Recently, through talking and training with various traceurs, I have noticed many different ways in which people prepare their minds just before doing particularly challenging movements. This is not to say I haven’t observed these ways before, however recently I have been able to really connect and understand people’s mentalities. Understanding this has then enabled me to apply the mindset and techniques used, and so effectively prepare myself for doing movements.
For many people, a lot of things are physically possible; however, it is natural instinct to not do anything classed as “scary”. This limits progression, and the only way to progress forward is by working your way through the mental barriers. For different people, different things are scarier, and it is only through training that you come to ignore the irrational fears. It doesn’t mean to say that everything you do is “safe”, but there are many ways which I have discovered through training to make things safer – most importantly, committing fully to the movement, having body control so you can react quickly, and knowing how to save yourself from injury – or in some cases, particularly in Sydney, getting wet!
Through talking to Antek, Sammy, Wiseno and others in the Sydney Parkour community, aswell as Frazer and Kenan down in Adelaide, I have been able to really see how they prepare themselves, and how they push through the block associated with going beyond your mental limits. Rather than force it aside, they work with it, and have fun with it. Techniques they use, in varying ways, can be put into 3 distinct categories; breathing, focusing, and relaxing.
Most importantly is breathing – as it contributes greatly to the other 2 aspects. By taking slow, controlled breaths, focusing on the movement becomes a lot easier – everything else gets blocked out. It also makes sure that you aren’t over analysing something – as this creates irrational fears. Trusting in yourself, and knowing you can do something is part of focus. Breathing also helps relaxation, ensuring you are not tensed and worked up, or running on adrenaline before a movement – this is how injuries can occur.
Something that stems from this is just trusting your body and “letting go”. Having fun whilst training, enjoying it, and rather than over-thinking, just doing movements is key to progression. A lot of people know that just before doing a movement, there is nothing in their minds – and this aids in just doing the movement, letting it be natural and unforced. Rather than thinking about the run-up, or the takeoff, or the landing, and just doing it instinctually is very important – however this “instinct” can only be brought about through training and gradually building up trust in yourself.
By taking these techniques, and applying them in a way that works for you, they will help in overcoming a mental block; and you will be able to work at the peak of your physical capabilities, rather than being limited by your mental side.
On with part 2! I’ll try and keep this one a bit briefer.
APA Classes and Instructing
Since before NatSoc, I have been instructing at the APA classes in Sydney – along with other members of the scene. We do this voluntarily each Sunday, and before the class we run “instructor training”; basically to enhance our teaching skills and become more of an effective teaching unit. This has been going really well, and each week the instructor training and responsibilites for the classes (such as signing in and handing out wristbands) are lead by one person. I have been fortunate to run one, and I admit it was hard – following on from the previous week’s great session led by Sammy, in which we worked on using our diaphragm to speak clearly, and focussing our minds so we were on the same wavelength. I had a fair bit planned, however I had to abandon this and improvise, as the weather restricted some things. Nevertheless, at the end of the session, everyone said how good it had been, and well done on adapting it – I was very thankful and pleased.
The classes and their teaching standards have been improving steadily over the past year, and by the end of this year we have some very competent instructors. Classes have been increasing in their size, which brings about some difficult issues regarding planning; however we have all coped very well.
To top off a great year, we decided to host a free BBQ at the end of the last class – to further enhance the community spirit and enable people from the class to interact with each other and organise training over the summer.
This went really well, credit goes to Kenny and his sister for pretty much everything – also Richard and Raf for planning and bringing some stuff.
This photo was taken by Milton “Millz” Lai (a very talented photographer in our scene) at the BBQ:
Soon after NatSoc, Marcel and myself had a training session around Richmond and Windsor, and filmed some stuff from the latter. Here’s the edit that was produced:
Sydney Training
Shortly before, and after, NatSoc, training in Sydney for me has improved heaps – increased confidence and technique has contributed to this. The nature of everyone is great and makes for a productive training session, week-in, week-out.
