Whats honest? Some friends say I'm quite direct, frank, straightforward. No matter how blunt it is, I'll like to say things to people face. Like you know, many people don't like such people. Think about Simon Cowell, how many jeers he receives from the crowd. He, unlike the most other judges, does not care about how the person might feel, and instead tell his honest, true opinions to the world. Wrong? Then would you rather a person live in his or her delusions thinking about how 'perfect' she is. The harsh reality is what people do not want to face, but who can you lie to?
As this blog is my personal life blog, I'll post whatever shit I want, whether or not people understands, bothers to read, or whatever. I don't really care about typos, I use this as a way to rant my daily doldrums away, and couldn't care less about what others will say. Recently I have many thoughts running up my mind, through training, speeches and words from friends, reading up, and even from my dreams. I'm gonna type it all down here.
First thing, like recently spoken, philosophy differs from person to person. Same applies for opinions. Sometimes we are can't come to an agreement, there will be conflicting thoughts here and there, we can't satisfy everyone all the time. I too feel that there's alot of things that my friends and people say or do, is 'wrong'. But, opinions holds truth to oneself. So who am I to say they are wrong? Opinions are opinions, do not confuse they will proven facts and definitions.
That's why, sometimes people might think about things this way, and stay happy with it, while you think how stupid is he to think about it that way. You can try to ask them to think otherwise, like through questioning and persuasion, but at the end of it all, their opinion holds.
So, I hope you guys can respect and accept my opinions no matter how much you disagree to it.
I was asked "Do you think about the consequences you have to bear for a movement you do?"
Doing this 'sport', I think we all know the dangerous nature of it and what risks are at stake. Realistically speaking, for every move we do, should we miscalculate or lose our focus, it will go terribly wrong. So, do you mean if we can never bear the consequence of something, we should never do it at all? But hey, Peekay is about? Overcoming obstacles. I'm pretty that doesn't only mean physical obstacles, but mental ones as well. I think it is all about a weak mind if you were to not train flips because you know you can never take the bail of a flip.
Sometimes I think about the past of what we do to a person, to bring him to where he stands right now. Hmmm, the most closest analogy would be like a parent who bought his child in the world. Now think, what if the child, when grown up, suddenly feel that he is so big and could disrespect his parents and all. It just sucks if you were to symphatize, to know that a child you bring up have now turn his back at you. Sometimes I feel that bad, if I were to shout at my parents. After all, whoever who brought you in, think about what he/she have done, before action takes place.
Bad points. I've recently asked a few people to name out certain negative traits of my character. I think thats the only way a person can try to change, at least he knows an certain area that he can improve on. Believe me, everyone I know got bad points. If one don't say out, its only because he doesn't want to 'hurt your feelings' or just felt accustomed to your bad habits. We as humans should have the ability to tolerate to some extent of your friends bad points.
Not long ago, probably like 2 weeks ago, I dreamt about something. Its about PK (thats why I'm mentioning) and we are having a jam similar to the one buangkok unhorror, and we are at a cool carpark rooftop. Some of the guys were drilling a running precision with a huge huge drop at the other side (5 storeys like the typical sg carparks). Ashton, Fred, Stephen and Zahid nailed it, while I was recording with my camera. Looks like a very familiar scene. While I was slacking and I saw Zahid do that very running precision with so much force and he went out of control and overshotted, then fallllllllllll all the way down off, as I was too afraid to look I 'took cover' and heard the loud splat sound. And what I can recall is that Ashton took a look out and was like "someone call the fucking ambulance" and then I woke up. At least thats what I can think. The dream was quite strong, much stronger then the other normal dreams.
And then recently were buildering at Simei, I gripped well to the edge and was hanging on but after a sudden slip I feel all the way down. Not too high though, luckily, but the first thing I felt was something familiar, and soon I recalled the dream. The feeling is like falling to what seems at first a bottomless pit, like you can't see your landing at all (was too sudden and I can't see my landing), and I was like 'wtf did I just slipped from like half a storey". To me it is really a big impact, because it was nothing compared to my poser times where drops were much higher, uncontrolled and stupid. And I think to people, that drop is something they did regularly. But the fact that I slipped really carelessly make me relate to the dream. And think about the Bishan 2nd storey catleap, what will happen if I lose focus and fall off. Just felt really scary.
It is those small slip-ups that reminds you or how costly your mistake could be.
But fear is still something we have to work with. If fear plays such an restrictive factor of what you can do, then whats the point if you are working to be free of restriction. To me I vehemently disagree about things that "don't do such things if it isn't worth the risk".
More thoughts coming right up.
Flips could be impactful. Hell yeah they are. But really, is that very reason enough to stop you to train them? How weak can your will be. I think it is all about compromises. To be able to flip, you'll need to start flipping, and you can never expect yourself to be landing with good form at even the first year. I'm prepared to take whatever harms this might do to me in another 20/30 years down the road. Before you say that I go against the brainwashed 'philosophy' of 'to be and to last', let me tell you who doesn't want to last long? Trust me guys at the rate you are going, even if you think you are 'too slow', you will wear out at latest 40. Its all logic. Parkour is much more impactful then most other sports, the only exception is that we can progress at our own pace and theres no competition for us to force ourselves. But still I can see we are all doing alot of harm to our knees and ankle. I'm not saying its impossible, but that would need alot of self control, limiting yourself, and going very slowly, something that I admit that I wouldn't want to do due to my lack of self control. Ask yourself, some guys already got knee problems and the like. I'm one of them. If you tell me, it is really about compromises. But its not that I want to impact myself, flips are one of the reason why I think they are inevitable. I'm not a weak bitch who will not flip due to its impactful nature.
Time past really flies. As I speak, 40 minutes just went by while I write all this. No wonder it is so long. I'm used to it. But whether you guys want to read it or not, its up to you. I don't really care. But we should all use time productively. Exams coming, tests are coming, 5 weeks time till paper 1 of Eng and Chinese for Mid year. Time is running out. I should dedicate more time to study and really organise my time well so that I won't spend too much time doing stupid things like blogging on the computer right now. And also, balance out studying and training.
Went to gym today. Honestly wasn't too contented. First set of 80kgx3 squats was good, second set was still acceptable but the last was too forced. Benchpress, I missed a rep for the 60kg set, which comes as a suprise because I've been handling the benchpress weights really well throughout. Pullups faced a setback, knowing that the 25kg set was already too heavy, I knew 30kg will be too much for me to handle, so I'll cut it down to 28kg, which I forced the third rep up. Will be planning my deloading afterwards.
Is gymtraining too much for the joints and tendons as well? I wonder. Combined with the stressful nature of flips and Parkour, wouldn't it be an recipe for killing joints? Yes I've been pushing myself alot, too much, rushing, but for don't know what. I will like to keep the weights low after this routine, and the next routine that I'll be undertaking, would be adjusted to something safe. Somehow, something that can inspire for some time and make me time I'm gonna change for the good, but after a few days or weeks, the inspiration wears out. Which is something really irritating for me. I know I want to change but my self control, since the past, was really bad. I don't know, but I should seriously keep in mind the aims that I want in my training. Although I'm prepared to face the repercussions of my trainings now in my mid 30s, I would still want to stop all the impactful stuffs that I've been doing. My self control, is seriously weak.
Remember guys, all these are my opinions.
Tomorrow I'll be going to Buangkok and make sure I work on my training goals.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
March 23rd - 29th
I feel that this is one of the best way to pen down my thoughts. I just need to write it down somewhere. You guys dont have to read it. I'll update the days event when I can.
March 29th
Went to Bishan today. Did some normal boring movements, didn't get to do much because of the rain, slippery lubricated railings, the rain, and the rain. Didn't get to do runs that I thought I would, because after like 30minutes, it rained. Sucks. It happens so many times already when I come all the way from Tamp to here. At least 7 times that I can clearly remember, but I think theres more. So of course its not too impactful, which is ok. Didn't get to train flips, nooo. Will be flipping after school for awhile, then I'll go home to rest.
March 28th
First went to the gym, did well. Squatted 81kg for 3 reps with good depth and form. I now truly considered myself being able to squat 80kg. BenchPress is still hanging on, but to do 60kg will be abit hard but I'm gonna try nonetheless, this tuesday. Pullups with 26kg, did it for 3x3, I'm happy with that. Maxing both bench and pulls out this tuesday, monday would be a long and boring day in school so I'll just take that day off to rest.
Next went to Nart School and check out the book and slack then went for training. There's a few stuffs that happened. Nailed speed2p properly. Nailed a buildering thing. Gotten stronger in buildering. Slipped off an edge and fall all the way down, really impact (third time in 2 weeks that I fell off something due to lack of focus). Training is still kinda impactful, although I didn't really train alot, probably due to length of training, again. I still don't really have the ability to control myself, as you can see, no matter how much I want to keep my trianing low, I feel the urge to this and that, argh. I don't know how long will my knees survive.
Flips are bloody impactful..... hais.
March 27th
Did a little flips training after school again. No progression, maybe regression. I don't know whether I'm training properly. Because the more failed attempts and bad flips I do, it will be imprinted in my system no matter what. So its like if i continue to flip suckily, it'll stay like that. Its not about training alot but training smart, like for everything else. I need to really aim for good practice, so that I'll get the good imprints, and stop when the forms seriously cocks up. Bad flips with bad landings with feel so impactful even on playground mats. Even well landed once are loud, way louder then most precisions and drops. Damn, my knees are gonna get rusty..
But.. no rush, no forcing myself, only do flips when I'm focussed - for the good imprints. Also I'm taking a long time to get focus too, because of thinking of too many distracting things. No good. Let me not think of such stuffs and focus for tmr 80kg good 3 reps. hahaha.
April like soon. Maybe I should start learning other flips, because I can't always be sticking to these few. Still don't think I'm in a position to move to backflip variation. But soon. Need to continue practicing, the time will come, take it slowly. Maybe I'll try the moonkick soon.
Shaun Wood, Anan Anwar and Ish is coming to Singapore at 19th april. I can't wait for the demolition of those spots. Lets hope for the best and everything goes well.
