End of October, start of November

End of October, start of November have hosted some great jams, started me off with my winter conditioning and even though the weather has been awful I have still managed to push myself in terms of my parkour.

A few things worth talking about are when we met with Sam, Addz and the Colchester guys in Ipswich, Alex's birthday jam, when Luke, Glen, Asa and a few others came down from Cambridge way to come train in Ipswich and finally when me and Alex did our first major conditioning session of the winter last week, based on Blane's hell night. I will post a blog entry up about this soon.

If you find yourself wondering what hell night is then follow this link where all this will become clear.

http://blane-parkour.blogspot.com/2006/11/hell-night.html

First just a quick mention of the training with Sam and Addz. We trained all day and only met with Sam and Addz for a little while but the training I did with them really did affect me. Sam in particular has a large focus on form and control which I can see has really helped his movement. Training with people with this focus helps me train and also feels really great. They both seem like really great guys and I hope that we will train with them again soon.

Alex's first birthday jam was great fun and we had a good laugh training in Ipswich as per usual. I was really happy with a couple of things. One, a arm jump near the end of the day, to many this won't look like much but my experience of cat leaps is very limited due to my lack of practise I have always found them difficult. Sorry about the video not being the greatest due to a large bush being in the way but its the best I have:

The second was a little run I got after achieving a quite challenging cat pass to p or, as others may know it, a Kong precision. The movement was particularly challenging because it is a vault over a wall to another thin wall which is lower than the floor of the run up. I'll post the video up below so you can have a look. There is obviously still room for improvement with both moves but the second is one of those things that I have wanted to get achieve for quite a while and never been able to build up the trust in myself to do it.

Unfortunately after becoming a little bit more confident with this particular movement I lost focus for a slight moment and this caused me to come close to my worst accident yet. The video, edited by Alex, is below and the only thing serious I have to say about it is that I am glad I have been able to learn my lesson without coming out with anything worse than a couple of sore knees and a little bit of a shock.

Overall it was a great day training and I was particularly impressed with the commitment shown by Lenny to get the train into Ipswich numerous times in the last few weeks to train with us. What has impressed me most is his attitude towards training, he has a unhealthy like for tricking but his training still has the right amount of focus on control, trust, form, ability, discipline and movement. Thought he deserved a big mention because he was out to train this day at 11, as soon as we were available to train, whereas the people he usually trains with didn't turn up until past lunch time due to oversleeping and such like.

Finally I want to give a quick mention to the day that Asa, Glen and Luke came down from Beecles, Cambridge and Bury to train. Even though it wasn't the best day training ever I feel i should say a little about it. This was the first time we had met with Asa and Glen and it is great to meet with new, enthusiastic people. We tried to show them as much as we could but due to the rain this was quite difficult. We did, however, have a very successful trip to the wonderful land of Primark and its £2.50 jogging bottoms.
On a slightly more serious note we got some good training in at suffolk college. We explored the scaffolding a little more and also did some work on general movement when using rooves. The rain did stop us doing some things I would have like to have tried but I'm sure there will be other times and I hope that Asa, Glen and Luke will all come back and train again soon.

So overall October ended well and November looks like its going to be a good month. I am still busy with college work and now with the addition of 2 new jobs am finding it hard dedicate as much time to training as I'd like to but conditioning is a must over the winter if I hope to continue to improve my movement and training. I am really looking forward the month ahead and am still really enjoying parkour. I just hope that the weather allows us to travel a little before the year's up.

Somersault Progression 2 - 11/10/08

Somersaults. Recently I have seen a big improvement in my somersaults so I thought it was probably time to do another progression blog entry. The last one being back at the start of the blog. Anyway here's a few videos of mainly back somersaults. Still haven't got my wall flip outside but maybe one day.

Recently I have been able to get back tucks outside and they have been improving since i first got them about a month ago now. I need to work now on lifting up more and relying less on rotation to get me landing on my feet.
anyways here's one from today:

As well as improving my back tuck I've also been working on my back somersaults and in Ipswich one sunny Saturday i managed to get this filmed. I am really happy with this and hope i can keep them the same :S The points that i want to keep the same on my back somersaults are the height of the jump, the rotation at the top of the jump and the coming down straight allowing me to spot the landing.

Finally my latest achievement. Cartwheel roundoff back tucks have always confused me for 2 main reasons really. 1. i'm crap at cartwheel roundoffs and 2. I never knew how to get the spring out of the roundoff.
Nothing has changed really. I plucked up the courage to do one and basically i have thrown my body over but I will keep working on them and hopefully I will be able to improve.
I think theses are one of those things that you have to do really shitty to start with and then improve them and improve them to make them better. Heres my second attempt, a slight improvement on the first.

Hope you liked the videos.
Ross

No posts in September!

Sorry fort he lack of postings but to be honest there has not been much training or improvement due to a tidal wave of work from 6th form. Ow and no one reads this blog so its ok.

2 things worth metioning are the Jam we had in ipswich last week and my partial success with muscle ups.

