanding how to exit the roll and set up for a coming technique at the same time. I will do this with a straight-on approach, a left approach, and a right approach, and see how effective it all is... I will see if it cannot improve me in some way. Another idea came from a post on PKNA, which caused me to understand that while I had always been strict about diagonal approaches in my vaulting drills, I never even considered a diagonal approach on a wall-run. The very thought of it seems extremely difficult, and so I will drill this technique to the best of my ability, figuring out whether the inside or outside leg is best to kick off of. Many other ideas in my mind, and we shall see where this all leads.

Happy training.

The New Gym Structure

First of all, before I get into what happened at the gym, I want to get into Wednesday night's training. It was dark and cold, and gloves had to be worn most of the time, which obstructed some movement, but it was overall pretty good. It wasn't the best, but it was some degree of activity that is always good to have when you feel a little bit too sedentary.

As for the gym, we held the newly restructured gym session last night. We arrived a little late, and Dan was already leading the warm-up, but what we went through was still very tough, even coming in halfway through. My quadriceps were giving out halfway through! The sheer amount of endurance to keep up with what Dan sought will take a LOT of training for me to work up to. I hesitate to think how much I would have shut down if I were there from the beginning. I had to step out of the activities once or twice. Partly, this is due to the unexpected nausea from exercise as my body adjusts to this new medication that I am on, but when my body does readjust itself, I hope I'll be able to work my way through to a higher level of fitness and endurance that I was at before, or am at now. I managed to increase my sheer power and musculature, so hopefully, the endurance will not be so much of an issue.

Overall, the new structure went over really well, and I think everyone had a good amount of fun. There was a lot of training going on, everyone training different and useful capacities during the open hour. I had Dan instruct me on learning to take-off split-foot, as opposed to the powerful two-foot punch that I am accustomed to. This is very difficult, unnatural, and awkward for me, but toward the end, I began to get more of a feel for it. I feel like to punch off while keeping my natural stride requires the full use of my arms as well as an engagement with the hamstrings and glutes. It was a very difficult kind of take-off when I was successfully getting it off. When the two-foot, I feel powerful, and my exit distance is muscled out. I haven't been able to get much exit with the split-foot yet, though I understand that I should be getting more once it becomes more natural, but I do feel like I am "floating" over the obstacle. It almost feels like graceful flight, rather than powerful punch. This was unsettling to the point where the first time it happened, I had no clue why or how I was in the air. But I will continue to practice this, in the pursuit of learning my body and moving better.

The snow has recently fallen, so the games I have planned for the Hamilton scene will be taking place soon, if I can get everyone together for it.

Back in the Game

After a break from training due to essay work, today was the first day of any real rigorous training I've gotten in quite a while. I was feeling lethargic and sedentary. It was horrible, and likely not that great for my mind. There was about two hours of outdoor Parkour training today in the afternoon, which was good. There were things shown to me by Malcolm that I hadn't ever seen or considered before. I like that guy, even though he is very detached from the community, because he has shown real dedication as well as real creativity. He does not get boxed in. He always looks for more possibilities, and that is something that I am not sure if I myself am capable of. It's certainly refreshing.

In any case, we worked on some skills in the cold and wind with some wetness involved and worked in areas that I hadn't even really touched before, which is always nice. I am not sure if there was all that much progression in that training, but it was nice to be active again and was certainly nice to develop in unfamiliar grounds. I jogged home from Mac, which is something I don't normally do, and pushed my endurance to its limits with that. Several hours later, I went out running and then did a small conditioning routine in the comfort of my room. All-in-all, a good reintroduction to the world of fitness. I hope this can continue, as it gets colder and more difficult to maintain proper breathing.

On a largely positive note, the third coach was hired at BGs, which means that I can open up the gym to all the newcomers in Hamilton, finally. I will have to dig up that old mailing list and annoy some people. Also, Chris and I have been working on restructuring the gym format as a whole and working with Jess on that front. The first meeting took place tonight to work out those kinks. Chris leads the scene in Mississauga, and we will be converging the gym meets to include his community, the Hamilton community, and the Oakville/Burlington community, which is a GREAT thing to see happening. What we agreed on was that we will open the gym with 20 minutes of warm-up, stretching and light conditioning (with the primary focus on warming up muscle groups). There will be about an hour or an hour and ten/twenty minutes of freeplay, and then we will close with 20-30 minutes of intense conditioning and specific technical drilling. I think the first time we will be trying this format will be this Sunday, so we shall see how it goes. More on this later.

