Animus's Parkour Training

Getting back into the game.

2008-05-24T23:54:00.001-04:00

I went out for a couple hours today with some Virginian traceurs and NoSole coming in from San Francisco. We had quite a bit of fun training at a local playground, and Leon commented that he can tell how much I've progressed in the training over the last year. Always nice to have confirmation of your progression. I'm still a little sore from the wrestling on Thursday, as that was pretty intense, but I still managed to move pretty well, especially considering I haven't actually been out training properly in quite awhile. I felt a few landings in my knees, which tells me I need to up the ante on my leg conditioning. Not too much of a problem, I guess.

After a few hours' break, I did some conditioning in my own home, which consisted of:

2 sets of:
15 ab-wheel roll-outs
10 oblique ab-wheel roll-outs, each side
20 squats, 50lbs
10 reverse flies, 20lbs

The squats were a little weird because I was holding a 30lb. dumbell on one shoulder and a 20lb. on the other, but it still gets it done.

The CrossFit Methodology

2008-04-18T20:16:00.001-04:00

This was a post I made concerning my thoughts on CrossFit.

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CF has been growing stateside quite a bit lately, and it becomes pertinent when they attempt to spread into the world of Parkour and also indoctrinate Parkour into their system and set of beliefs. I wouldn't mind hearing what people think about CrossFit, because I know there are bound to be hundreds of viewpoints going every which way. I think some who are outright against it, some who are all for it, and others don't care so much or have no opinion whatsoever.

When assessing any fitness methodology, we have to be very diligent in our own research and be well aware of what we ourselves believe at the core. Parkour is a deeply personal thing, and when something like this becomes affiliated with Parkour corporations (APK) and then begin to seed into local Parkour communities, teaching Parkour with little to no experience, we start to have some serious issues. And we need to decide, for ourselves, whether this is the right way to go or not. Danno used to harp on to us about Methode Naturelle, stating, "MN isn't going to be the saviour that everyone seems to want it to be." In a lot of ways, that's going to apply to CF, as well. But it is up to you to decide.

In my own mind, CF presents both positives and negatives to Parkour... But whereas the positives can be accessed by another means or through another system, the negatives reside elsewhere. Strictly in its methodology, CF provides no immediate or long-term damage to its practitioners. It does, in fact, prevent them due to such strict conditioning. However, a large problem arises when CF-certified coaches go out to one or two meets or Parkour classes, and then believe themselves certified to coach Parkour based on their gymnastics experience. This presented itself as a problem when a CrossFit "Parkour instruction" video showed up on their website last year... It displayed an extremely unsafe manner to roll that would almost certainly ensure a snapped clavicle when performed outdoors at height. In addition to this, they only appeared to be hybridizing gymnastics and martial arts rolls, with no consideration of landing. The problem of CF-certified coachings believing they are qualified at coaching Parkour has already erupted across the US.

But as far as the training methodology itself goes, I believe the end result is ultimately the same as any other.. Strong, powerful levels of fitness and improved endurance. However, this "mix and match" ideology seems counter-intuitive, and in a lot of ways just reminds me of MMA. You might walk away with the FUNCTIONAL aspects of this or that, but you are removing its heart and its soul to do so. Ultimately, when CrossFit indoctrinates Parkour, it will care about only one thing, and that one thing is exactly what CrossFit's mission statement is: finding functional manners of fitness. The idea of being useful, of reclaiming human movement, of reclaiming the urban environment, and of every minutia of Parkour's philosophy and Parkour's spirit.. will die with CrossFit. We can already see it happening where CrossFit and Parkour are being hybridized.