March 26th
Was a good day today as I achieved my target of 85kg x 3rep kinda easily, I feel that I can still go heavier, but yeah I'll just stop there for safety reasons and also I already got what I was aiming for anyway. But as a problem that I know I am facing already, I'm doing straight legged deadlifts rather then the conventional deadlifts. So I'm putting more stress to my back. I don't know why I can't get the conventional one, and that will be something I'll working on in the 4/5 weeks routine break. Standing press also seem to be a really hard lift, and it puts stress on your back as well at the top. But I got the 40kgx3rx3s I was aiming for all was good.
So yeah, not a bad day.
March 25th
Did not trained today, except for a few flips after school, which wasn't too good, and my flips really slackened alot, which means I need alot more practice. After that I went home and slept for 3 hours (FTW!). I was quite sore and I know I won't be able to perform very good for deadlift maxout day. So I listened to my body, made some adjustment to the routine, and I felt that this is the best approach, so there is no losses but gains in the end. I decided to ditch the final wednesday workout next week and bring it forward to this week, so this will be the last deadlifting session in the routine, so I'll max out. Friday I'll be resting for the next day Sat. Then I'll go for the BenchPress and Pullups day on Tuesday (Monday I got extra lessons till late and I will dread going to the gym because of the time left), and the final routine day (squats maxout) is on Friday. So now I need to rest more and prepare for the three upcoming maxouts.
Actually I've stuffs in my mind that I haven't typed, thoughts collected from yesterday + today.
Hmmm, training at school. Honestly, I sometimes feel that I'm showing off subconsciously, but carefully, and have the urge to showoff but do well to keep it down, but when approach myself and think if I really showoff or not, maybe not to friends in school, but during jams? I sometimes can't be clear to myself, I'm not lying to myself, or am I? I also have the feeling, or at least used to have, but I could be a little more respected because of training all these. But what makes me think that I have that privilege. I chose to train this, so what if I can do this, do that, if one choose to respect me due to the dedication and how I live my life productively, then I am happy, but it isn't a must, must it? Forget it.
Philosophy. Philosophically speaking about the topic on philosophy.
What defines philosophy?
Dictionary meaning - Ideas/Beliefs/Values relating to a particular field.
I believe it is different for everyone. I doubt philosophy is a set rule that everyone must try to aim working towards it. The motto (Definition - A brief statement used to express a principle, goal, or ideal) of Parkour is "to be and to last", yeah. But motto is something that we aim for (goal) in our training. Philosophy is a different thing. It is what we believe and what values we put in in our discipline. I think everyone trains because of the universal love of movements, that can't be argued - we love to move, or not why are we doing it in the first place? And I know many people will mock or laugh at other's people reason to practice parkour. But think, it is their reason, what makes us have the right to think that it is 'wrong', or 'unacceptable'? Do you like it if we deem your inspiration to train wrong? What position are you to say that it is wrong? One will know if their true reasons are fucked up or not after training for a long time. It differs from person to person and your reasons will developed and changed as time pass. The person should pretty well understand their reasons themselves. And I believe everyone should come up with THEIR OWN reasons and not after something they read and go "yeah yeah, thats true." Thats merely copying.
Nowadays I find that there might be a 'fight' in our usual 'clique'. I definitely do not want this to happen, as we are all supposed to be united as one. I know I should keep my thoughts to myself, because if I were to blurt things out, misunderstandings will inevitably occur, and things will go terribly out of hand. I don't want a internal conflict. Sometimes I think people are so full of themselves at times, that it is just so hard for them to see their problem no matter how much we already explain to them. Ego is a bitch. But then I could be contradicting myself. No one can always be right, can they? Different opinions for different reasons.
There's a problem with me. Sometimes once I get into a conflict, even a super small one, I just can interact with the person anymore. It is like total love loss between. There's already a few classmates that I used to like to talk to, and were kinda close to, but because of some accidental spillage of anger, the bond totally breaks apart, and it is so hard to mend. And theres still my poor conversational skills and fear to talking to some people (esp. some girls), and it just sucks (check my "sucks to be so shy and all" post in deeenester.blogspot.com)
And lastly, I still have to buck up on my video editing alot, true that I actually don't put much effort in my filming (which is the source of editing). I want to learn after effects, for real and for reel. Practice my filming angles and storylining things. But guys believe me, things are not as easy as it looks to develop what seems like a normal, simple edited video. Color correction, rendering and speed of editing comes into play. Oh wait, nevermind, it doesn't matter, I don't want to act like I know alot. Yes I should spend the time I waste on this, and ofcourse more time on studying, already.
I know this is getting long and no one is reading.
March 24th
PE today, we ran 2.4km. Super impactful, but theres no choice so I decided to do it just once (was abit tired from ytd training session). Still got 10.49 and it is not even an A. Didn't know it was so bloody hard, but who cares.
Then around 5pm I walked to Shino to train alone. tried the wall, in total 9 attempts = 0 nailed. Not good man, not good. Dont know why, should have stopped after 5 attempts when it shows I'm not prepared. Went to Shino and trained abit, drilled abit. A few stuffs good is that I nailed a Speed to precision (could only land on the rail but not the wall yet), and nailed SDC2LP with a short runup (before the HDB). Other then that, I feel that theres abit of problem with my (standing) box jumps and I need to work on it, almost bailed in one careless attempt. Was some good repetitions, but when my form starting to deteriorate, I continued on, ruining the good imprints I had in my muscle memory earlier on.
Went to castle laterwards (lol new word) and drilled the running cat. Not too bad, but it will cause my shoes to die soon. Flips was quite bad, backflip after like 5 attempts gone haywired, sideflips kept overrotating, and in one attempt I bailed, hesitated like how I did in my March Thing video, but I was higher in the air. I think my focus is something that I need alot of work on. Even with people around or not, focus still quite bad. And this was too long a training session.
Things that need work on
- Focus man, focus, never just whack.
- Keep training session less then 1hr30minutes please.
- Stop training once form sucked.
- Do movements not too far away from the level I'm in.
And I think its really time for me to start studying instead of wasting my time away now.
March 23rd
Strength training day. Got a good rest the day before so I felt quite fresh. Indeed, performed quite well, one of the best throughout this routine. 78kgx3x3 squats well squat, good form, not too shoddy. Benchpress still easy, 56x3reps, pullups 26.5kgx3reps still felt that I could go heavier. Will be peaking next week. Rest well, eat more. Gotta start planning for the deloading and trainings to come.
March 29th
Went to Bishan today. Did some normal boring movements, didn't get to do much because of the rain, slippery lubricated railings, the rain, and the rain. Didn't get to do runs that I thought I would, because after like 30minutes, it rained. Sucks. It happens so many times already when I come all the way from Tamp to here. At least 7 times that I can clearly remember, but I think theres more. So of course its not too impactful, which is ok. Didn't get to train flips, nooo. Will be flipping after school for awhile, then I'll go home to rest.
March 28th
First went to the gym, did well. Squatted 81kg for 3 reps with good depth and form. I now truly considered myself being able to squat 80kg. BenchPress is still hanging on, but to do 60kg will be abit hard but I'm gonna try nonetheless, this tuesday. Pullups with 26kg, did it for 3x3, I'm happy with that. Maxing both bench and pulls out this tuesday, monday would be a long and boring day in school so I'll just take that day off to rest.
Next went to Nart School and check out the book and slack then went for training. There's a few stuffs that happened. Nailed speed2p properly. Nailed a buildering thing. Gotten stronger in buildering. Slipped off an edge and fall all the way down, really impact (third time in 2 weeks that I fell off something due to lack of focus). Training is still kinda impactful, although I didn't really train alot, probably due to length of training, again. I still don't really have the ability to control myself, as you can see, no matter how much I want to keep my trianing low, I feel the urge to this and that, argh. I don't know how long will my knees survive.
Flips are bloody impactful..... hais.
March 27th
Did a little flips training after school again. No progression, maybe regression. I don't know whether I'm training properly. Because the more failed attempts and bad flips I do, it will be imprinted in my system no matter what. So its like if i continue to flip suckily, it'll stay like that. Its not about training alot but training smart, like for everything else. I need to really aim for good practice, so that I'll get the good imprints, and stop when the forms seriously cocks up. Bad flips with bad landings with feel so impactful even on playground mats. Even well landed once are loud, way louder then most precisions and drops. Damn, my knees are gonna get rusty..
But.. no rush, no forcing myself, only do flips when I'm focussed - for the good imprints. Also I'm taking a long time to get focus too, because of thinking of too many distracting things. No good. Let me not think of such stuffs and focus for tmr 80kg good 3 reps. hahaha.
April like soon. Maybe I should start learning other flips, because I can't always be sticking to these few. Still don't think I'm in a position to move to backflip variation. But soon. Need to continue practicing, the time will come, take it slowly. Maybe I'll try the moonkick soon.
Shaun Wood, Anan Anwar and Ish is coming to Singapore at 19th april. I can't wait for the demolition of those spots. Lets hope for the best and everything goes well.
March 26th
Was a good day today as I achieved my target of 85kg x 3rep kinda easily, I feel that I can still go heavier, but yeah I'll just stop there for safety reasons and also I already got what I was aiming for anyway. But as a problem that I know I am facing already, I'm doing straight legged deadlifts rather then the conventional deadlifts. So I'm putting more stress to my back. I don't know why I can't get the conventional one, and that will be something I'll working on in the 4/5 weeks routine break. Standing press also seem to be a really hard lift, and it puts stress on your back as well at the top. But I got the 40kgx3rx3s I was aiming for all was good.
So yeah, not a bad day.
March 25th
Did not trained today, except for a few flips after school, which wasn't too good, and my flips really slackened alot, which means I need alot more practice. After that I went home and slept for 3 hours (FTW!). I was quite sore and I know I won't be able to perform very good for deadlift maxout day. So I listened to my body, made some adjustment to the routine, and I felt that this is the best approach, so there is no losses but gains in the end. I decided to ditch the final wednesday workout next week and bring it forward to this week, so this will be the last deadlifting session in the routine, so I'll max out. Friday I'll be resting for the next day Sat. Then I'll go for the BenchPress and Pullups day on Tuesday (Monday I got extra lessons till late and I will dread going to the gym because of the time left), and the final routine day (squats maxout) is on Friday. So now I need to rest more and prepare for the three upcoming maxouts.
Actually I've stuffs in my mind that I haven't typed, thoughts collected from yesterday + today.
