American Parkour Forum

Rafe, how do you like the grip on Minimus?  The grip on my Vivos is disappointing.  The increased flexibility and huge toe box allows me to use my toes to overcome the poor grip on rails and such, but wall-runs are incredibly difficult. I'm thinking about getting another pair of Tigers, those are the best compromise shoe I've found.

Awhile back I wrote this:

Time for some goals for 2012:
1 - 400 pound deadlift
2 - Front Pike outside (off height)
3 - Cork
4 - Consistent flat ground b-twist
5 - 5s full-lay front lever
6 - 20s back lever (full)
7 - 2s Straddle planche
8 - Simple hs press
9 - hs on rings (using feet okay)
10 - Flyaway to mat on floor

Some of these I'm close to, some I'm not - yet.

Here's my progress as of now for each one:
1. New gym set up, we only have #275 of weights, so I can DL #275 12 times, dunno what my 1RM is.  Haven't DL'd in a couple weeks.
2. Have front pike on floor.  Need to work on flips from height, because I'm awful at those and I don't think my pike is high enough for running flat ground grass front pike.
3. Hmm... re-evaluated my plan on this one.  I decided I need to work on learning cheat gainers, on the advice of more experienced trickers.  Then I back-burnered that because I fear back tucks.  Recently I learned back handsprings and my back tucks have vastly improved.  So, time to drill my back tuck, learn cheat gainer, then resume cork work.  I figure cheat gainer by end of summer, cork by end of year, at least on floor.
4. Landed it on floor recently, but it's inconsistent.
5. No.  Just no.  Damn FL is hard.  I can do a bad closed-hip straddle FL for a second or two.
6. Haven't worked BL much.  Held one tonight for a few seconds.  I'm willing to discard this as a goal, I look at it mostly as an assistance exercise.
7. Planche is sooooo hard for me.  I still can't do anything better than tuck planche.  Currently I'm working on getting my TPPUs back, but haven't put much effort into the hold (I work either planche or tppu 1-3 times a week).  I get so frustrated because I've never been able to progress much at the static planche hold.
8. I've been more concerned with developing pancake flexibility and strength for a straight-arm press.  I'm a long way off from that, but I'd say I should discard simple press goal in favor of straddle press.
9. Can do shoulder stand.  Trying to develop press on floor, and improve hs pushup rom and strength which is currently very lacking and causing me to stagnate in rings HS.
10. Haven't worked on this at all in months.  Still can't do even in pit.  Going to discard this goal, because I'm not that interested in it.  May change my mind later, but I don't want to put any energy into it right now.

Updated goals, both for 2012 and EVER:
1 - 400 pound deadlift
2 - Front Pike outside
3 - Cork on floor
4 - Consistent b-twist on floor, eventually on grass
5 - 5s full-lay front lever
6 - 2s Iron-cross (can currently hold with band assistance, working down level of assistance)
7 - 2s Straddle planche
8 - Straight-arm hs press
9 - HS on rings - feet on straps
10 - Cheat 900 kick - can currently cheat 7 on some floors and with inconsistency
11 - Snapuswipe - because why not?
12 - Double kong outside
13 - Sideflip on concrete
14 - Ives wall run in Asics, not 5.10s
15 - Wall run at the Pub at SSU
16 - Kong-precision in front of SRHS

In addition to above progress, I've achieved several parkour goals I had in my head:
-Ives wallrun at SSU
-360 wallrun at SRHS
-precision at SSU pool
-catback at SSU pool
-vastly improved flow in small areas
-dive kong level ups
-double kongs consistently in the gym

Anyway, just wanted to check in with myself in order to re-assess and to hold myself accountable.  I've definitely achieved a lot of my goals for this year, even though I haven't knocked much off my ambitious list.  I'm very happy with the work I've done.

Lie on your back on the ground, then explode up into a tuck position with your hands in the place you wish them to be.  Repeat this exercise 10 times, then execute a flip with your new tuck position.  I suggest using a trampoline or mats at first as making a fundamental adjustment like this can throw you off big time.

I might start updating this again.