In addition to this, the manner of conditioning that occurs in Parkour lacks in human movement. While CF strives to avoid isolation, it also lacks the dynamism of conventional "Parkour" conditioning (not that there is necessarily a tradition there). X reps of Y sets is a methodology that was sought to be eliminated by Parkour... And CrossFit, as well, because it didn't serve as being functional. However, what resulted was that CrossFit kept this manner of counting and measuring, and simply combined multiple exercises together to avoid "isolation." In the end, what you have is a series of full-bodied exercises that link togetehr chains of muscles, yet still lacks the dynamic quality of pure human movement. The numbers game is effective and useful, but only so far. Movement is what matters, and while I'm not suggesting that we all go out and practice Parkour every day (thus damaging our bodies in the long run), but find ways of conditioning that are made up of movement and continually asks the brain and the body to work together to navigate different terrain in different manners. But even when CrossFit assimilates this methodology, as well, it will still forego the mental aspects of Parkour in favour of being purely minded upon fitness.

The Sunday Sessions' Downfall

2008-04-13T22:53:00.001-04:00

This consists of two posts: the first is a rant about what has become of the Sunday gym sessions, and the second is what I actually did at the gym tonight.

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This is basically jsut a rant, but I don't want to post it up on PKTO.. I went to Sunday's gym meet in Burlington tonight, which I haven't gone to in weeks partly because of trickers invading the place and partyl because of my own reasons.. I was pretty much disgusted by what I saw there. It wasn't about Parkour, it wasn't even freerunning or tricking (well, the trickers did tricking).. Those who came for "Parkour/freerunning" did what I could only describe to you as stunts. The four original traceurs of Hamilton other than myself went straight to the trampoline to goof off. Okay, that's their right, and I know they know what Parkour is... Then there was a group I didn't recognize at all. They set up a huge block (about 5.5 feet up) and began to vault over it. Well, they couldn't make it, so they set up a springboard. After watching this for a while, I pulled aside one of the guys I did recognize, one of the guys who regularly attends the Thursdays with me, and I asked him, "Neil, do you think your shin muscles are strong enough to take that? I mean, I know that guy's aren't, but I know you can tell me about you. Are you strong enough?"

"For the drop...?" "Yeah.." "Uh.. Probably not. I have really weak legs." "Then why are you doing it?" "I'll go put a mat down." "..."

Okay, whatever.. I wasn't going to nag them because I know where that leads. So I did my own thing, watching them occasionally.. I wondered what Neil was getting out of it.. a person who considers himself a traceur.. How does a springboard help you outside? What was the purpose of this for him? Well, the springboard made it so that they could get over it with ease, so they stacked it up higher. The vault was now around 7 feet high.. Too high for the springboard.. What did they do? They used a mini-tramp instead. Oh, but the mat that was placed down to protect them from the impact suddenly wasn't enough.. so they stacked another mat on top of that. When the kongs got too easy, they decided to just jump, flip, handspring, etc. over it, and then moved the minitramp further and furhter away just to "test their limits." It.. destroyed my hope for this scene.

It wasn't until, an hour and a half in, that I set up a circuit that I saw anyone doing anything that could've been useful outdoors. It was mostly just, "Look at me, look at what I can do, and look at how high/far/stupid I can jump." This was really disheartening that it degraded into that.

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Today, I went to the gym. I went in with the goal of completing 15 muscle-ups throughout the course of the two hours. Though copious breaks had to be taken, I did complete the 15. I did a variety of exercises here and there, though I spent a lot of time just watching the evolution of the Sunday sessions. Towards the end, I set up a quick circuit which consisted of a short run into a vault, QMing across a mat, rolling off the mat, and executing another vault. After running this a few times, as quickly as possible, I separated the two blocks of the last vault and had a precision jump at the end. Upon occasion, I would execute a reverse on landing the precision, or would immediately hop off and roll.

Later, I pulled up another mat and doubled the distance of the QMing. After a few runs of this, I ran the circuit backwards. Unsatisfied with this, I decided to do the entire thing backwards in QM. I ran up to the first short block QM-style, vaulted it, landed and vaulted the next block, QM'd across the mats, and did a frog-leap up to the stacked blocks that I used to vault before, landing on all fours and executing the reverse-descent and QM-ran to the starting point. This was the most taxing variation of the circuit, and I had no choice but to collapse and rest after this (and the several run-throughs beforehand).

