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.