I've done a few updates to my Blog and trainings so I thought Id post a little something. First the Blog. I've done a few little things and felt it came out well, the header (which took me AGES) I really like, so yea, all in all I happy with this and will stick with it.
Trainings are going really well, progressing allot, mainly with precisions (rail precisions being the focus) they have always been lacking in my training but I'm quite happy with the distance and balance I have achieved with them thus far. I will also be working on a little winter trainings video in the weeks to come, mainly to show both progression and a few training spots that might not be there for to long (scaffolding etc). I will start work on it this week and will hopefully have it finished in 3 - 4 weeks. fingers crossed.
Anyway that is how things are going, I hope your all well and wish you the best with what you do.
Take care
-Rowan
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Harder, Faster, Stronger
Well, so much for once a week. In fact I haven't posted for quite some time. Apart from not really having time, I kind of thought once a week posts would be pointless and boring. So I've been a bit quiet but that doesn't mean I haven't been training hard!
Anyway, I feel my training is lacking structure, and I really want to improve my overall strength and speed, but I don't think I will be able to achieve this if I keep training the way I am. So in light of that, I've set myself some weekly training goals and drawn up a little conditioning session. I've also set myself some mid to long term goals (not only strength but technique and balance as well), these are:
Anyway, I feel my training is lacking structure, and I really want to improve my overall strength and speed, but I don't think I will be able to achieve this if I keep training the way I am. So in light of that, I've set myself some weekly training goals and drawn up a little conditioning session. I've also set myself some mid to long term goals (not only strength but technique and balance as well), these are:
- Quick fast and effortless climb ups
- One armed chin ups (at this stage one on each arm)
- good double arm muscle ups
- Improved handstands
I also aim to meet these goals in my training once week:
2km run (my long distance running is shocking, so I'm starting small) this includes both up hill and downhill)
And one day a week I aim to complete this conditioning session:
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Anyway this it for now, I hope all is well.
Peace
2km run (my long distance running is shocking, so I'm starting small) this includes both up hill and downhill)
And one day a week I aim to complete this conditioning session:
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Warm-up
- dynamic stretches
Techniques Conditioning
- 40 lazy vaults (10 each side, each take off foot)
- 40 speed vaults (10 each side, each take off foot)
- 40 cat passes (20 each take off foot)
- 50 rolls (25 each side) (5 pulls ups & 5 dips )
- 100 precisions
- 40 arm jumps + climbup
- 40 turn vaults (20 each side)
- 600 m balance
- 150 m cat balance
Strength Conditioning
Core
- quadrupedal walking down hill backwards
- quadrupedal walking up hill forwards
- quadrupedal walking down hill forwards
- quadrupedal walking up hill backwards
- quadrupedal walking down pushup style
Lower + Upper Body
- 20 dips
(up 3 down 2)
- 40 situps
- 20 pushups
left foot only (up 2 down 1)
- 20 leg raise sets
- 20 diamonds at bottom
(up 2 down 1)
- 20 crunches at top
- 20 double width pushups at bottom
-1min, 30sec wall sit
Warm-down
- static stretching
I'm not sure how I will go with both the running and conditioning session, whether I will find them easy or hard, however I will try it for two weeks and update accordingly. On top of that I will continue my day to day training, each day focusing on a different aspect of my training. However this is only during the week, on the weekends I aim to do as much Parkour as possible!
Apart from all of that training on a whole has been going great for me! I've had a few trips down to Sydney and I've conquered allot of mental and physical barriers. I'm sorry though I don't really have any photo or video footage but something will be coming in the near future. You may also notice a few changes to my blog. They will continue. unfortunately I seem to have lost my old layout so I will be doing some updating for a while until I get something I like.
Anyway this it for now, I hope all is well.
Peace
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Progression!
Just a post to say that I've gotten right back into training. I'm training well and I'm happy with my progression and movement. I've also decided to start putting some actual training plans and aspects of my progression into my blog, not everyday but at least once a week.
When I went out training today I didn't think I would progress much as I was going to train lightly because the last few days I had been training and conditioning quite hard. Turns out I actually progressed allot.
I'm still trying to get no swinging leg muscle ups. I'm not quite there yet but I feel I will be soon, My OAC progression is coming along as well. Technical training turned out to be in the night time and this was new to me as I have never properly trained in darkness before. At first this was a bit daunting as the moon was covered by cloud but after a while I got the general feel and learnt to rely more on touch then on sight in my training. This worked well as I made allot of improvement with tree work and managed to walk about 100m on a rail relying entirely on touch as it was completely dark!