All in all, this was the best part of the night, running these circuits. And I'm rather proud of myself for completing the 15 MUs, even if they were chinsy MUs.

Week 6

2008-04-11T01:55:00.001-04:00

Dan led the class this week. He started off with some neurological training which consisted of a lot of balance and coordination. My vertigo led to a collapse, so I sat out. He then led a few circuits of upper body/back exercises, which were all very cool. I got everything recorded down in my notebook. He also taught us a very nice progression toward the muscle-up, which consisted of getting one elbow up and swinging the other arm into the proper position. Which led me to getting one step closer to reaching my muscle-up goal. I WILL have it by the end of the month.

These circuits pretty much killed everyone today, but they were very effective and I was happy to see everyone dead and done and spent. It looked like the most fun stuff ever.

I gotta go, so food log tomorrow.

Week 5 - Vault Continuity

2008-04-03T23:59:00.000-04:00

Reece leading the warm-ups was rather interesting today, and more intensive than I would have done. It led me to understand just how poor my muscle endurance actually is, because my quads started to give out on me pretty early on and rather frequently, even. Still, not as terrible as what Dan leads and more of this will be good for me. As well, it'll be good for everyone else, if even they have better endurance than I do.

Jordan led the stretching, which was all good and well. And then came my drills. The first thing I had people do was just vault without use of momentum. I'm still trying really hard to get the whole SJ mentality out of everyone. I actually hate seeing it, because it's so unnecessary. Regardless... We began to move to getting people to long jump immediately upon landing a vault, and then vault to precisions. All fun stuff. We did a lot with catgrabs, vaulting into it and then jumping off to a precision from the cat, among other things. It was all very impromptu, but ultimately, it did all follow a theme.. that being the ability to continue movements and execute precise techniques immediately following a vault.

The close of the class was free time, which led to some conditioning and some light technique work. Overall, a very good class and I think it's better off that Reece lead the warm-up because more gets done and more people will feel it the next day.

Week 4 - Dan's Class

2008-03-27T23:35:00.000-04:00

Dan came in from Toronto tonight to give us a taste of Toronto's structure. We started with a nice warm-up and went into a cardio "stage." This was very intense, and Dan told us that it was the part that everyone hated. In the middle of it, I had to leave to vomit (my asthma taking its toll and causing me to dry-heave to the point of vomiting), and returned to get back into it. It consisted of a lot of dizzying rolls, QM backwards and forwards, and the like. Next was the "strength stage," which consisted of a lot of planks, push-ups, squats and sits and whatnot... My stomach started to get to me again during the sit-ups, which I let myself rest during.. and after they finished, I basically had to run to the bathroom to give up the rest of my dinner. Unfortunately, I missed the rest of the strength stage. A few chili peppers got stuck in my nasal passageway, but not in any place that I could blow out.. so I had to wait for gravity to pull it back down my esophagus... I sat out during the "themed stage," but watched intently, wishing I could take part in it because it looked like a lot of fun!

The theme tonight was speed and agility, which consisted of quick turns and redirecting momentum. Vault, stop, back around, and vault again. Many different variations of redirecting momentum and finding ways to do this, including jumping and rolling into the mix. Best of all, I could see each participant visibly get more agile and faster during the process. At the end of it, there was a larger set-up which utilized basically a shuttle run type of mentality with vaulting thrown into it. Very cool and very effective. A 'conditioning stage" was thrown into the end, which I was having a conversation with Jess at the time, so I wasn't paying too much attention to that.

