Oh Dear.......

Haha just kidding :D

Loosened up, relaxed but completely focused.... 2009 should bring great things. I am extremely busy at the moment and probably will get progressively busier over the next five years or so; occasionally relieved by a summer holiday. :P

In terms of body, I've been made to put on at least a stone, putting my weight up to about 9 stone 6 Ibs which is weirdly fine for training with. Strength hasn't improved a lot, I am feeling a lot more endurance and strength in my lats/shoulders and I can feel myself being supported by my shoulders and back completely when balancing on my mitts.

I have been working on flexibility quite hard for two weeks now, which has vastly improved my flexibility. I can now touch my toes again with absolute ease and my groin is a lot looser, due to splits training (not very intense splits training, I'll admit).

In terms of mind, I've never been as focused and am feeling the benefits from training, work and music.

In terms of everything else, I have in turn become more spontaneous and I'm really enjoying life as I fit a lot into my day and thinking that I've become more able in every aspect each day is becoming routine.

We have a massive jam in Ipswich coming up, with pretty much everyone I've ever trained with coming. I'm really looking forward to that and the next few months ahead in general should be full with many wonderful things happening. Then SUMMMMMEERRRR!!!!! :D:D:D

2009 - Loosening up

At the time of my last post I was very stressed and felt unhappy with what I was doing and where I was. The stress was minorly caused by work load and pressure to get things completed but the major reason was because of myself.
I had lost sight of what I wanted to do; share the love and progress in my own way, respecting others' paths and intergrating thoughts and values into my own life.
I got too caught up in specific relationships and forgot that everyone is my friend and I have to nourish those friendships for them to grow and develop over time. This attitude recently came crashing down as I had two weeks enjoying myself training and seeing friends without the worry of work or trying to please anyone. My attitude for 2009 - taking everything as it comes, working hard but relaxing hard too, remembering that situations usually occur when I create them and, most importantly, sharing the love.
Although parkour makes me forget about everything else and refreshes me, I have realised that my progression and general enjoyment in parkour is largely correlated to my happiness as a person. Parkour inspires me and I need to share that inpiration with others and let other people inspire me to push myself in training.

As I said; share the love I feel and enjoy my life as I am extremely happy with it. Blane has inpired me to let what I learn about myself and the world through training shape me as a person and to share what I know with the whole wide world. Fear is of the devil, I will not let it consume me and I will continue to be afraid but challenge my fears to be able to eventually overcome them.

Man, don't you just love parkour?!
hehe much love peoples xxxxx

Recent Achievements

I always find it really difficult to be happy with what I'm doing. Although my goal is perfect movement and I will strive to achieve this all the time, this is a very general goal and cannot easily be applied to every day life. Due to this and the fact that I haven't been enjoying life too much recently, I've decided to make more conscious effort to be happy with myself; not to be over excited by very small achievements but to have a balance towards my feelings. It's quite a deep thought but one that I fear will crush me if it's not addressed.

I have been pleased with my recent efforts with everything; working hard, pushing myself comfortably with Parkour and pushing myself to take care of the people i care most about. I often forget to think about (or think I don't care) how I'm portraying myself. I expect reactions and give nothing for people to react to, which is an ignorant cycle.

Those who I care most about are the reason for my existence and people who make me feel valued, so it is incredibly selfish for me to not give anything back to those people.

I also have changed attitudes towards more general things, like the ability to have fun. Although going out and working hard at the discipline is fun, I've had my head down focusing for too long and on the way I feel I have lost the balance of doing practical things and things that don't necessarily have a purpose but are fun. I feel like I've lost out on more social oppurtunties with friends and family over the past few years, so I am very much looking forward to catching up.

In addition to all of this, I've decided to keep this blog filled with personal content, as although this is publisized on the internet, the only people that will read it are people that I have most in common with and my thoughts are theirs to keep.

I've also decided to be a gangsta, so blap blap 3run massive. Big up to all you peeps in the hood, much love and peace out.

xxxxxxxxxx lol

Purgatory Night

Inspired by Blane's hell night, Ross and I decided to start our own weekly conditioning programme for the winter as of tonight. Largely based on hell night, we started with a silent jog for around 5 minutes and stretched lightly before going on a larger run, lasting about 15 minutes and then continuing onto a large block of conditioning for around and hour and 15 mins. After, we had a quick jog to loosen up and then about a 250m cat walk down a straight to finish off. Then of course we stretched off thoroughly before going home.

I wasn't too sure of how reliable Blane's outcomes of this training would be, as I know he is an extremely focused individual that has disciplined himself to train as hard as he thinks possible. So I didn't think I'd benefit as much from such an evening of exercise.

But I really enjoyed it, we talked quietly and not often and I felt I had introduced myself to proper conditioning adequately. We were half figuring out what the session would involve as we went along and no doubt it will be more organised and intensified next week, but it worked out really well.

I was most impressed to find that even a quite short session made me feel completely refreshed and at one with my thoughts again. Recently, particularly this last week, I have been under increasing pressure with work in music and performing arts mostly. Amongst other things, I was just loosing touch with everything around me and was getting worried about friendship groups and one person in particular that I couldn't get off my mind. I realise that such thoughts are merely human nature and should not be fought against until exhaustion but I would not usually consider myself as someone who gets wrapped up in their own thoughts without much consideration for other people and indeed everything else around me.

I usually have a lot of ways of relieving any stress or negative thoughts I may have attained by doing things I enjoy; music and parkour. But even they could not seem to distract me from things I did not particularly want to think about. By earlier today I was feeling quite overwhelmed by deadlines and people with too much to say. That's why I really appreciated being able to go out with Ross and just doing something that took my mind off everything but the pain of a stitch and the sweat on my face. I loved it.

Well without me babbling much longer, Purgatory night was a great success and will hopefully progress into a regular occasion, possibly with more people (although it's nice to have a small feeling of solitary)

Many thanks to Ross for encouraging it and being a great friend.

I will update with details of exercises and reps soon; just in case anyone actually reads this thing!!! :)

Tuck planche to handstand.(s)

Finally.......:D


Feels great to get this after all my targets for the last year involved this :)

This video is after a few days of being able to do it. I can already see much more core strength and feel a lot stronger in my shoulders and whole body. I am also not needing to bend my arms so much as my back and core has enough strength to raise on their own a bit more.

Now to get it with straight arms or a few reps. Great success!!

Recent tings

Haven't had time to do much training recently so been starting my conditioning mania regime.

Tuck planche to handstand is looking a loooot closer at the moment; I can hold the position for about 5 seconds then bend my arms and press until I am in the handstand position but with bent arms that I can't straighten. So I need more arm and shoulder strength to press up from there or loads more core strength to be able to press with straightish arms. Feeling really confident though :D

We are definitely going to Cambridge again 22ND September. Can't wait to see how much my progression over the summer will affect what I can do there. Conditioning and coursework is now my life!!!! haha with the odd jump :P

Back to how I left off

Well I set myself the challenge today of getting backflips again and after hard conditioning and a loooot of stretching i attempted them. And got them within 10 failures where i jump slightly to the side. It was the first time I have done them since I broke my nose and am really glad I conquered it tonight.

The technique is lazy but I get round OK. And, not to make excuses, by the time I recorded this one I was knackered. But my plan is now to get them so I can do them every time first try onto cushions then progress onto hard ground. Unless of course I'm feeling mad tomorrow :D

I will upload the video onto youtube for a few days just for you Ross :) as blogger won't do anything with it. grrrrrrrr blogger grrrrrrr.