Hmmm, training at school. Honestly, I sometimes feel that I'm showing off subconsciously, but carefully, and have the urge to showoff but do well to keep it down, but when approach myself and think if I really showoff or not, maybe not to friends in school, but during jams? I sometimes can't be clear to myself, I'm not lying to myself, or am I? I also have the feeling, or at least used to have, but I could be a little more respected because of training all these. But what makes me think that I have that privilege. I chose to train this, so what if I can do this, do that, if one choose to respect me due to the dedication and how I live my life productively, then I am happy, but it isn't a must, must it? Forget it.
Philosophy. Philosophically speaking about the topic on philosophy.
What defines philosophy?
Dictionary meaning - Ideas/Beliefs/Values relating to a particular field.
I believe it is different for everyone. I doubt philosophy is a set rule that everyone must try to aim working towards it. The motto (Definition - A brief statement used to express a principle, goal, or ideal) of Parkour is "to be and to last", yeah. But motto is something that we aim for (goal) in our training. Philosophy is a different thing. It is what we believe and what values we put in in our discipline. I think everyone trains because of the universal love of movements, that can't be argued - we love to move, or not why are we doing it in the first place? And I know many people will mock or laugh at other's people reason to practice parkour. But think, it is their reason, what makes us have the right to think that it is 'wrong', or 'unacceptable'? Do you like it if we deem your inspiration to train wrong? What position are you to say that it is wrong? One will know if their true reasons are fucked up or not after training for a long time. It differs from person to person and your reasons will developed and changed as time pass. The person should pretty well understand their reasons themselves. And I believe everyone should come up with THEIR OWN reasons and not after something they read and go "yeah yeah, thats true." Thats merely copying.
Nowadays I find that there might be a 'fight' in our usual 'clique'. I definitely do not want this to happen, as we are all supposed to be united as one. I know I should keep my thoughts to myself, because if I were to blurt things out, misunderstandings will inevitably occur, and things will go terribly out of hand. I don't want a internal conflict. Sometimes I think people are so full of themselves at times, that it is just so hard for them to see their problem no matter how much we already explain to them. Ego is a bitch. But then I could be contradicting myself. No one can always be right, can they? Different opinions for different reasons.
There's a problem with me. Sometimes once I get into a conflict, even a super small one, I just can interact with the person anymore. It is like total love loss between. There's already a few classmates that I used to like to talk to, and were kinda close to, but because of some accidental spillage of anger, the bond totally breaks apart, and it is so hard to mend. And theres still my poor conversational skills and fear to talking to some people (esp. some girls), and it just sucks (check my "sucks to be so shy and all" post in deeenester.blogspot.com)
And lastly, I still have to buck up on my video editing alot, true that I actually don't put much effort in my filming (which is the source of editing). I want to learn after effects, for real and for reel. Practice my filming angles and storylining things. But guys believe me, things are not as easy as it looks to develop what seems like a normal, simple edited video. Color correction, rendering and speed of editing comes into play. Oh wait, nevermind, it doesn't matter, I don't want to act like I know alot. Yes I should spend the time I waste on this, and ofcourse more time on studying, already.
I know this is getting long and no one is reading.
March 24th
PE today, we ran 2.4km. Super impactful, but theres no choice so I decided to do it just once (was abit tired from ytd training session). Still got 10.49 and it is not even an A. Didn't know it was so bloody hard, but who cares.
Then around 5pm I walked to Shino to train alone. tried the wall, in total 9 attempts = 0 nailed. Not good man, not good. Dont know why, should have stopped after 5 attempts when it shows I'm not prepared. Went to Shino and trained abit, drilled abit. A few stuffs good is that I nailed a Speed to precision (could only land on the rail but not the wall yet), and nailed SDC2LP with a short runup (before the HDB). Other then that, I feel that theres abit of problem with my (standing) box jumps and I need to work on it, almost bailed in one careless attempt. Was some good repetitions, but when my form starting to deteriorate, I continued on, ruining the good imprints I had in my muscle memory earlier on.
Went to castle laterwards (lol new word) and drilled the running cat. Not too bad, but it will cause my shoes to die soon. Flips was quite bad, backflip after like 5 attempts gone haywired, sideflips kept overrotating, and in one attempt I bailed, hesitated like how I did in my March Thing video, but I was higher in the air. I think my focus is something that I need alot of work on. Even with people around or not, focus still quite bad. And this was too long a training session.
Things that need work on
- Focus man, focus, never just whack.
- Keep training session less then 1hr30minutes please.
- Stop training once form sucked.
- Do movements not too far away from the level I'm in.
And I think its really time for me to start studying instead of wasting my time away now.
March 23rd
Strength training day. Got a good rest the day before so I felt quite fresh. Indeed, performed quite well, one of the best throughout this routine. 78kgx3x3 squats well squat, good form, not too shoddy. Benchpress still easy, 56x3reps, pullups 26.5kgx3reps still felt that I could go heavier. Will be peaking next week. Rest well, eat more. Gotta start planning for the deloading and trainings to come.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
March 16th - 21st
Just felt I need to give reflections on my trainings in my quest for change. Will be updated throughout the week.
Overall
I see a recurring trend in most of my training days. Too much impact. I need to seriously start doing lesser impactful movements and keep training short. And don't do move even at 95% of my max, it is not safe, keep it below 90%. This goes for wallpasses as well, I need to aim to nail every attempt of any movement, and with control too. Aim for perfection, need good focus. Strength trianing will be getting harder for this two weeks and I want to give my body more rest to prepare for the big week. I will plan on my deloading too. I think I will give myself more training alone and so I can really reflect on what I'm doing. So far I still never really work towards my goals in training stated in the previous post. Except I think I've gave good effort in drilling. Next week after school I should be doing flips practice on tuesday wednesday and thursday, flips needs alot of practice! And I need to make good use of the time I have now.
I guess this blog is really nothing to others, I might as well just not make it private and only I can read it because nobody read long posts. And because of that they quite ironically don't know me well, even some typical human beings understands better then 'traceurs'. I guess some traceurs think sooooooo highly of themselves. Delusional people.
March 21st
Went to Bishan today. Nothing much there because it is raining. Wanted to try the dyno at the first spot. Only nailed two hands once, then second try was total failure, missed and fall all the way down, super impact, lack of focus. I need to learn how to save myself from failed dynos. Since raining, but still wanted to train, went to the indoor playground. BUT IT IS WET, so just made do with barefoot buildering stuffs. Just transversing between walls. Good training. Want to climb more. Not very impactful today, but trained for kinda too long, need to limit the time during my Saturday jams.
March 20th
Strength training at 1.45pm today, early. Everything went fine. Squatting 78kg with OK form, need to keep this up on Monday. Bench press still hanging on, Pullups getting harder. Need to rest well for week 8 and 9 now, so lesser movements training. Eat more too. Weight is around 50kg, yet to peak.
March 19th
Went to Dino, Shino and Castle with WenKai. Flips and other stuffs. Drilled SDC2P at shino - good. Flips were ok. Arabian gone completely haywired, unlike the one I could nail before (at acm), need work. Some bails in sides. Keep practicing. Drilling stuffs more now. Low to high precision at Shino was too big yet I forced myself to put two legs up, and fell back down. Suck. Should've fall back down to a cat, which is another technique to work on. Need to keep training less impact. Was too long a training. Wallpass still failing too much = training near my limit. I want more of landing every single move I'm doing. Still forcing myself to do stuffs. Work on my mindset.
March 18th
Strength training first in the day, went fine. Forgotten about using mixed grip in deads, militarypresses are gay hard now. But still good. Went to train abit of movements. Drilled my roof gap at carpark, getting easy now, attempted my sdc2lp (7.5 of my footsteps) and I was hell close in my best attempt, I suppose I could crane it but I was just testing for fun. Wallpass is good but I must make sure I focus for each. Stop training when you're tired. Flips-wise, not too good but still, sideflips are OK, backflips still need work, frontflips lost my height. Need alot more practice... Can't waste my time on the computer, need to start doing hwk.. fuck.
March 17th
Flips went really weird today, alot of hesitations, alot of bails and just lost touch with them. Needs alot more practice. Don't be too affected by today's training. All flips could be better, tuck more jump up more. Slowly get back into proper flipping again. Don't impact myself too much, be soft with the punch. Movements abit too impactful, too fully aware/focussed of what I'm doing. Almost bailed in certain moves. I did drill my movements - good. One thing I notice, need to jump up more in my jumps. Trained abit too much, need more short, effective training. Knees starting feel sore after training again (osgood schlatter?).
Note to self - keep trainings low impact, focus more, don't push yourself too much.
March16th
Went to Metta today for CIP, was super slack, 2hours gone damn fast. After that, I found this wall behind metta, tried it out barefooted (school shoes are TORN), took a few tries, soon nailed it. A palm length taller then castle, did it with two steps (because no space). Not too bad. Tried doing one legged side on concrete, almost suicidal, not good. Did my 7 steps jump, they are damn impactful... Damn, should be keeping my training low impact. Learnt about one thing about my run ups.. the last steps or two are really stomped into the ground.. bad for ankles and knees (impactful), unnecessary, and uncontrolled. Need to work on being light on my foot.
Strength training wasnt too great. Squatted 76kgx3, 78kgx3 for 2nd set, but screwed up the 3rd in the 2nd rep.. sucked.. so I went for another set, done only 2 reps, felt that I can't push my body further. Pullups and benchpresse are still coping OK. I'm gonna lighten the squats, hopefully coping with them till the end of another 2 1/2 weeks.. and then I will deload and rotate exercises (to front squats, deadlifts) to break my squats plateau, which I something I'm facing now.. Focusing more on deadlifts and pullups now. Plan - deloading (2 weeks), 2 more weeks of front squatting, 1 week of refreshing, then I'll go into a new routine.. that I will be planning.
At night when the ground is drier, wall of doom is easy now. Tried the wall that I gonna aim for - touched the ledge thrice.. getting closer. Tried the wallpass beside the lift- should be able to nail with more focus. But too much of pushing in my wallpass.. not good. Did my flips on grass (playground still wet), my backflips still need alot of work.. tried one on concrete, still sucky landing and moving sideways (same for sideflips.. going to way sideways then straight forward). Frontflips impactful in the punch. Flips are kinda like sometimes good sometimes not good. Need more repetitions.