We planned to meet 3 guys from colchester in ipswich last sunday. We had some problems with communication but we mannaged to find them eventurly after me and alex did some quality training my ourselves. So we met with the 4, not 3 as origanlly planned and headed off up to some areas to train. There we met 3 guys who we had trained with very breiflt before in ipswich.

It was nice to train with everyone again and we trained minly at suffolk college. it was great to see how other people were using the area to practise there parkour.



On to muscle ups. My parallel muscle ups came really suddenly and i dunno how i got them but i managed 3 on the first day of getting them. since i have done a few but never really felt confident that i can do a parrallel muscle up everytime. so with some conditioning and practise hopefully i will have them down.

Anyway. as i say its not been a great month for training but what i have done seems to be going well so hopefully i can do more this month.

Last Day of Summer

As Summer draws to a close I find myself thinking about winter and how I can continue to improve as the weather turns against me. But before that I want to reflect on summer. At present I feel quite happy with how the summer has been and quite optimistic about the winter. I also think the targets I set myself were a little bit more than i could have achieved. It seems I am no nearer to a muscle up, haven't improved greatly at climb ups for the last 3 weeks but the first 3 weeks of the hols saw a improvement, and my kick up to handstands are, at best ,half of what I wanted, but even though I still feel quite happy with my progress. Although I can't see the improvements, have been conditioning and have been sore afterwards so I must be getting somewhere.

The biggest recent improvement I have seen in myself is in precisions. During resent trips to Ipswich I have found myself finding the confidence to do wall precisions further than I have before and rail precisions nearly covering the same distance as the wall precisions i was achieving at the start of the summer.

This is, I think, because of 2 main reasons:
1. Having more strength in my legs and Quads in specific. Conditioning my quads and training harder when training generally has improved the control i have in precisions as well as greatly improving the kick I feel from the wall/rail when I take off.
2. Technique. I have really thought about technique of precision. Not only the landing and sticking the landing but the take off. Flicking the toes, exerting with the quads and taking off at the right angle have all improved the distance and quality of my precisions.

Heres a short video of a rail precision i filmed today. This in my opinion has the best form of any rail precisoin i have done recently and is further than i have ever done before.

I have been really strict recently with flexibility and made sure I stretch really thoroughly before and after every physical activity. I CAN TOUCH MY TOES! and not only that my palms on the floor with straight legs. I didn't expect to see such an improvement and i have so that's something to definitly keep up.

When looking at people I admire in the disapline such as Teige, Joe, Philip, Guy and Anton I can now see how they have achieved so much and I can see that I am on the way to reaching a better level of physical and mental strength. Winter gives me an opertunity to focus on improving strength through conditioning and this should reward me when I come to train again properly early next year. So the plan is to train as hard as I can through winter and then see what happens next year.

A day in Cambridge with the Stockleys

Our first trip to cambridge of the summer and although the weather was disappointing the effort I saw in Alex and Steve and the movement that we achieved was far from it. Because of the Rain we focused on going to alot of spots to have a little look and find our way round instead of training very very intensly. The famous places we visited in order were: Lions yard, Kings st, Zoology, Earth Science, Tennis Court Road, Back of Lions Yard and Finally Shire hall.



Great to see so much more potential in cambridge and it is easy to see why the traceurs that live in Cambridge are a step above most.
Even though the rain limited us alex and me managed a hefty upwards precision and I managed to get the lion yard kong precision/cat pass to p before the rain got really bad and when it died off a bit.

Hopefully we will be able to get back to Cambridge very soon to train hard on some of the great places it has to offer.
I'm looking forward to trying some of the king st. kong cats and training some more technical stuff at tenis court road.
Hopefully we can film some stuff for a video at the end of the summer.

Setting the standard in Ipswich

Start of the summer and we have set the bar. Me, Alex and Steve made a video in Ipswich at the start of the 6 weeks of holidays which shows our standard in a good way. On youtube we have had a good responce so thats encouraging but hopefully we wll improve on that.

6 Weeks of Fun... Here I come!

The Summer Holidays have officially started and so has my 6 week training programme. The logic is that I wont be wasting the time doing nothing useful, I will be conditioning, jogging, handbalancing and stretching to improve form and flexibilty. Hopefully I will be able to see a big improvement by the end of the 6 weeks and by overall performance will have improved or will have alot more potential to improve.

Targets for the end of the holidays are:

• Muscle up!
• Big improvement in Climb ups
• Confidence in precisions
• 30 second kick up to handstand
• Some kind of push up to handstand
• A noticable improvement in parkour due to flexibility
• A successful trip to cambridge with Alex!
  

The holdays wont be all work though because I should be going to Lisse in a week and will definatly be putting everything into going to Ipswich each week and going to Cambridge a couple of times over the 6 week period. Capel is too small now and quite limiting. Its driving me insane. Going to Cambridge and seeing Jin and Phil train has really inspired me and made me realise that how they got so good is not only from having open minds and working hard but also by having an amazing place to train regularly.