As this was a light train I cant really list strength and conditioning reps, It was more just technical stuff. In future I will lay these out more formally but as for today this will have to do.
I hope training is going well for all of you and take care!
When I went out training today I didn't think I would progress much as I was going to train lightly because the last few days I had been training and conditioning quite hard. Turns out I actually progressed allot.
I'm still trying to get no swinging leg muscle ups. I'm not quite there yet but I feel I will be soon, My OAC progression is coming along as well. Technical training turned out to be in the night time and this was new to me as I have never properly trained in darkness before. At first this was a bit daunting as the moon was covered by cloud but after a while I got the general feel and learnt to rely more on touch then on sight in my training. This worked well as I made allot of improvement with tree work and managed to walk about 100m on a rail relying entirely on touch as it was completely dark!
As this was a light train I cant really list strength and conditioning reps, It was more just technical stuff. In future I will lay these out more formally but as for today this will have to do.
I hope training is going well for all of you and take care!
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Happiness
Yet again I've gone some time without posting, I keep saying that Ill post more but I never do. Never the less I'm writing this because I kinda want to get it off my chest.
I'm not sure where I stand in Parkour or my movement. Recently I've been training quite hard, very hard in fact. As a result of this I have sustained quite a few injuries. I won't go into them and none are too serious however they have all kinda bunched up on themselves leaving me not 100%. Because of these injuries (and I think also from over training) I've decided to rest. I'm not sure how long for, may be a few days, may be a week. But I've decided just to listen to my body and continue training when I feel like it.
Through this period in my journey I've taught allot about how I move. When I first started Parkour (and now I'm sure all of you can relate) it had a certain feel to it. I think its because we were discovering something new. Never before have we been exposed to this way of moving. As time progresses we get exposed to more of this movement, it becomes common to us (not exactly second nature) but we know how it feels to move like this, we become accustomed to it. We also experience different forms of this movement and are exposed to a wider variety. From Blane, to Daniel Ilabaca and 3run, to Brad Moss. All these forms are different but somehow the same to what we are used to. In a constant search to regain the feeling we first had at the start of our journey we explore these ways of moving. We experiment with flips and different movements and somewhere along the way we "loose" the bases of where we started.
Now I'm not writing this to annoy or prod and I'm definitely not saying that we should not experiment with different movements. Were all different, we all come from different backgrounds and all have different interests. All I'm saying is that we should move how we want to move. Now I know that sounds stupid and that right now you're saying "well why would we move like this if its not what we want to do?" But I ask you. How many people wanted to learn flips and tricks because they saw it in a Daniel Ilabaca video?
I know that for me my training goes in stages (not good and bad training) But training where I focus on Parkour and then decide to try a few flips. Now I must say that cannot flip in anyway. I blame it on the fact that I haven't been to a gym to try them, but I think the real fact is deep down I just don't want to do them. The point in time of my training where I try to get flips and tricks feels very different to my training periods where I focus on Parkour. In these periods I end up hurting myself, causing unnecessary injuries and all the time not getting the same enjoyment as I do out of Parkour. Now this is purely a personal experience and one that may (and probably will) change in time and I'm only writing this because it might help some of those who might be in the same predicament as me.
Ive just read over what I wrote and feel that I might have come across in the wrong way. Its hard to put the feelings in our head into words and even harder to try and get the right point across on the internet. I would just like to say that through posting this in no way do I mean to say don't experiment with movement. All I'm saying is that we should do what makes us happy. In every way we should push and break the boundaries but in no way should we reach a point where doing what we love makes us feel un-happy
Now I want to end this on a progressive note so I'm going to post some recent training pictures, but remember train safe, train hard but most importantly train what makes you happy.
I'm not sure where I stand in Parkour or my movement. Recently I've been training quite hard, very hard in fact. As a result of this I have sustained quite a few injuries. I won't go into them and none are too serious however they have all kinda bunched up on themselves leaving me not 100%. Because of these injuries (and I think also from over training) I've decided to rest. I'm not sure how long for, may be a few days, may be a week. But I've decided just to listen to my body and continue training when I feel like it.