Overall
I see a recurring trend in most of my training days. Too much impact. I need to seriously start doing lesser impactful movements and keep training short. And don't do move even at 95% of my max, it is not safe, keep it below 90%. This goes for wallpasses as well, I need to aim to nail every attempt of any movement, and with control too. Aim for perfection, need good focus. Strength trianing will be getting harder for this two weeks and I want to give my body more rest to prepare for the big week. I will plan on my deloading too. I think I will give myself more training alone and so I can really reflect on what I'm doing. So far I still never really work towards my goals in training stated in the previous post. Except I think I've gave good effort in drilling. Next week after school I should be doing flips practice on tuesday wednesday and thursday, flips needs alot of practice! And I need to make good use of the time I have now.
I guess this blog is really nothing to others, I might as well just not make it private and only I can read it because nobody read long posts. And because of that they quite ironically don't know me well, even some typical human beings understands better then 'traceurs'. I guess some traceurs think sooooooo highly of themselves. Delusional people.
March 21st
Went to Bishan today. Nothing much there because it is raining. Wanted to try the dyno at the first spot. Only nailed two hands once, then second try was total failure, missed and fall all the way down, super impact, lack of focus. I need to learn how to save myself from failed dynos. Since raining, but still wanted to train, went to the indoor playground. BUT IT IS WET, so just made do with barefoot buildering stuffs. Just transversing between walls. Good training. Want to climb more. Not very impactful today, but trained for kinda too long, need to limit the time during my Saturday jams.
March 20th
Strength training at 1.45pm today, early. Everything went fine. Squatting 78kg with OK form, need to keep this up on Monday. Bench press still hanging on, Pullups getting harder. Need to rest well for week 8 and 9 now, so lesser movements training. Eat more too. Weight is around 50kg, yet to peak.
March 19th
Went to Dino, Shino and Castle with WenKai. Flips and other stuffs. Drilled SDC2P at shino - good. Flips were ok. Arabian gone completely haywired, unlike the one I could nail before (at acm), need work. Some bails in sides. Keep practicing. Drilling stuffs more now. Low to high precision at Shino was too big yet I forced myself to put two legs up, and fell back down. Suck. Should've fall back down to a cat, which is another technique to work on. Need to keep training less impact. Was too long a training. Wallpass still failing too much = training near my limit. I want more of landing every single move I'm doing. Still forcing myself to do stuffs. Work on my mindset.
March 18th
Strength training first in the day, went fine. Forgotten about using mixed grip in deads, militarypresses are gay hard now. But still good. Went to train abit of movements. Drilled my roof gap at carpark, getting easy now, attempted my sdc2lp (7.5 of my footsteps) and I was hell close in my best attempt, I suppose I could crane it but I was just testing for fun. Wallpass is good but I must make sure I focus for each. Stop training when you're tired. Flips-wise, not too good but still, sideflips are OK, backflips still need work, frontflips lost my height. Need alot more practice... Can't waste my time on the computer, need to start doing hwk.. fuck.
March 17th
Flips went really weird today, alot of hesitations, alot of bails and just lost touch with them. Needs alot more practice. Don't be too affected by today's training. All flips could be better, tuck more jump up more. Slowly get back into proper flipping again. Don't impact myself too much, be soft with the punch. Movements abit too impactful, too fully aware/focussed of what I'm doing. Almost bailed in certain moves. I did drill my movements - good. One thing I notice, need to jump up more in my jumps. Trained abit too much, need more short, effective training. Knees starting feel sore after training again (osgood schlatter?).
Note to self - keep trainings low impact, focus more, don't push yourself too much.
March16th
Went to Metta today for CIP, was super slack, 2hours gone damn fast. After that, I found this wall behind metta, tried it out barefooted (school shoes are TORN), took a few tries, soon nailed it. A palm length taller then castle, did it with two steps (because no space). Not too bad. Tried doing one legged side on concrete, almost suicidal, not good. Did my 7 steps jump, they are damn impactful... Damn, should be keeping my training low impact. Learnt about one thing about my run ups.. the last steps or two are really stomped into the ground.. bad for ankles and knees (impactful), unnecessary, and uncontrolled. Need to work on being light on my foot.
Strength training wasnt too great. Squatted 76kgx3, 78kgx3 for 2nd set, but screwed up the 3rd in the 2nd rep.. sucked.. so I went for another set, done only 2 reps, felt that I can't push my body further. Pullups and benchpresse are still coping OK. I'm gonna lighten the squats, hopefully coping with them till the end of another 2 1/2 weeks.. and then I will deload and rotate exercises (to front squats, deadlifts) to break my squats plateau, which I something I'm facing now.. Focusing more on deadlifts and pullups now. Plan - deloading (2 weeks), 2 more weeks of front squatting, 1 week of refreshing, then I'll go into a new routine.. that I will be planning.
At night when the ground is drier, wall of doom is easy now. Tried the wall that I gonna aim for - touched the ledge thrice.. getting closer. Tried the wallpass beside the lift- should be able to nail with more focus. But too much of pushing in my wallpass.. not good. Did my flips on grass (playground still wet), my backflips still need alot of work.. tried one on concrete, still sucky landing and moving sideways (same for sideflips.. going to way sideways then straight forward). Frontflips impactful in the punch. Flips are kinda like sometimes good sometimes not good. Need more repetitions.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Conclusions upon Reflections.
Stylo milo titlo.
It has been awhile since I reflected on my thoughts. Like I told you in the previous post I have read something, thought about it. But sometimes you can't fully understand it until you give it enough thoughts, or just when it comes to you naturally. I've thought of blogging about this like on Wednesday but I don't have the time to do it - heck, it is the laziness of me and the stupid time management of mine - most of the time I am doing something that I don't know.
I also got about of things to talk about in my trainings. I think I shall recap on that first.
Been quite a good day for strength training on Monday and Wednesday where both of them I felt really strong. Today wasn't alike, I missed one rep for the 81kg squat which is really stupid, I now see that I'm not at all capable of squatting the amount of weight yet, I have serious alterations to do for my squats. I've been aiming abit too high, haven't been listening to my body. Wasn't the best of sights for me at all, because on that last rep, after realizing I will not go anywhere if I were to force my way up, so I had to ditch the attempt, but I can't throw it back so I rounded my back to place it on a bar (not really, someone helped me to carry it up), and that kinda suck. What a mood spoiler after two good days. But I have realize I've been overestimating myself after that day, 80kg x 5reps with a spotter. If I didn't call for a spotter, I don't think I will be doing this for this 2 weeks. Pullups, Benchpress and Deadlifts are still improving, I will be focusing alot on them and hoping to reach 60kg for benchpress soon.
I realize there is no rush for me to get the doublebodyweight squats, I mean it isn't even quarter of the year over, and I mean so what if I don't get it by this year. I am already squatting 150% of my bodyweight which is quite a feat already, so why hurry. I could settle for 180% squat or something of that sort because really, fast progression doesn't mean anything. I still got a long way to go. I want to lower the weights in this routine because I do not want it to be counterproductive, and I don't want to fuck my tendons and ligaments up. Whatever it is, I am still quite confident of getting the 2xBW squats by this year. I'm focusing alot more on strength training this year, so there is no worries. Moreover, a goal is just a goal for you to work hard towards, at least you have worked and progressed towards your goal, it really doesn't matter whether you achieve it or not. The journey matters much more then the destination.
This goes for my OACs and Handstands and some flips as well, although I am seriously lazy to train my handstands.
My flips have improved quite well, especially my sideflip. I can land it quite consistently but of course there are many things that can still be improved on. I should be happy with what I have, but never too happy. Backflips are getting higher and better landed, frontflips are still on and off but nevertheless still good especially when I got it right. I also want to practice roundoffs and such, trying to get more height and tighter tucks in flips. The fear in my backflip is almost completely gone, which is very good but I shouldn't push too much yet.
I want to practice them whenever I have the opportunity now, after school before heading home, for just 45 minutes or less, aiming to get good 10 fronts, backs and sides. This will be a good way to improve, moves will be imprinted in my muscle memory, and I only train on those 3 flips because I believe those are the 3 most basic flips that will lead to the harder variations. I wanna get really strong fundamentals and from there I will work up to combos and the such. Things will slowly get worked on from there.
Movements training are still abit impactful. Still have the habit of not putting proper focus before doing a movement, merely just 'whacking' and hopefully land it. There are many attempts in my training, failed attempts that is. Just really bad I think for your muscle memory and of course confidence, also not forgetting the impact from the fall and how badly your land before it.
I want to place alot more emphasis on
- Repetitions, (for muscle memory and it is indeed the best way to improve)
- Aiming for perfection for every move and, (so that bad attempts wont be imprinted, and also less impacts - this also means training only around 90% of my max)
- Jump with a clear mind. (full focus, and no stupid anyhow whack, doing movements that I confident and comfortable with, be careful.)
Those are the most important things to take note of in my trainings.
Enough of blaberrings. Lets start on the main thing I want to discuss about.
Conclusions upon reflections
Before I continue, this is what I've read, written by Capo di Tutti Capi of the 3run Forums, a really deep thinking and experienced traceur.
"Definitely the most insightful and meaningful thing i have ever seen you come out with Matty, i'm glad you are finally starting to learn the true meaning of Parkour and what it implicates by calling yourself a 'Traceur' is something way beyond a person that just leaps from roof to roof.
I think this journal is a horrible idea, simply because you should never ever set yourself targets like this because it builds hype around specific movement. I myself was like this for the first pretty much 4 and a half years of training, constantly like ' i wanna get 5 new things today ' ' i wanna do this by next week ' and all that rubbish and seriously bro all your doing is limiting yourself.It took me months to get Ryan to understand this and now he is finally on his quest of learning he's been giving you the same talks and encourage that i gave him which is truly inspiring to see that Danny shown me the error of my ways, i passed what i had learnt to Ryan and now he has passed it down again to you. I hope with that, you will educate the guys around, Smitton, Rob, Kezo etc.
People who put specific difficult to a move will never truly master the move, i never look at anything and think 'impossible' because quite simply i know it's not. 4 years ago the jump at the top of the methidest was impossible, i mean like we we're like 'david belle couldnt even do that' then a year later Danny ran and jumped it, a year after that i ran and jumped, a year after that Danny precisioned it. But i know for a fact we we're capable of making that distance the first time we looked at it, 4 years ago i could have done that but simply because i had been looking at it for so long i had built up this image in my mind that the jump was so so big when it really wasnt. I know if i went to a new area now and the exact same jump was there i would think nothing of precisioning it, simply because there is no 'hype' around it and i know im capable.