The Past Month

It's been over a month since I've bothered to write out anything more. It's hard to organize my thoughts as to how my training has been going, or how Hamilton's scene itself has been going. A lot has happened. The weather here has been pretty poor, and as a result, the attendance of a lot of members has dropped. The increase in workload for the first years seems to have dropped a good number of them, too. Otherwise, I have seen myself progressing a fair deal, but my training has not quite been as rigorous as I would actually like. A few weeks ago, I went to Toronto to celebrate PKTO's 3-year anniversary and we had a merry time flipping tires, but I had to push myself ridiculously hard to finish the course. I am determined to get better, to get stronger, to last longer... We shall see where my resolve takes me.

I have held a number of conditioning sessions at McMaster University with relative success. The first time around, there were some issues to work out, but the second and third time seem to be okay. The circuit has a great deal of difficulty, but it's scalable and definitely possible for even the weaker people. It's a lot more fun, but I'm still trying to weed out the more boring parts. So far, the Hamilton Hall grip training course is the most entertaining part! We need more. There are some things floating around in my head, so we'll see how it all goes next Thursday. Also, I read over my last entry... The plyometric push-ups aren't so much of a problem anymore, but they do tire me out very quickly. I think, for the most part, I'm getting into a much better condition. More cardio, though. Need more cardio.

Overall, I think my progress has slowed, but certain things like my left-handed lazies have gotten much better. I'm not quite sure where to take my actual Parkour training right now, because I feel stalled. I believe I'm going to be focusing more on conditioning for a few more weeks while I try to find a new way to progress technically. Speed and fluidity are really what's left, and I need to work up my cardio before I can even attempt what I want to attempt in that regard. We shall see.

Here's hoping to some heavy training.

Thursday and Saturday

On Thursday, we had a relatively small meet at Mac. It pretty much consisted of Jordan and I, the two cousins, the new guy Andre, and the group of new people that I'm going to call the "Kim group" since she's the one that brought them.. that would be Kim, Brad, Phil and.. John? Dan? Can't remember the last guy's name. We also ended up with a random with a tricking background who picked stuff up pretty naturally.

I started off with rolling. Phil had an MA background, and his roll derived from that, so it wasn't all too difficult to set him on the right track. Brad was extremely sloppy at first and then cleaned it up very nicely. John/Dan-person is a little too straight, but he'll get it down. Andre is very stiff and tucked up far too much and he will probably be like me: a person who will take a LONG time to perfect the roll. When he finally does, though, it'll be perfect. Kim had a migraine, so she eventually left. The two cousins are progressing nicely with their rolls, though it will take time for them, too.The overall training was rather positive, with nothing out of the ordinary. It was pretty much all technique drilling, which is what the newer people need right now. I want to start the endurance runs soon, since I feel like I'm lacking a lot as far as that goes, but we shall give it time.Today, we had a meet at Jackson Sq. at 2PM. Only Will showed up, but the "other Hamilton group", as I've called them, ended up being there, as well, so we joined forces. Now, this is a group that has done very little straight technique drilling, but a lot of endurance runs, so it is interesting so see how they look at the environment. We found some nice new spots to drill techs. There was this rail that had an elevated concrete slab a couple of feet off. It was about 1.5 feet up and a slightly higher slab to the right. After a couple of tries either hitting the gravel beforehand or one-footing the landing, I managed to land the concrete after a kong. I got my requisite three, but I feel it's too inconsistent to even try the higher concrete yet. When I return, I will have to train it and meet my own personal requirement of fifteen. If I can do that consistently, then I'll see if I can hit it ten times consecutively before moving onto the higher concrete and attempting it there.The meet closed up a little before six, and I returned home to perform some pressing conditioning. Feeling rather warmed-up from the several hours of training, I went straight for the work-out (after some light stretching because I was feeling tight). I plan on having daily conditioning workouts again, with maybe two days of rest a week, on top of my Parkour training. Here is the workout for today:

5 sets of:

10 Plyometric push-ups (Equivalent of 1.333 feet)
10 Wide-armed push-ups (upper)
10 Wide-armed push-ups (level)
10 Pseudoplanche push-ups
5 Handstand push-ups

At about the third set, I started falling apart, likely due to the excessive training beforehand, so I did not finish the whole five sets. The wide-armed push-ups were extremely easy this time around, as opposed to how uncomfortable I was with them back in the summer, so maybe my pectoral muscles have gotten stronger? They don't look it, so I don't know. The pseudoplanche also are a bit easier, but still very difficult. The HSPUs are getting too easy, which is amusing to me. My biggest problem was the plyometrics. I suppose I haven't trained plyometrics enough, or I should be pushing up to elevated levels beside my arms rather than in front, because throwing my arms in front result in my abs going crazy from the plank position, though I can push up to it no problem. Will need to experiment with other stuff next week.

The coming week, I have scheduled training sessions on M, T, W, and Th... With only one day of rest before that sequence starts, so I'm a little worried about whether or not my body can sustain this. I'll try to keep it light and see how it goes.