During the free time, everyone did their own thing and a lot of technical drilling went on, as was the case. Feeling better, I did a few drills myself, though I did have to take long breaks between each movement because I would start getting upset again. A newcomer, Matt, showed a lot of progress in his very first day and displayed a natural knack for the movements. I think he'll go pretty far with this, and it's a shame I won't be around to see it. All in all, I think I'm better off having seen the way Dan run things, even if I couldn't participate in a lot of it. My asthma is getting beat, slowly but surely, but it still interferes a great deal with my training. This only tells me I need to train harder, more diligently, but through slow steps so I don't end up killing myself... I've had too many close-calls with hospitals and near-fatal accidents to really want to go there again, but I cannot let this beat me.

Week 3

2008-03-21T02:15:00.001-04:00

We started with a light warm-up, briefly overviewed the basics, and began the class. We spent a long time experimenting on vaulting following a roll, immediately coming out of the roll into the vault. This proved rather difficult and we needed to each refine our exiting technique for the roll, even if some of our entrances seemed fine for absorbing impact. We then experimented with pop vaults and did some light conditioning for our ankles. We had about half an hour at the end of free time which consisted of general training, teaching, conditioning, and the like.

Class - Week Two

2008-03-13T22:53:00.001-04:00

The second gym class, today focusing on wall techniques, which mostly resulted in cat grabs in different forms. We started with a warm-up and went over the basics with some drilling, and I instructed where it was necessary. And then we set up the cat, and I had the group drill jumping cats from a stand (and jumping from the cat to a precision), then a running jump to a cat from a further distance, and lastly several variants of vaulting into a cat. I wanted to work with some tacs and other ideas, but there'll be time enough for that later.

We started the conditioning set by doing some plyometric push-ups using the taped lines of the floor as a reference. Each set consisted of five push-ups, the first being a standard jumping to the right hand above the line and the left hand below. From here, we jump-pushed to the opposite formation.. then jump-pushed to a diamond, and jumped to a widestance afterward. The last push was back to normal. This proved rather intense for some of the people, and okay for others. We only went through three sets because some of the guys were collapsing, though I hope that later on, we can work up to doing six or seven sets with minimal rest time. The next part of the conditioning consisted of doing calf-raises on each of the steps (seven each step), alternating between a normal stance, heels apart, and heels together. This took a considerable amount of time, and when we reached the top, we stretched out our calves and descended each step with ten shin raises. Because of the length of time it took, the free time was cut into, and we left with half an hour of open play, in which Jordan, Fabio and I worked on some more conditioning while the others drilled random things. The conditioning consisted of pull-ups with a false-grip, some simple jumps, weighted shrugs, a few deadlifts on a barbell, and some dips. We closed with a stretch.

Overall, I'm surprised at how much time we used up, which shows me that we're utilizing the time properly. The only thing I would like is to endure some more intense conditioning without resting so much, but I also don't want to push the limits of everyone too far, and especially not myself. I'll keep experimenting, but hopefully, Dan will come out and show us some other ideas in the next two weeks or so.

Numbness and Life

2008-03-05T11:55:00.001-05:00

What am I living for? I can't seem to answer that question. I've become so numb that I hate everything that I am. Everything I've become in the past ten years or so. Everything that I've evolved into. It was regression, not progression. I haven't dedicated myself to school. I haven't dedicated myself to any amount of work, or even my training, which is what I am MOST dedicated to right now, despite not having trained in several days. I can't even get my sleep back to normal, even when I'm trying. My friend Sean pointed that out to me today.. or.. yesterday.. He said, "No matter what you do, you always get back to this schedule. This Andy schedule.. the complete reverse of everyone else. You take naps at midnight, Andy. You go to sleep at 10AM, and wake up at 4 or 5PM, and live fully awake when everyone else is down and out. You live alone, and when you fix it and try to come back to the world of life, you might for a few days, but it always goes irrevocably back to your time. Even with pills.. with medication that attaches itself to your NERVOUS system... you can't do it. You can't live in our world." I MIGHT pass my classes.. I might graduate.. I might get a job and come back.. and all that great shit.. But what am I living for? What am I fighting for? What does any of this mean?