The more pressure you put on yourself to do a move the worse it will get, if you give yourself a time limit to do a certain move your building pressure, because even if you do the move within that time scale you will not have truly taken in the moment, you have to feel ready not force yourself to be ready. Hyping up for moves is also bad, adrenaline may make you stronger but it locks out your sense of awareness completely and in the rare case that you baill and your pumping with adrenaline you will badly hurt yourself. You have to be aware at all times, you have to constantly be aware and acknowledge the moment you are in so that you truly understand each aspect of the movement and you are calm and controlled enough to react if something goes wrong.
'I want to do this precision a 0.42 on this video' why? Will it truly make you miles better? Will it genuinally increase your precision by a foot if you do it? Is there some kind of prize? The answer is no Matty, you will benefit 100 times more by doing 10 sets of a precision you can already do rather than 1 precision that you have never done before.
You have to drill everything you have previously to the extent that the move will feel as natural as walking, when you see you trying precisions like the methidest or g evans at the side of the jump knowing you are truly nowhere near ready to attempt it i think why is he doing that? He knows he cannot make it, why is not doing the jump behind it which he can do to help build his precision for the day when he is ready to attempt the bigger jump? Why does he not see the logic? Why is everything to this guy ' bigger bigger bigger winning winning winning '
I know you want to be the best bro but this is truly the wrong approach, winning is not important, being the best is not important, bettering another traceur is not important, doing a precision you have never done before is not important, what is truly important is that you move with absolute freedom and jump with a clear mind. Get rid of hatred, anger, compeition, sadness...any of these emotions that you feel when approaching, attempting and even failing a jump. You must be in the same state of mind constantly.
Live for the moment, live for now, move for yourself.
Took me near 5years to learn this brother, i hope you see the error of your ways quicker than i
Peace" - from here.
As you can see, some of the thoughts that I wrote in my trainings above is also partly concluded from the post above. I hope you guys took some time to read and decipher the text, because although long, it is a meaningful read.
I've seen myself and many other traceurs trying to push their limits too often. Well. Why attempt something that you are not ready for? Or even not fully confident. Doesn't it make sense = when you are not confident, that means you are not ready yet. I could recall a few big moves that I've busted and only to bail or sprain my ankle badly. It is really dumb to think of it. Also for big precisions that it super impactful for the joints, and the running precisions/cranes as well. It might be fun, the adrenaline rush to nail something of such level, but think about it long term, how detrimental would it be to your joints? Your body?
I'm pretty sure most of you have been into some point of your training, where you know roughly where your standards are, what you are capable of, and how big the jump it is to you. So if you know it isn't something that you can do well, even if it means you have done it before. We should keep our training only at 90% of our maximum and lower of course. If we keep drilling our movements of that range, soon you would be able to do the moves in the past which is considered to be 100% of your max quite easily, which means you've improved. Pure semantics.
Like said about my strength training earlier on. I think there is no point having to set a time limit of your goals. Goals are always good, there's something for you to work towards for. But there is no need to force yourself to get it. Of course it is smart to set realistic goals so it is easier to achieve it - achievements are always satisfying and a confidence booster, and smaller goals are like stepping stones to reach your ultimate goal or something. But when you are nowhere near your goal, there is no need to rush, as you know yourself that you aren't in any competition or chase, there is no reward or extra benefits to nail something by this year or next year. Slow progression means much more then fast progression. Theres nothing really fancy about being able to nail big stuffs but with no control, consistency and ease.
It is OK to push our limits. It is a good thing to improve, after all it is only subconscious goal, the reason why we train is to improve ourselves, mentally or physically. In my opinion, you should attempt bigger moves only when you are ready. Keep things low, keep drilling the smaller stuffs until it gets really easy. I think we should only attempt like maximum precision jumps once in awhile to note progression. But have self-control and stop attempting when you know it is a really maximum effort. There are still many other days in the future where you can try to nail your jumps. Like mentioned many of times - we are not in a hurry, rushing progression is only detrimental. And also, it is not about whether you can nail it anot, but rather whether you can nail it properly or not.
And of course regarding the point about getting rid of bad emotions. A big problem for me. I get really frustrated after a bad day, either in strength training or in flips, and after I bail, things like that. We all have to admit it sucks to be have those, but remember, such things will inevitably happen because well, nothing is ever easy. Will it still be fun if we have no challenges, that everything that we train for is easy? What are we, invincible? Of course not, bails and bad days will happen, and it is another challenge for us to get over those bad days, and treat all of those as training processes, and we learn from our bails and mistakes. Frustration and disappointment will lead you nowhere, the rest of the day will also be cocked up due to your state of mind. It is always best to have a clear and fresh mind, and treat everything as something to learn from.
And to recall the post - Thoughts crawling on my mind in November.
" I think it is really that I have a deep passion to move, I just love movements, they are just so fun. To not be restricted by anything, is just freedom to me. To overcome any obstacles, including my mental barriers, and to do anything that I want, to be able to do movements that I've never thought of doing before, is truly freedom to me. Moving gracefully through the environment is just a wonderful thing. To achieve full body control and to continually break the frontiers of my limits is just amazing. Controlling my every movement, to move the way I want to, are just stuff anyone would dream for. Its only a sad fact that they don't have the heart to work hard for what they want. Through this discipline, its amazing how far I came from, how much blood, sweat and tears I've put in, and how much improvements and learnings I've experienced. I now definitely move to live, and live to move. To constantly improve myself is my neverending goal - to achieve it is purely optional, but to work hard for it and having fun in my quest to 'perfection' is mandatory. "
Have my thoughts changed? Not in general. My thoughts could really be simplified - I just love moving, and the freedom it gives. Really.
More pointers to self.
It has been awhile since I reflected on my thoughts. Like I told you in the previous post I have read something, thought about it. But sometimes you can't fully understand it until you give it enough thoughts, or just when it comes to you naturally. I've thought of blogging about this like on Wednesday but I don't have the time to do it - heck, it is the laziness of me and the stupid time management of mine - most of the time I am doing something that I don't know.
I also got about of things to talk about in my trainings. I think I shall recap on that first.
Been quite a good day for strength training on Monday and Wednesday where both of them I felt really strong. Today wasn't alike, I missed one rep for the 81kg squat which is really stupid, I now see that I'm not at all capable of squatting the amount of weight yet, I have serious alterations to do for my squats. I've been aiming abit too high, haven't been listening to my body. Wasn't the best of sights for me at all, because on that last rep, after realizing I will not go anywhere if I were to force my way up, so I had to ditch the attempt, but I can't throw it back so I rounded my back to place it on a bar (not really, someone helped me to carry it up), and that kinda suck. What a mood spoiler after two good days. But I have realize I've been overestimating myself after that day, 80kg x 5reps with a spotter. If I didn't call for a spotter, I don't think I will be doing this for this 2 weeks. Pullups, Benchpress and Deadlifts are still improving, I will be focusing alot on them and hoping to reach 60kg for benchpress soon.
I realize there is no rush for me to get the doublebodyweight squats, I mean it isn't even quarter of the year over, and I mean so what if I don't get it by this year. I am already squatting 150% of my bodyweight which is quite a feat already, so why hurry. I could settle for 180% squat or something of that sort because really, fast progression doesn't mean anything. I still got a long way to go. I want to lower the weights in this routine because I do not want it to be counterproductive, and I don't want to fuck my tendons and ligaments up. Whatever it is, I am still quite confident of getting the 2xBW squats by this year. I'm focusing alot more on strength training this year, so there is no worries. Moreover, a goal is just a goal for you to work hard towards, at least you have worked and progressed towards your goal, it really doesn't matter whether you achieve it or not. The journey matters much more then the destination.
This goes for my OACs and Handstands and some flips as well, although I am seriously lazy to train my handstands.
My flips have improved quite well, especially my sideflip. I can land it quite consistently but of course there are many things that can still be improved on. I should be happy with what I have, but never too happy. Backflips are getting higher and better landed, frontflips are still on and off but nevertheless still good especially when I got it right. I also want to practice roundoffs and such, trying to get more height and tighter tucks in flips. The fear in my backflip is almost completely gone, which is very good but I shouldn't push too much yet.
I want to practice them whenever I have the opportunity now, after school before heading home, for just 45 minutes or less, aiming to get good 10 fronts, backs and sides. This will be a good way to improve, moves will be imprinted in my muscle memory, and I only train on those 3 flips because I believe those are the 3 most basic flips that will lead to the harder variations. I wanna get really strong fundamentals and from there I will work up to combos and the such. Things will slowly get worked on from there.
Movements training are still abit impactful. Still have the habit of not putting proper focus before doing a movement, merely just 'whacking' and hopefully land it. There are many attempts in my training, failed attempts that is. Just really bad I think for your muscle memory and of course confidence, also not forgetting the impact from the fall and how badly your land before it.
I want to place alot more emphasis on
- Repetitions, (for muscle memory and it is indeed the best way to improve)
- Aiming for perfection for every move and, (so that bad attempts wont be imprinted, and also less impacts - this also means training only around 90% of my max)
- Jump with a clear mind. (full focus, and no stupid anyhow whack, doing movements that I confident and comfortable with, be careful.)
Those are the most important things to take note of in my trainings.
Enough of blaberrings. Lets start on the main thing I want to discuss about.
Conclusions upon reflections
Before I continue, this is what I've read, written by Capo di Tutti Capi of the 3run Forums, a really deep thinking and experienced traceur.
"Definitely the most insightful and meaningful thing i have ever seen you come out with Matty, i'm glad you are finally starting to learn the true meaning of Parkour and what it implicates by calling yourself a 'Traceur' is something way beyond a person that just leaps from roof to roof.
I think this journal is a horrible idea, simply because you should never ever set yourself targets like this because it builds hype around specific movement. I myself was like this for the first pretty much 4 and a half years of training, constantly like ' i wanna get 5 new things today ' ' i wanna do this by next week ' and all that rubbish and seriously bro all your doing is limiting yourself.It took me months to get Ryan to understand this and now he is finally on his quest of learning he's been giving you the same talks and encourage that i gave him which is truly inspiring to see that Danny shown me the error of my ways, i passed what i had learnt to Ryan and now he has passed it down again to you. I hope with that, you will educate the guys around, Smitton, Rob, Kezo etc.