For the last few months, I just haven't felt the desire to write about my training.  Sometimes I over-think and over-intellectualize things, so it's good for me to let go of the future and enjoy training as it unfolds.  Sometimes I get too caught up in words and videos and such things interfere from my direct experience.  In times like that I find that instead of just moving and enjoying it, I'm worrying about camera angles, or how I'll describe it all to an imaginary audience later on.  It's been good to let go of the writing for awhile.

I have not let go of my training.  Every day.  Still.  It's probably been close to a year now that I've trained every day.  I never bothered remembering the date or anything like that.  I plan on keeping it up for a while.  If I tire of this and decide to stop training daily, I'll cut the braid.  Until then, onward.

Down to the nitty gritty details.  Over the last few months I've taken on more gymnastics classes and therefore learned a lot about that sport, teaching its skills, and also learned several of them myself.  I have paid particular attention to developing my shoulder flexibility, maintaining my splits, using isos to develop strength, improving my handstands, trying to develop a front-full, trying to improve my back-tuck, and acquiring more basic tumbling skills.  I put a lot of time into my front handspring, strength work on rings, planche, and lately my back handspring.  All of these have paid off.

Last week I learned back handsprings.  Having taught them for months, they came pretty naturally, though my coaches advised to not rush to doing them on floor.  I also landed b-twists and sideswipes for the first time last week.  Weeks like that are rare, so it's nice to enjoy them when they come.  The b-twist night was a lot of fun.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESRxaP9h530" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESRxaP9h530</a>

I've been working them almost everyday since then.

Yesterday I went to Mt. Diablo and jumped around on giant rocks, before taking in the solar eclipse.  It was a long and epic day full of adventure. 

Next weekend Vellu and Riyanto, two fantastically talented European trickers, will be in San Jose, so I'm going to journey down for workshops with them.  I can't wait.  For the last month or two I have been drilling my basic tricks, transitions, and working on developing long combos that integrate both my more challenging tricks and the simpler basic tricks I know.  Focusing on the fundamentals always pays dividends.  By summer's end I'd like to have my cheat 720 super consistent, and start working on a cheat 9, as well as backside 9.  I'd also like to combo my b-twist and sideswipe. 

Anyway, that's the ramble for now.

I also graduated from Sonoma State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History.  No emphasis, though I studied both early modern East Asia and early modern/Imperial Spain in-depth in my upper-division coursework.  My 25 page senior seminar paper was on the Satsuma Rebellion in Japan in 1878.  Developing the mind is as important as developing the body in developing the spirit. 

Love you all.

Now that I can b-twist, I can finally join this thread... and RESURRECT IT FROM THE DEAD!!!

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESRxaP9h530" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESRxaP9h530</a>

Now that I landed it, I'll work on perfecting it and trying to get fully horizontal.

Another big level-up, and my best video yet.  Can't wait to graduate from uni so I can train more.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-MAXBKe1Fk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-MAXBKe1Fk</a>

I work two jobs 25-35 hours a week, go to school full-time, and train everyday.  If it matters to you, you make the time even when you're tired, or it's raining, or no one's around, or you have a project due, or a cold, or whatever else.  No excuses.  Be awesome.

There's a huge community in Denver.  There are hundreds of people near you, if you start getting out there you'll meet 'em.

Check out Apex Movement they have gyms in Englewood and Boulder and are great guys: http://www.apexmovement.com/

You should also try the Colorado board to find people to train with: http://www.americanparkour.com/smf/index.php/board,31.0.html

In January I turned 32 and celebrated eight years of recovery. February marked four years of training parkour and freerunning. Most of the shots in this video are from November 2011-February 2012, but it took me until April to get that wallrun. Finally got that monkey off my back, and glad to put this out to the world, even though I know I've already improved a lot over much of this footage. Love you all. Be nice to people.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5t2oiAMgdc" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5t2oiAMgdc</a>

Let's drill carts a bunch.  I need to work my bad side cartwheel a lot so that I can do cart-side.  Frankly my bad side cart is alright though.  Compared to most of the acro we do, cart is so basic that it's easy to learn on both sides.  Now that we've introduced everyone to front & back handsprings, I'd like to keep reviewing those and work on roundoffs, carts, and cart->front, cart->side, r/o->bhs, and cart->full.