Nothing feels real anymore. Not school. Not my family. Not my friends here, or my work here, or even my existence, because so much of my time is walled up in this room, alone, in the dark.. laying in bed.. listening to music.. trying to sleep when I know I just can't. Noodling away at guitar with no progression and no aim. Actively NOT writing. Not thinking. Playing games.. Everything's so virtual.. my whole life. The only time I ever feel alive is when I'm outside, gripping the concrete, running, propelling myself through the air.. hurting.. bleeding.. feeling the roughness of reality on my fingertips, on my feet, the air breaking apart my skin.. The only time I've ever been in real control of my life.. and when I'm cutting. see, that's the thing.. everything else is so virtual. Am I a student? Just virtually.. On paper. In marks and grades. I don't study. I don't read. I barely work, yet the marks are there.. alive and kicking and passing and outdoing several students.. A virtual student. A virtual person.. Social security number, passport, driver's license, back accounts.. But no real identity anymore. Even when I tried to find life in other pursuits.. my writing, which I still adore, but has only been a means of virtually controlling my own emotions.. Music,which became so temporary and fleeting.. What permanence do I lend to the world? Where do I fit in? Where do I exist? Only in these walls. In this room. This mess and hell.

I'm sick of it. And even if it's plagued my world so much more severely than others, how many people here live just as virtually? It disgusts me, what I've become. But it's also what Parkour is the solution... why it clicks with so many of us... because it's that one thing that reminds us what life is and how to not feel so numb and empty and dead inside. One of the greatest things I remember being said about Parkour was said by Pkdanno... "But you want to bleed a little. You want to feel the concrete on your hands and its roughness. You want to feel alive again."

When my hands are pressing the concrete, pushing my body forward... When I'm pulling with all my muscle to top that wall, when I'm rolling into the dirt.. When I'm tracking up mud, or feeling the snow against my skin, or the rain pounding down onto me or the sun blazing its heat, it's when I feel alive. It's when I feel whole and complete and like I'm actually human. When we're re-engaged with movement, we become connected to humanity again... At least, that's what I like to believe. And we've become very far detached from it, and maybe I'm the only one who's getting sick with self-hatred... But what I want this to get across is that... We must remember life. And find our ways to keep our hearts full. For many of us... Parkour is the way.

Class - Week One

2008-02-29T00:18:00.000-05:00

The structured gym session was tonight! The warm-up was pretty standard fanfare, though a bit extended. It's what I normally do to warm-up and I got to share it with everyone, though I think it might be too relaxed for a group warm-up setting. It's nice when I can do it on my own, because I can keep moving randomly, haphazardly, stretching and working myself up.. but with others, I need to explain each movement, which means the hold is a few seconds long and it's not really constant or continuous movement.. I'll experiment with it some more and maybe we can get it going at a faster pace. Lots of quadrupedal. In any case, this was followed by drillings of rolls, lands, and vaults for awhile, instructing when necessary on how and where to improve.

The skills set was divided into two for this session, the first half being utility of take-off and landing spaces. I didn't fully explore this one as I would have liked (incorporating rolls out of and into and the like), but I will in the future. This was just a trial run and to show that one must be vigilant in thinking about continuous movement. The second half was focused on balance and precision, first through walking along a rail, then jumping and sticking the landing, and lastly by attempting to perform squats and pistols on it. Those attempts tended to fail rather miserably, myself BARELY getting one off (requiring the removal of my Feiyues to even achieve that remote success). In terms of precision, it was really just a drilling of jumps and lands, learning to stick them. In hindsight, I should've also required some running jumps to full-stop landings... But I did include vault to precisions.

The conditioning set consisted of ham-glute raises, squats, calf-raises, toe-raises, atomic sit-ups, leg-lifts, planks, reverse crunches, and dips.. And then we played a quadrupedal version of manhunt/sharks and minnows which didn't last as long as intended because I, at the very least, was extremely tired, but I think with more people, and starting it before a conditoining set, will result in far more success and a lot more fun.