People who put specific difficult to a move will never truly master the move, i never look at anything and think 'impossible' because quite simply i know it's not. 4 years ago the jump at the top of the methidest was impossible, i mean like we we're like 'david belle couldnt even do that' then a year later Danny ran and jumped it, a year after that i ran and jumped, a year after that Danny precisioned it. But i know for a fact we we're capable of making that distance the first time we looked at it, 4 years ago i could have done that but simply because i had been looking at it for so long i had built up this image in my mind that the jump was so so big when it really wasnt. I know if i went to a new area now and the exact same jump was there i would think nothing of precisioning it, simply because there is no 'hype' around it and i know im capable.
The more pressure you put on yourself to do a move the worse it will get, if you give yourself a time limit to do a certain move your building pressure, because even if you do the move within that time scale you will not have truly taken in the moment, you have to feel ready not force yourself to be ready. Hyping up for moves is also bad, adrenaline may make you stronger but it locks out your sense of awareness completely and in the rare case that you baill and your pumping with adrenaline you will badly hurt yourself. You have to be aware at all times, you have to constantly be aware and acknowledge the moment you are in so that you truly understand each aspect of the movement and you are calm and controlled enough to react if something goes wrong.
'I want to do this precision a 0.42 on this video' why? Will it truly make you miles better? Will it genuinally increase your precision by a foot if you do it? Is there some kind of prize? The answer is no Matty, you will benefit 100 times more by doing 10 sets of a precision you can already do rather than 1 precision that you have never done before.
You have to drill everything you have previously to the extent that the move will feel as natural as walking, when you see you trying precisions like the methidest or g evans at the side of the jump knowing you are truly nowhere near ready to attempt it i think why is he doing that? He knows he cannot make it, why is not doing the jump behind it which he can do to help build his precision for the day when he is ready to attempt the bigger jump? Why does he not see the logic? Why is everything to this guy ' bigger bigger bigger winning winning winning '
I know you want to be the best bro but this is truly the wrong approach, winning is not important, being the best is not important, bettering another traceur is not important, doing a precision you have never done before is not important, what is truly important is that you move with absolute freedom and jump with a clear mind. Get rid of hatred, anger, compeition, sadness...any of these emotions that you feel when approaching, attempting and even failing a jump. You must be in the same state of mind constantly.
Live for the moment, live for now, move for yourself.
Took me near 5years to learn this brother, i hope you see the error of your ways quicker than i
Peace" - from here.
As you can see, some of the thoughts that I wrote in my trainings above is also partly concluded from the post above. I hope you guys took some time to read and decipher the text, because although long, it is a meaningful read.
I've seen myself and many other traceurs trying to push their limits too often. Well. Why attempt something that you are not ready for? Or even not fully confident. Doesn't it make sense = when you are not confident, that means you are not ready yet. I could recall a few big moves that I've busted and only to bail or sprain my ankle badly. It is really dumb to think of it. Also for big precisions that it super impactful for the joints, and the running precisions/cranes as well. It might be fun, the adrenaline rush to nail something of such level, but think about it long term, how detrimental would it be to your joints? Your body?
I'm pretty sure most of you have been into some point of your training, where you know roughly where your standards are, what you are capable of, and how big the jump it is to you. So if you know it isn't something that you can do well, even if it means you have done it before. We should keep our training only at 90% of our maximum and lower of course. If we keep drilling our movements of that range, soon you would be able to do the moves in the past which is considered to be 100% of your max quite easily, which means you've improved. Pure semantics.
Like said about my strength training earlier on. I think there is no point having to set a time limit of your goals. Goals are always good, there's something for you to work towards for. But there is no need to force yourself to get it. Of course it is smart to set realistic goals so it is easier to achieve it - achievements are always satisfying and a confidence booster, and smaller goals are like stepping stones to reach your ultimate goal or something. But when you are nowhere near your goal, there is no need to rush, as you know yourself that you aren't in any competition or chase, there is no reward or extra benefits to nail something by this year or next year. Slow progression means much more then fast progression. Theres nothing really fancy about being able to nail big stuffs but with no control, consistency and ease.
It is OK to push our limits. It is a good thing to improve, after all it is only subconscious goal, the reason why we train is to improve ourselves, mentally or physically. In my opinion, you should attempt bigger moves only when you are ready. Keep things low, keep drilling the smaller stuffs until it gets really easy. I think we should only attempt like maximum precision jumps once in awhile to note progression. But have self-control and stop attempting when you know it is a really maximum effort. There are still many other days in the future where you can try to nail your jumps. Like mentioned many of times - we are not in a hurry, rushing progression is only detrimental. And also, it is not about whether you can nail it anot, but rather whether you can nail it properly or not.
And of course regarding the point about getting rid of bad emotions. A big problem for me. I get really frustrated after a bad day, either in strength training or in flips, and after I bail, things like that. We all have to admit it sucks to be have those, but remember, such things will inevitably happen because well, nothing is ever easy. Will it still be fun if we have no challenges, that everything that we train for is easy? What are we, invincible? Of course not, bails and bad days will happen, and it is another challenge for us to get over those bad days, and treat all of those as training processes, and we learn from our bails and mistakes. Frustration and disappointment will lead you nowhere, the rest of the day will also be cocked up due to your state of mind. It is always best to have a clear and fresh mind, and treat everything as something to learn from.
And to recall the post - Thoughts crawling on my mind in November.
" I think it is really that I have a deep passion to move, I just love movements, they are just so fun. To not be restricted by anything, is just freedom to me. To overcome any obstacles, including my mental barriers, and to do anything that I want, to be able to do movements that I've never thought of doing before, is truly freedom to me. Moving gracefully through the environment is just a wonderful thing. To achieve full body control and to continually break the frontiers of my limits is just amazing. Controlling my every movement, to move the way I want to, are just stuff anyone would dream for. Its only a sad fact that they don't have the heart to work hard for what they want. Through this discipline, its amazing how far I came from, how much blood, sweat and tears I've put in, and how much improvements and learnings I've experienced. I now definitely move to live, and live to move. To constantly improve myself is my neverending goal - to achieve it is purely optional, but to work hard for it and having fun in my quest to 'perfection' is mandatory. "
Have my thoughts changed? Not in general. My thoughts could really be simplified - I just love moving, and the freedom it gives. Really.
More pointers to self.
- Progress on your own comfortable pace.
- Do not overpush yourself.
- Never let bad emotions get the better of you.
- Attempt new moves only when you are ready.
It is how we appreciate ourselves, our world, our life. There is nothing more in the world then to be satisfied with whatever we have and savour it. Treasure what you have before it is gone, long gone. Respect our bodies, a quality life will result in a longer life. Respect ourselves as with each other. With a clear mind, and clear path, things will only get better. There is no stopping of you if you are truly passionate and disciplined. Time is the test of our perseverance, effort is the test of our determination. With time and effort, we can redefine impossible.
My other lifelong goals is to be able to travel around the world, and to be an successful filmmaker. But happiness must never be compensated, for it is the main value of life.
I want to change for the better now.
Heads up.
Live in the moment.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
And this week...
Let me see...
Strength training is going ok ok, except Friday. And I will tell you why.
This week is somewhat a deloading week, the numbers of reps and sets (workload) are reduced significantly but the weights stayed put. So my workout was much more easier and less time were used to finished each day's workout. Although I'm quite disappointed with my squats especially for Fridays where I squatted a poor POOR 3 reps 80kg, the last rep was all forced and weak. Reason being, I underestimated this week alot. I thought I should be able to be handle this week's workout without much trouble because it is a deloading week. Overconfident. Complacent. This is also why spotters are not useful. Next week I will still be doing 80kg. I don't want to increase the weights if I can't handle the lighter one easily. I still have much time to get my 2x bodyweight squats.
On the other hand, bench press were easy as fuck. Deadlifts is still going fine. Pullups is ok although at times I feel that I really struggle alot.
This coming weeks, things will get slightly harder, and I really wish I don't go through the same thing as this Friday. I must treat each training my fullest effort and concentration. I thought I was disciplined in my approach in strength training - now I must keep that up.
Movements training are good. I want to train more runs now instead of individual movements. Haven't been pushing myself to do just that.
This week, I've been training for almost everyday for movements. Except Monday and Tuesday which was raining for the whole day. Wednesday I trained abit of flips (45minutes?) after school, then went to gym when the rain starts to pour. Thursday I was training abit of plyometrics. Still aiming to get 6 steps from a standing start, and I nailed 7 steps with a running start. Pounces are much more powerful now. Still can't nail the low to high precision at my place. Trained flips and movements at night after strength training. Trained yesterday at Dino then at Senja, and today I trained flips. So I think next week I should be resting properly because strength training will get more intense again.
I think my SDC lack control at some point, especially when going for distance and I think my SDC lack of height. But I'm quite good with them already so I should just focus on the things I could already nail and just better that.
Trainings pounces and strides more now as I think they are a very good way for training leg power. And they are quite efficient. Precisions are good and controlled. While my climbups are getting more 2nd nature (being able to do with either legs up) and more straight armed.
Wallpasses are getting better I can feel, yesterday went to Senja with Fred, Zahid and Db, nailed the wall twice out of 20 attempts, and in the 18 failed attempts, twice I got hold of the edge with two hands but slipped due to the slantedness of the wall.. lol. Not too happy with that, but... for the hdb wall at Castle, I could nail them after like 4/5 tries, about 50% of the time, I want to better that till I get it 95% of the time.
Talking about Castle, there might be a chance of it being demolished. Maybe, maybe not. If it really gets demolished, that will suck. I'm not sure about talking to the town council and try to stop them from tearing down the place, but I'm not sure about the odds. I wonder if it would work or it will just increase the chances of them demolishing the place. Oh well, we should treasure the things that we have now so we won't regret not cherishing it at the first place.
Flips ain't too good. Just came back from training just now. Don't want to train too much, just aimed for 10 backs, fronts and sides and thats it. Took 1 hour to do just that, or a little longer.
You might think my frontflips are really good and since I've been doing them for quite a long time already, it should be quite good in them. Yeah I think I'm not too sucky with them but I really suck controlling it. If I really want to land I could, but I will roll out of it/do a sucky frog jump thing, or just land really shoddily. Only like 20% of the time can I land with good height and good landing. That is with a running start.