Through this period in my journey I've taught allot about how I move. When I first started Parkour (and now I'm sure all of you can relate) it had a certain feel to it. I think its because we were discovering something new. Never before have we been exposed to this way of moving. As time progresses we get exposed to more of this movement, it becomes common to us (not exactly second nature) but we know how it feels to move like this, we become accustomed to it. We also experience different forms of this movement and are exposed to a wider variety. From Blane, to Daniel Ilabaca and 3run, to Brad Moss. All these forms are different but somehow the same to what we are used to. In a constant search to regain the feeling we first had at the start of our journey we explore these ways of moving. We experiment with flips and different movements and somewhere along the way we "loose" the bases of where we started.
Now I'm not writing this to annoy or prod and I'm definitely not saying that we should not experiment with different movements. Were all different, we all come from different backgrounds and all have different interests. All I'm saying is that we should move how we want to move. Now I know that sounds stupid and that right now you're saying "well why would we move like this if its not what we want to do?" But I ask you. How many people wanted to learn flips and tricks because they saw it in a Daniel Ilabaca video?
Just a little edit. I think most of us wanted to learn flips and tucks because they saw them In a Daniel Ilabaca video (I certainly did) Daniel Ilabaca and his movement is a huge inspiration to me, I have met him once and hope to meet him again in the future. His philosophy on Parkour and movement is very deep and meaningful and one I try in every way to follow in my training and I think saying what I just said was wrong, but its the only way that I can think of ending that so Ill just leave it.
I know that for me my training goes in stages (not good and bad training) But training where I focus on Parkour and then decide to try a few flips. Now I must say that cannot flip in anyway. I blame it on the fact that I haven't been to a gym to try them, but I think the real fact is deep down I just don't want to do them. The point in time of my training where I try to get flips and tricks feels very different to my training periods where I focus on Parkour. In these periods I end up hurting myself, causing unnecessary injuries and all the time not getting the same enjoyment as I do out of Parkour. Now this is purely a personal experience and one that may (and probably will) change in time and I'm only writing this because it might help some of those who might be in the same predicament as me.
Ive just read over what I wrote and feel that I might have come across in the wrong way. Its hard to put the feelings in our head into words and even harder to try and get the right point across on the internet. I would just like to say that through posting this in no way do I mean to say don't experiment with movement. All I'm saying is that we should do what makes us happy. In every way we should push and break the boundaries but in no way should we reach a point where doing what we love makes us feel un-happy
Now I want to end this on a progressive note so I'm going to post some recent training pictures, but remember train safe, train hard but most importantly train what makes you happy.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Collection of thoughts
I haven't posted for a while, and to those of you who actually read this I'm sorry. Allot has been happening lately and I couldn't find the time to post.
Both my last two posts ended abruptly and I've had allot of time to think about them. If there's one thing I learnt from when Daniel was here it is to live every moment and express my movement through myself and visa versa. If you read my post "moving in our own way" you will know how I feel about expressive and "free" movement and I've come to realise that this is probably the most important thing in Parkour. If we learn to listen to our body and mind in movement then we improve in flow, timing and technique without really trying to (Max output with min effort). I have been trying to do this in my training. Take a catpass for example. If we just do the movement thinking about hand placement, foot placement, whatever then we will only get so far. However if you listen to your body, feel the movement and move instinctively to what comes before then you begin to realise how much you're improving.
We also need to learn to do this when we are trying new things. I don't mean that you attack your environment doing everything that comes to mind without thinking. Quite the opposite we need to analyse, assess our environment, but not too much. There comes a time when we just have to move. I don't want to dwell on this but I encourage you all to read this
Anyway this form of flow and movement was something that I dont feel was expressed in Summer trainings. Dont get me wrong at the time I was trying to improve flow (no where near as much as I am now, but I was still trying to) But when I was filming I was concentrating on the filming rather then my movement and haveing fun. There was one day where I was wanting to film about 70% of what actually came to be in the video (ended up being about 30%) Before I went out "training" and I say training like that cause at the end of the day the last thing I ended up doing was actually train. Anyway before I went out I had all these ideas in my head of what I wanted to do. I had been to the area a few times before but not for a long time. Now As many of you may know the way we see obstacles and movements in the area where thinking about in our head never turns out to be how they really are. That jump is always a little bit further away or that wall a little bit higher. I went to the area and found out that I could do only about 5% of the things that I was thinking.