North meets South

2008-02-24T21:26:00.001-05:00

Today was the North meets South meet, starting at 3PM in Hamilton and closing at 8PM at the Burlington gym. Tons of fun today. The outdoor meet in Hamilton was light and relaxed. We messed around here and there, experimented with some jumps, and played a game of tag to warm ourselves up. First time I've been sprinting in awhile, so it was an interesting experience. After a short time outside, we went and had lunch, and went off to the gym.

The gym experience was great, with people from all over Ontario. Everyone was training, learning, teaching... Wonderful atmosphere. I spent some time instructing some of the newcomers, training my split-foots, and some standard vault training. Tacs, catgrabs, underbars, turn vaults (and amusing turn-vault to underbars), as well as various other things like butterfly kicks, b-twists, these weird lazy twists that Danno could do but no one else could, and just a whole slew of stuff. It was great fun, and I pushed my body to quite a limit, showing some conditioning exercises to the newcomers and whatnot. I started the gym with a quadrupedal warm-up that I've been doing lately, as well, which I'm beginning to enjoy and have much more fun experimenting with as each week comes. Every time I go to the gym, now, I'm finding more and more things to do and ways to move, so that whole boredom thing is slowly weeding itself away.

Tonight was just a great amount of fun and really showed the spirit and strength of the communities of Ontario.

The Lower Body

2008-02-19T08:05:00.003-05:00

For a few weeks now, my left leg has really been bugging me when I train. Enough of a pain that it well... hurts. Resting it doesn't seem to help so much, and after talking with Jess, we've concluded that my calves are very weak (which they are), and the impacts I've absorbed from landing on my toes has overstressed my calves, as my body simply isn't used to that kind of punishment. The answer, of course, is to dedicate much more of my energy to conditioning my lower body. The experiment consists of hours upon hours of calf and shin training, which is really going to bug the crap out of me, since it can be really boring, and I was told it was in my best interest to not apply any extra weight for a week or two. I'll follow Jess's advice, because I trust her knowledge in kinesiology. I believe it's my pereonaus longus that's been injured, which is the outer lateral side of the calf muscles. From Sunday, my calves are already in a state of soreness, so I think two days rest will be good before beginning on it again. However, I'll do what I can for the muscles which aren't quite so sore.

At the same time, I'm struggling to reclaim my cardiovascular abilities after quitting smoking again. The process is a long one, because the difference between an able body and a smoking body is quite large. The cost of smoking on my body and on my training was too high to keep up, and this is a moment of decisiveness. I present myself as determined today, but I'm not sure how determined I will stay, because cardiovascular training is the most boring and most frustrating work for me. I will push it little by little, not in huge chunks. And I will find enjoyable ways of increasing my endurance. Let's hope it all works!

To all, happy training and many great gains.

2008-02-08T22:46:00.000-05:00

I've been approached to teach a Parkour class at the gym in Burlington, which really excites me. The following is the proposed format for the class. We'll see how it goes.

The time will be largely oriented toward beginners, but the format will be beneficial to anyone, as it involves developing specific skills for Parkour and conditioning the body to be able to endure the rigors of the discipline. The format largely follows the discussions that Chris, you and I had some time ago, removing the "open" time for specific instruction. The first 15-20 minutes will involve warm-up and stretching. I envision this to be done quadrupedally, in a circle, moving quickly and slowly alternatingly, using short and long reaches to help stretch the muscles and rotate the joints, while continuously moving to get the heartrate up. Think of it like a messed up yoga form. The next 1:15-1:30 or so will be the skills set section of the time. The skills set will be rigorous, disciplined training of isolated aspects of Parkour movement, and will be different every week. More detail later. The last amount of the time, about 30-45 minutes, will involve conditioning. The conditioning will take form in either the standard format, some kind of circuit, or a game. Again, more detail coming.