Backflips are OK but sometimes I can't control how much I jump back or jump up, and sometimes I land really shoddy and heavily, slanted. Inconsistent. But I can land them most of the time. It is backflip that I have no problems controlling the untucking and the under/over-rotating. Sideflips are ok to me considering the amount of experience I have for them. Well, they are getting alot better and I want to keep practicing them till I can do them in combos and standing and after an sdc. But I still can't really control the landing, like landing one leg at a time, sometimes I overrotate and I still don't really understand the movement.
Simply put, my flips lack control.
And I need alot more practice.
Sometimes I feel my flips have all sorts of ups and downs. Sometimes I can come back from some training and say that my flips improved and they are getting real good, and the other days I will be disappointed and say my flip sucks and all. But seriously I shouldn't be. I need to get rid of such frustrations, really unnecessary. All of these should be treated as stepping stones.
To be honest, I do feel alot of impacts in my knees already, thanks to the flips and big jumps and stuffs, added with heavy squatting and really stupid poor form. So to compensate that I'll cut down on my trainings abit and rest well till I get this routine over and done with. Anyway towards the last third/quarter of the year I will be doing really intense strength training and hardly any movement training because I wouldn't have any more time to travel anywhere further, the most I will do regular flips practice for maximum 45minutes as flips are the main issue of work now.
Handstands are still a pain in the ass, I never seem to be improving. Seriously they are frustrating, just ask anyone else who trains them. What a test of my limited patience. I am waiting for the very day when I can say I am able to handstand. Still a long way ahead.
And I have read something that could possibly change the thoughts and perspective of movements and trainings. I just need to read alittle more in depth and understand deeper, and then I'll come up with another post.
Other then that...
I guess I'll have to work on speed.
Strength training is going ok ok, except Friday. And I will tell you why.
This week is somewhat a deloading week, the numbers of reps and sets (workload) are reduced significantly but the weights stayed put. So my workout was much more easier and less time were used to finished each day's workout. Although I'm quite disappointed with my squats especially for Fridays where I squatted a poor POOR 3 reps 80kg, the last rep was all forced and weak. Reason being, I underestimated this week alot. I thought I should be able to be handle this week's workout without much trouble because it is a deloading week. Overconfident. Complacent. This is also why spotters are not useful. Next week I will still be doing 80kg. I don't want to increase the weights if I can't handle the lighter one easily. I still have much time to get my 2x bodyweight squats.
On the other hand, bench press were easy as fuck. Deadlifts is still going fine. Pullups is ok although at times I feel that I really struggle alot.
This coming weeks, things will get slightly harder, and I really wish I don't go through the same thing as this Friday. I must treat each training my fullest effort and concentration. I thought I was disciplined in my approach in strength training - now I must keep that up.
Movements training are good. I want to train more runs now instead of individual movements. Haven't been pushing myself to do just that.
This week, I've been training for almost everyday for movements. Except Monday and Tuesday which was raining for the whole day. Wednesday I trained abit of flips (45minutes?) after school, then went to gym when the rain starts to pour. Thursday I was training abit of plyometrics. Still aiming to get 6 steps from a standing start, and I nailed 7 steps with a running start. Pounces are much more powerful now. Still can't nail the low to high precision at my place. Trained flips and movements at night after strength training. Trained yesterday at Dino then at Senja, and today I trained flips. So I think next week I should be resting properly because strength training will get more intense again.
I think my SDC lack control at some point, especially when going for distance and I think my SDC lack of height. But I'm quite good with them already so I should just focus on the things I could already nail and just better that.
Trainings pounces and strides more now as I think they are a very good way for training leg power. And they are quite efficient. Precisions are good and controlled. While my climbups are getting more 2nd nature (being able to do with either legs up) and more straight armed.
Wallpasses are getting better I can feel, yesterday went to Senja with Fred, Zahid and Db, nailed the wall twice out of 20 attempts, and in the 18 failed attempts, twice I got hold of the edge with two hands but slipped due to the slantedness of the wall.. lol. Not too happy with that, but... for the hdb wall at Castle, I could nail them after like 4/5 tries, about 50% of the time, I want to better that till I get it 95% of the time.
Talking about Castle, there might be a chance of it being demolished. Maybe, maybe not. If it really gets demolished, that will suck. I'm not sure about talking to the town council and try to stop them from tearing down the place, but I'm not sure about the odds. I wonder if it would work or it will just increase the chances of them demolishing the place. Oh well, we should treasure the things that we have now so we won't regret not cherishing it at the first place.
Flips ain't too good. Just came back from training just now. Don't want to train too much, just aimed for 10 backs, fronts and sides and thats it. Took 1 hour to do just that, or a little longer.
You might think my frontflips are really good and since I've been doing them for quite a long time already, it should be quite good in them. Yeah I think I'm not too sucky with them but I really suck controlling it. If I really want to land I could, but I will roll out of it/do a sucky frog jump thing, or just land really shoddily. Only like 20% of the time can I land with good height and good landing. That is with a running start.
Backflips are OK but sometimes I can't control how much I jump back or jump up, and sometimes I land really shoddy and heavily, slanted. Inconsistent. But I can land them most of the time. It is backflip that I have no problems controlling the untucking and the under/over-rotating. Sideflips are ok to me considering the amount of experience I have for them. Well, they are getting alot better and I want to keep practicing them till I can do them in combos and standing and after an sdc. But I still can't really control the landing, like landing one leg at a time, sometimes I overrotate and I still don't really understand the movement.
Simply put, my flips lack control.
And I need alot more practice.
Sometimes I feel my flips have all sorts of ups and downs. Sometimes I can come back from some training and say that my flips improved and they are getting real good, and the other days I will be disappointed and say my flip sucks and all. But seriously I shouldn't be. I need to get rid of such frustrations, really unnecessary. All of these should be treated as stepping stones.
To be honest, I do feel alot of impacts in my knees already, thanks to the flips and big jumps and stuffs, added with heavy squatting and really stupid poor form. So to compensate that I'll cut down on my trainings abit and rest well till I get this routine over and done with. Anyway towards the last third/quarter of the year I will be doing really intense strength training and hardly any movement training because I wouldn't have any more time to travel anywhere further, the most I will do regular flips practice for maximum 45minutes as flips are the main issue of work now.
Handstands are still a pain in the ass, I never seem to be improving. Seriously they are frustrating, just ask anyone else who trains them. What a test of my limited patience. I am waiting for the very day when I can say I am able to handstand. Still a long way ahead.
And I have read something that could possibly change the thoughts and perspective of movements and trainings. I just need to read alittle more in depth and understand deeper, and then I'll come up with another post.
Other then that...
I guess I'll have to work on speed.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
First post in March.
Not a very good week I'll say.
I'll go through my training day by day first.
Monday, was my 74kgx5x5 squats day, was damn tiring but I still managed to do 4 full sets of 5 and the 5th set, I missed one rep purposely because I don't wanna fatigue my body and also I hate forced reps. I am confident of handling that last rep though but just stop to be safe. Benchpress was still easy, 53kg benchpress 5reps, not too much of difficulty yet. Pullups was next, 25kg up on the line. Was super forced for the last rep, but it still counts, still abit disappointed with that.
One thing that happened that day was this two guys, using the Smith machine (lol lame bodybuilders), and while I was changing the weights on the dip belt I unintentionally blocked their way while he was bench pressing, so he not happy and screamed at me, while the other guy chipped in as well. Of course of my size and age I can't do anything to appease the situation so I had to just shut up and submit and mind my own business.. my mood was affected, tried not to think too much of it because I was still in the midst of my pullups sets. I guess the poor last rep was partly due to my ruined mood at that time. Oh well. I just wonder why people have to shout, cannot talk nicely, and act all so big, take advantage of people rather unreasonably. Ahhh, my mind was filled with those thoughts at the end of that day. But I guess we shouldn't like should stupid, worthless and small things get in our way.
Tuesday was raining the whole day, whole floor wet, so I thought I have to wait till the night and hoepfully the playground dry up so I can do some tricking. But sadly nothing dries up even up to the end of the night so about 8pm, I felt that I can't stay at home and do nothing, so I tried to made do with what I've got - train on concrete, backflips and aerial. Bad move. My backflips really sucked.. my form totally changes day to day, and especially when I don't do them for some days. Fuck, I don't know why. Sometimes it can be good, but sometimes my face can be so close to the ground and the landing is fucking loud and hard. Aerial still damn low, no height. Quite sad but that is how flips go, bad landings and all, ugly form and it will take damn long to smoothen things out. This training shows me how fucking strainful it is to the ankles, knees and back to take flips on concretes, this are way more impactful then drops and running pre and all those stuffs.. wow the landing is so loud and the impact you can really feel it. Flips are not meant for concrete. Bad idea.. my ankles and knees are gonna hate me.
Wednesday was a simple day in the gym, but before that while walking back home I went to castle abit for training to cover up yesterday nothingness, my wallpass seems to be improving well, though not good enough for the buangkok wall (should be close to though), and my sideflips are getting really good. I've got the hang of it and my frontflips are still there. Backflip are still kinda sloppy and they really need alot of work (my goal for this tuesday). In the gym I dead 73kgx5x5 deadlifts quite easily, but I must be paying more attention on my form because I don't wanna hurt my back. Military presses sucked, but I don't really care... and yeah, thats pretty much everything that went on that day.
Thursday was a rest day for me. Did nothing at all, just slacking and studying.
Friday was my 80kg squat day. I think I am capable of doing that but the fact that I used spotters made that unraw. Shouldn't use a spotter, but rather rely on myself on whether I can go for the next rep, and safety shouldn't be a concern if you know yourself and the weight that you are handling well. The spotter helped me to stabilise myself alot, as I feel that I exert much less force.. I dont know. I don't really consider myself being able to do that fully yet. But I'll stop thinking about all that as I will only disappoint myself even further. Next, benchpress 50kg x5x5 was easy. Bench press so far, no problem, yeah it is getting harder, but I've been coping well. The second downcoming was pullups, I only did 1 set of 5 reps of 23kg. the 2nd and 3rd missed a rep, 4th set missed 2reps while the last one missed one rep even when I lowered the weight to 19kg.. resulted in overtraining. I should have stop at the 3rd set where I know I couldn't handle the next 2 instead of forcing myself. Overtraining is not good. Two things that I learnt in today gym session - Don't rely on spotters, and stop when you know you are fatigued.