Tommorrow sees the end to the 8 weeks of Gym sessions which was worth every penny of £35. It has shown me a great deal in terms of conditioning and gaining confidence in form and progression. I am definatly going to make a video of what I have achieved by atending the gym and training with a coach for 6 weeks and will put it up soon!

Cambridge Joy

Lukes birthday Jam was good fun. Cambridge is Incredible and meeting up with everyone was good too. I didn't feel up to much but I will have to go back with Alex and hit the spots again.

Heres a video posted up on youtube by ant1pk which was mainly filmed on the day. I'm sure he wont mind me promoting it on here. It just shows the sort of spots in cambridge and why it is so great. Plus Anton has got great form and is definatly someone to look up to.



Summer Holidays soon!

Injury Time

Basically, I have stopped training and am going to continue not to train so intensely until the summer holidays for 2 main reasons: 1. I have hurt the bridge of my foot and trying to improve will just make it worse. And 2. I have so much work at the moment. a break in parkour will give me a chance to get on top of it all and who knows i might even find a job. Plus because i havn't been able to put my all into it resently what ever I have done hasn't been so good and I am not feeling so good about my parkour at the moment.

Of course this is all with the exception of Luke's Birthday Jam in Cambridge next Sunday. Will be awesome!!! I hope Alex can come.

Sideflip...

The sideflip has the type of rotation i find the hardest; side rotation. Jumping up, while forwards, while side on, and then pulling your leg in, yet out with your arms, which are pulled by your sholders, giving the rotation which is kept by the looking at the floor by the eyes, in the head which is rotating and staring right at the ground which your whole bodywieght is above it spinning at about 100 mph, and then you have to find the time to put you legs out 1 by 1 and land smoothly.
Can you see why I find it hard?

On a serious note, me and Luwen were working on sideflips at the gym last night and i saw a big improvement in luwen and felt a massive improvement in myself. We were trying to get them through explanation and then our coach; Torian did one and it clicked for me. Before this I had been slinging myself into the foam pit and then teaching from Andy and a demonstration from Tourian saw me getting better and better. Just shows Practise does make perfect (if you know what your aiming for). I managed to land about 2 with good technique onto mats and tryed a couple on the floor.

Heres some of the first attempts into the foam pit. Don't expect much!

Building Strength

To improve form and therefore technique I am going to have to build strength through conditioning. I wish I had started at the start of autumn but I have only jut really just how important it is if i really want to improve.

The 3 main parts I want to improve on are:

• Legs (mainly Quadrecepts) For controll in precisions and general explosive leg power.
• Core (Abs and Back Muscles) For Controll of all movement and to hold form and improve general strength
• Upper Body (Biceps, Triceps, Lats and Pectorials) For improving climb ups, cat leaps and general movement ability.

"For more controlled movement we need better strength"
I've realised that Parkour is movement and for more controlled movement we need better strength so conditioning is a key part of parkour. I have also been suprised by the mental benifits. Obviously I will continue to try to improve handbalancing and hopefully my conditioning will help my hand balancing and my handbalancing add to my conditioning.

Somersault progression: June 24th

Basically this post is to mark my progression of flips in general at the end of June. This includes work at the gymnastics centre where me, Alex and Luwin go every monday to practise and to be advised on technique, and stuff i have been doing in regular training.

Today i managed my first back somersault outside showing me that the going to the gym every week is helping. I've been landing them comfortably at the gym for about a month and today i managed to land smoothly off a few different things. I got 1 or 2 on video so here it is...

I think what i need to improve is the reach up with my arms and the tuck. I am holding back with these because its my first few attempts. I would like to work towards getting a back tuck (back somersault on the floor) but for this i need to have exactly correct technique. I havn't quite plucked up the corrage to attempt them at the gym but have manages to try back somersualting off a springboard onto a mat of the same hieght:





The most resent thing i have been learning at the gym is wall flips so maybe we will see some of them outside in the future. Only time will tell...

Heres how they are going at the gym so far: (2 sessions work)

Rotation is a big issue at the moment as i have huges amounts of hieght but i am not landing fully upright. I am very happy with my progression so far though, because I have spent a very limited amount of time working on the technique wall flips as quite a large percentage of the time i have spent on them so far has been working up the full wall flip. I still find them very scary so I think it will be along time until I am racking up the corrage to try one on a concrete wall outside.

Thanks to Alex and Steve for filming :D

What I'm About

Ok. My names Ross Garwood and I have been doing Parkour for about a year and taken it seriously for about 6 months now. I like to look at how i move and work on things like form and strength to improve my ability. I train regulaly and I am now trying to shape my life to improve at my disapline. I try to go running once a week, condition regularly, go to the gym at least once a week and practise parkour as much as possible. Unfortunatly the weather and my massive amout of work from 6th form doesn't always help me to do this. Yeah so i thought i'd write a blog for me to see my progression and also to put all my work together in a sorta diary format.
So here goes...