Now if I was really training I would look on this as a good thing. Try and get a few things that I had in my head. but because I was focusing on trying to film everything this never happened. I never really trained and at the end of the day I went home angry with myself and felt that I didnt improve and that I never would.
This is something that I never want to experience again. Parkour should be fun. It dosent matter that you dont get that wall. Infact its a good thing! its something to improve on and something to focus on next time. But because I was so focused on getting film all of these thaughts were replaced with anger and disappointment.
Avoiding this experience might mean that I wont film. Or at least take a different approach to it but I guess im just going to have to figure that out for myself.
This entry was ment to be focused more on movement rather then film (cause I find movement much more important) but turned out to be the later. Anyway, ultimately I want you to, next time you train think about your movement and live the moment. Also if your reading this please comment, even if its just a "hi" I want to get a rough idea on who I'm talking to. Take care.
Both my last two posts ended abruptly and I've had allot of time to think about them. If there's one thing I learnt from when Daniel was here it is to live every moment and express my movement through myself and visa versa. If you read my post "moving in our own way" you will know how I feel about expressive and "free" movement and I've come to realise that this is probably the most important thing in Parkour. If we learn to listen to our body and mind in movement then we improve in flow, timing and technique without really trying to (Max output with min effort). I have been trying to do this in my training. Take a catpass for example. If we just do the movement thinking about hand placement, foot placement, whatever then we will only get so far. However if you listen to your body, feel the movement and move instinctively to what comes before then you begin to realise how much you're improving.
We also need to learn to do this when we are trying new things. I don't mean that you attack your environment doing everything that comes to mind without thinking. Quite the opposite we need to analyse, assess our environment, but not too much. There comes a time when we just have to move. I don't want to dwell on this but I encourage you all to read this
Anyway this form of flow and movement was something that I dont feel was expressed in Summer trainings. Dont get me wrong at the time I was trying to improve flow (no where near as much as I am now, but I was still trying to) But when I was filming I was concentrating on the filming rather then my movement and haveing fun. There was one day where I was wanting to film about 70% of what actually came to be in the video (ended up being about 30%) Before I went out "training" and I say training like that cause at the end of the day the last thing I ended up doing was actually train. Anyway before I went out I had all these ideas in my head of what I wanted to do. I had been to the area a few times before but not for a long time. Now As many of you may know the way we see obstacles and movements in the area where thinking about in our head never turns out to be how they really are. That jump is always a little bit further away or that wall a little bit higher. I went to the area and found out that I could do only about 5% of the things that I was thinking.
Now if I was really training I would look on this as a good thing. Try and get a few things that I had in my head. but because I was focusing on trying to film everything this never happened. I never really trained and at the end of the day I went home angry with myself and felt that I didnt improve and that I never would.
This is something that I never want to experience again. Parkour should be fun. It dosent matter that you dont get that wall. Infact its a good thing! its something to improve on and something to focus on next time. But because I was so focused on getting film all of these thaughts were replaced with anger and disappointment.
Avoiding this experience might mean that I wont film. Or at least take a different approach to it but I guess im just going to have to figure that out for myself.
This entry was ment to be focused more on movement rather then film (cause I find movement much more important) but turned out to be the later. Anyway, ultimately I want you to, next time you train think about your movement and live the moment. Also if your reading this please comment, even if its just a "hi" I want to get a rough idea on who I'm talking to. Take care.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
New accomplishment
I took some time out today to post because today I accomplished my highest wall scale ever!
Wall scales are probably the weakest aspect in my training because I really only get to practice them about once a week due to the fact that there are no suitable walls in my local area. Anyway I've been trying to get this wall for about four weeks now, and thanks to allot of strength and conditioning training, I finally accomplished my goal. I did get some film of it but I decided to wait till tomorrow to put it up as tomorrow I will be uploading a few training clips so ill put it in there.
However I will post a picture of it just so you can get the relevant height. Anyway that's it for now. Enjoy training!
Wall scales are probably the weakest aspect in my training because I really only get to practice them about once a week due to the fact that there are no suitable walls in my local area. Anyway I've been trying to get this wall for about four weeks now, and thanks to allot of strength and conditioning training, I finally accomplished my goal. I did get some film of it but I decided to wait till tomorrow to put it up as tomorrow I will be uploading a few training clips so ill put it in there.
However I will post a picture of it just so you can get the relevant height. Anyway that's it for now. Enjoy training!
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