Saturday (yesterday) was the Buangkok jam that I have been waiting for, as usual, time flies so fast, this day came quite fast. Was an amazing day, only didn't manage to nail the wallpass and the sdc2lp (which is actually really damn far, I shouldn't force myself to nail things..). Did feel the incredible progression in sideflips, should be aiming for higher and cleaner landings now. Only sucky thing about that day is that I bailed a sideflip trying to do it after an SDC and off a height, and landing on my tailbone on grass fortunately. Nailed a far precision and far armjump, so all's cool. Witnessing the progression and the wicked skills of the rest was damn sick, Derrick busting out a serious jizz-in-my-pants crane, and another huge crane from Fred and Jordan. Of course the usual slack with the clique on the Saturdays, awesomeness.
Sunday was full of slack, did not made myself practicing handstands or even stretching. Lol. Lazy CP.
Now overall.
Felt that I should work on my backflips alot now, because I really have lost the momemtum going on in the past, where I can feel the height and the landing, with the controlled landing and all. Same goes for my lache gainer which I totally lost the feel already because of a long draught of non-practice. Sucks to the core. I guess those flips must really require constant practice, at least abit everyday, until the point where they are instilled in your muscle memory and you know how to do it well, including the air awareness. Frontflips still really can't feel the point to untuck of various heights and so forth. Sideflips are getting good I'll start trying one legged ones. Feels that the variants of backflips will be taking much more longer then expected, argh. But I can't afford to lose patience, time is what I have, and shouldn't be too greedy in progression.
The pain from the bail of the sideflip, I'm still feeling it. To be honest before that I have a weird small lowerback pain recently and I don't know the cause of it, but hais, I hope nothing serious. Knees are being more impacted since the introduction of flips, and long saturday jams. Need to come back earlier on the saturday jams. Gosh I hate the impact coming out in flips, sucks to only have grass is the only tricking mat. No gym. And no indoor playground when it rains. Fucke.
And now week 5 is the deloading week, will be squating 80kg but only for 3 reps, so if I feel that I can do those relatively easily, I'd be satisfied enough and will consider myself being able to squat that weight for 5 reps. I'll take this as a sort of a break from strength training. Week 6 will start getting harder again, and I'll need to ready myself for week 8 and 9. And yeah since the weight is getting heavier, I should really listen to my body on whether or not I could handle the weights and of course keep the cleanest of form.
Will be editing the video in this few days, if the computer is for me to use and Vegas runs as planned, and if I got the time. I will be aiming for a different kind of video, not just an ordinary 'big-jam-so-lick-it' video and with a different mood of music. Recently found alot of new musics rocking on my speakers, mostly drum and bass :P. Anyway, you'll see the end product by Friday or so.. I'll try. There will be test on Thursday, and another test next week. Why can't we just get over and done with the tests.
March holidays is not very far from now and that would be perfect from a break from studies and a litlte more focus on flips which I really need work on at the mo. I should really stop impacting myself, stay away from concrete until the form on grass and mats are topnotch, and keep my training low impact. I shouldn't keep going for the big big impactful movements but focusing on landing the stuff I could already do with more smoothness and control, and doing them easily.
And why am I not practicing more on my handstands, don't I want to get them down by the end of this year? Sadded.
Will be blogging every Sunday.
Don't want to continue blogging anymore.
Later too long,
and it is getting late.
check out my deeenester blog on the weekdays though. lulz.
I'll go through my training day by day first.
Monday, was my 74kgx5x5 squats day, was damn tiring but I still managed to do 4 full sets of 5 and the 5th set, I missed one rep purposely because I don't wanna fatigue my body and also I hate forced reps. I am confident of handling that last rep though but just stop to be safe. Benchpress was still easy, 53kg benchpress 5reps, not too much of difficulty yet. Pullups was next, 25kg up on the line. Was super forced for the last rep, but it still counts, still abit disappointed with that.
One thing that happened that day was this two guys, using the Smith machine (lol lame bodybuilders), and while I was changing the weights on the dip belt I unintentionally blocked their way while he was bench pressing, so he not happy and screamed at me, while the other guy chipped in as well. Of course of my size and age I can't do anything to appease the situation so I had to just shut up and submit and mind my own business.. my mood was affected, tried not to think too much of it because I was still in the midst of my pullups sets. I guess the poor last rep was partly due to my ruined mood at that time. Oh well. I just wonder why people have to shout, cannot talk nicely, and act all so big, take advantage of people rather unreasonably. Ahhh, my mind was filled with those thoughts at the end of that day. But I guess we shouldn't like should stupid, worthless and small things get in our way.
Tuesday was raining the whole day, whole floor wet, so I thought I have to wait till the night and hoepfully the playground dry up so I can do some tricking. But sadly nothing dries up even up to the end of the night so about 8pm, I felt that I can't stay at home and do nothing, so I tried to made do with what I've got - train on concrete, backflips and aerial. Bad move. My backflips really sucked.. my form totally changes day to day, and especially when I don't do them for some days. Fuck, I don't know why. Sometimes it can be good, but sometimes my face can be so close to the ground and the landing is fucking loud and hard. Aerial still damn low, no height. Quite sad but that is how flips go, bad landings and all, ugly form and it will take damn long to smoothen things out. This training shows me how fucking strainful it is to the ankles, knees and back to take flips on concretes, this are way more impactful then drops and running pre and all those stuffs.. wow the landing is so loud and the impact you can really feel it. Flips are not meant for concrete. Bad idea.. my ankles and knees are gonna hate me.
Wednesday was a simple day in the gym, but before that while walking back home I went to castle abit for training to cover up yesterday nothingness, my wallpass seems to be improving well, though not good enough for the buangkok wall (should be close to though), and my sideflips are getting really good. I've got the hang of it and my frontflips are still there. Backflip are still kinda sloppy and they really need alot of work (my goal for this tuesday). In the gym I dead 73kgx5x5 deadlifts quite easily, but I must be paying more attention on my form because I don't wanna hurt my back. Military presses sucked, but I don't really care... and yeah, thats pretty much everything that went on that day.
Thursday was a rest day for me. Did nothing at all, just slacking and studying.
Friday was my 80kg squat day. I think I am capable of doing that but the fact that I used spotters made that unraw. Shouldn't use a spotter, but rather rely on myself on whether I can go for the next rep, and safety shouldn't be a concern if you know yourself and the weight that you are handling well. The spotter helped me to stabilise myself alot, as I feel that I exert much less force.. I dont know. I don't really consider myself being able to do that fully yet. But I'll stop thinking about all that as I will only disappoint myself even further. Next, benchpress 50kg x5x5 was easy. Bench press so far, no problem, yeah it is getting harder, but I've been coping well. The second downcoming was pullups, I only did 1 set of 5 reps of 23kg. the 2nd and 3rd missed a rep, 4th set missed 2reps while the last one missed one rep even when I lowered the weight to 19kg.. resulted in overtraining. I should have stop at the 3rd set where I know I couldn't handle the next 2 instead of forcing myself. Overtraining is not good. Two things that I learnt in today gym session - Don't rely on spotters, and stop when you know you are fatigued.
Saturday (yesterday) was the Buangkok jam that I have been waiting for, as usual, time flies so fast, this day came quite fast. Was an amazing day, only didn't manage to nail the wallpass and the sdc2lp (which is actually really damn far, I shouldn't force myself to nail things..). Did feel the incredible progression in sideflips, should be aiming for higher and cleaner landings now. Only sucky thing about that day is that I bailed a sideflip trying to do it after an SDC and off a height, and landing on my tailbone on grass fortunately. Nailed a far precision and far armjump, so all's cool. Witnessing the progression and the wicked skills of the rest was damn sick, Derrick busting out a serious jizz-in-my-pants crane, and another huge crane from Fred and Jordan. Of course the usual slack with the clique on the Saturdays, awesomeness.
Sunday was full of slack, did not made myself practicing handstands or even stretching. Lol. Lazy CP.
Now overall.
Felt that I should work on my backflips alot now, because I really have lost the momemtum going on in the past, where I can feel the height and the landing, with the controlled landing and all. Same goes for my lache gainer which I totally lost the feel already because of a long draught of non-practice. Sucks to the core. I guess those flips must really require constant practice, at least abit everyday, until the point where they are instilled in your muscle memory and you know how to do it well, including the air awareness. Frontflips still really can't feel the point to untuck of various heights and so forth. Sideflips are getting good I'll start trying one legged ones. Feels that the variants of backflips will be taking much more longer then expected, argh. But I can't afford to lose patience, time is what I have, and shouldn't be too greedy in progression.
The pain from the bail of the sideflip, I'm still feeling it. To be honest before that I have a weird small lowerback pain recently and I don't know the cause of it, but hais, I hope nothing serious. Knees are being more impacted since the introduction of flips, and long saturday jams. Need to come back earlier on the saturday jams. Gosh I hate the impact coming out in flips, sucks to only have grass is the only tricking mat. No gym. And no indoor playground when it rains. Fucke.
And now week 5 is the deloading week, will be squating 80kg but only for 3 reps, so if I feel that I can do those relatively easily, I'd be satisfied enough and will consider myself being able to squat that weight for 5 reps. I'll take this as a sort of a break from strength training. Week 6 will start getting harder again, and I'll need to ready myself for week 8 and 9. And yeah since the weight is getting heavier, I should really listen to my body on whether or not I could handle the weights and of course keep the cleanest of form.
Will be editing the video in this few days, if the computer is for me to use and Vegas runs as planned, and if I got the time. I will be aiming for a different kind of video, not just an ordinary 'big-jam-so-lick-it' video and with a different mood of music. Recently found alot of new musics rocking on my speakers, mostly drum and bass :P. Anyway, you'll see the end product by Friday or so.. I'll try. There will be test on Thursday, and another test next week. Why can't we just get over and done with the tests.
March holidays is not very far from now and that would be perfect from a break from studies and a litlte more focus on flips which I really need work on at the mo. I should really stop impacting myself, stay away from concrete until the form on grass and mats are topnotch, and keep my training low impact. I shouldn't keep going for the big big impactful movements but focusing on landing the stuff I could already do with more smoothness and control, and doing them easily.
And why am I not practicing more on my handstands, don't I want to get them down by the end of this year? Sadded.
Will be blogging every Sunday.
Don't want to continue blogging anymore.
Later too long,
and it is getting late.
check out my deeenester blog on the weekdays though. lulz.
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