Skills Set

Basics and Overview - A basic overview course, covering landings, rolls, jumping technique, and the most oft-used vaults.
Precision/Balance - Students will learn how to land precisely on elevated landings following standing jumps, running jumps, vaults, and underbars. When landing on such an object as a balance beam, students will quickly redivert their momentum into a balanced quadrupedal run along it. Balance on rails, both standing and quadrupedally will also be trained.
Breathing - Students will learn the benefits of deep breathing and how to properly utilize breath when performing techniques to maximum output or to stay safe.
Recessive Side - Students will train specifically laterally-dependent techniques on their recessive side exclusively.
Utility of take-off and landing spaces - Students will train with the intention of maximizing the utility of their take-off and landing spaces, by rolling into techniques, rolling out of them, using the landing space as a take-off space, and the like.
Wall techniques - Students will train techniques that are dependent on a vertical surface, with blocks set-up to tac off of and leap onto.
Continuity of movement - Obstacle circuits will be set up, and students will train connecting together techniques, rather than training them in isolation, and preserving momentum and forward motion.
Power in opposition of momentum - Students will train techniques without the benefit of long runs to the obstacles, focusing on power and technique. Obstacles must be traversed with two steps, one step, and zero steps.

Most of these, I had instructed down in DC last summer with great success, so this plan roughly follows what was called the "DCWTTC" courses last summer (DC Weekly Themed Training and Conditioning). That's eight weeks. If it starts after reading week, then I have nine weeks left in Canada (I'll be assessing someone to continue this after I leave).

Conditioning

Standard - Specific exercises will be performed to target particular muscle groups. This will be performed in sets and reps, focusing on varying abilities, including control over the body's musculature by performing exercises slowly and precisely, and explosiveness, in which exercises will be performed... explosively.
Circuit - An obstacle circuit will be set-up, where both Parkour techniques and exercises will be melded together in "stations." Part of this is to fatigue the muscles while having to move through obstacles, as the utility aspect of Parkour training must recognize that the necessity to move may sometimes interfere with the body's state of energy. We must always be prepared, and so this is insurance that the students can continue to move, if sloppier, when they are also using their muscles more heavily through the conditioning segments of the circuit.
Game - Games will be used to add some degree of fun to the course, while still exercising the body. An example would be a typical game of Sharks and Minnows, played quadrupedally. One student will play the shark who must capture the minnows. Each time a minnow is captured, he/she becomes a shark, as well. This continues until there are no minnows left. To capture a minnow, the shark must stop any of the minnow's forward movement for a count of three seconds. Players will be pulled out of the game if they get too tired and let their knees hit the ground (this does not count if the shark has forced a minnow onto its knees) while moving around on hands/feet.

And we end with a stretch!

A New Approach

2007-12-09T14:16:00.000-05:00

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

2007-12-03T17:38:00.001-05:00

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

2007-11-27T21:52:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-15T15:07:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-06T19:22:00.000-04:00

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.

November 13th

2006-11-13T23:21:00.000-05:00

11/13/06 --

Focus today: Abs and obliques

100 sit-ups
60 Russian Twists (each side)
60 Leglifts
50 crunches
30 sec bicycle kick
Rest two minutes
One minute bicycle kick

Yesterday was our gym meet, newly organized to be much more structured... The ultimate result was that we could get a lot more done, and I don't think I've ever had as much cardio training within Parkour training (as opposed to strictly cardio training) as that before... except for perhaps that first day with Danno when I was just HORRIBLY out of shape. I trained reverse vaults a lot last night, and noticed a substantial increase in forward momentum upon landing the reverse vault (as opposed to most other vaults), which I did not expect at all.

My aim for Wednesday's outdoor session is to try to finally get split-foot take-offs down, since the two-foot thing is presenting itself to be a little limiting.