I haven’t filmed in Sydney much, but I made a very short video a while ago with some recent progression things at my park:
Handstands
Antek and myself encouraged each other to get tuck planche to handstands before NatSoc – we acheived this through regular strength training for it, and we texted each other on our improvements to spur the other on. This is a tuck planche to handstand from a little while ago:
Camp out with Chris, Antek, BoD, Eliot and Larking
To farewell my good friend Eliot, who has just left for a year’s exchange to Venezuela, I invited him up from Canberra to train at my house and in Sydney. With him he brought Larkin, and Antek and Richard from Sydney also came; Chris from Canberra arrived the day after they came.
We camped out in my garden, and apart from the first night of rain (Larkin’s tent leaked!) the weather was great and we all had a great time. We visited Penrith, Sydney and my park, as well as having a swim in the Grose river. On the Sunday we travelled to Sydney, and went to the class and BBQ, and from there everyone went home. It was sad to see Eliot leave, but we will catch up when he’s back. Larkin is joining the army, and will be stationed up near me, which is good.
A photo of us hanging at my park:
The Entrance Training Session
The summer holidays arrived, and such was the arrival of much training. The first big session was held up in The Entrance, kindly hosted by Simon and Dan. I travelled up with Chris, Antek and Richard in the car, and arrived in record time, despite Antek getting car sickness.
A whole heap of people were there, and the training was great. Sammy and Rhys got a fairly huge cat-arm, and everyone else acheived and progressed. We hit the beach near the end of the session for a swim and some tricks, then had some dinner – after that some of us went back and chilled at Simon’s place, before settling down for the night.
The next morning was an early start for me, and a very long ride on public transport back home. I got a bus and 2 trains, and was pretty knackered by the time I arrived home.
Overall it was an awesome session, I can’t wait to train there again sometime.
Millz took some great photos of the day, click on this picture to see them all:
Thats it for part 2, more writing to come shortly.
My last blog post on the old blog was from way back in August ’08 or sometime – and since then, some realllllyyyy good things have happened. I’ll work in chronological order, and stick in some videos and pictures to illustrate.
Adventures at Antek’s and NatSoc 08 – Late September/Early October
I went over to Antek’s for a few days of training in Sutherland and the surrounding areas – it was great fun, and we both accomplished a lot. Before then we had been pushing each other to get better at handstands, which was really good, and the updates with tuck planche times and such were great motivation. We train and work well together, and I’ve got a great friend in the Sydney Parkour community.
We produced a video of the almost-week’s events with Antek’s fancy new HD camera, and utilised its cool slowmotion mode. I took some photos of what happened also.
The days of training we had were a great lead up to one of the highlights of the year – NatSoc 08. Held in Canberra, this was 3 days (which turned into a few more, as we arrived early) of training from the 3rd to 5th of October – with participants from all over Australia taking part.
Over these days I stayed at Chris’ (ruoF) house with Antek, Robbie and Smo from Melbourne and we travelled into where the action was happening each day.
So, after and early start on Thursday, Antek and myself travelled down to Canberra, picking up Robbie on the way. The train journey wasn’t too bad, and we had a lot of food bought from Franklins to keep us nourished. We were picked up by Chris on arrival, and went straight to some training at Belconnen with the various other APA instructors. Some issues regarding the APA were discussed, and teaching and training techniqes shared – a good day of getting to know people.
On Friday, a few of us headed to Pine Island for some training and swimming in the river – a bit cold, but the rapids were fun. This helped aid our aching muscles, as many of us had been training all week. I really want to go back and train more on the rocks there again, as it was awesomes. In the afternoon was the official start of NatSoc, which saw a growing number of people gathering at a place called “Toast”. By the evening, light was scarce and people were many, and so parkour tip was initiated. I ached soooooo much after that. We grabbed some dinner at the food court afterwards, and then came Cone-age. We gathered together moneys, and ordered over 100 soft-serve cones from Macca’s, much to the “delight” of the workers. They were pretty cool with it, but we couldn’t eat them all, so ended up handing them out to randomers!
I can safely say that those of us at Chris’ house slept well that night, and no doubt everyone else did too.
Saturday came, and we slept in a bit, and so arrived at Toast a bit late to be put into training groups. We found the group nearest to us and trained with them. Some good training was had, and then this big group headed out of Civic to Woden, where the real fun began.
Myself and Eliot, a resident of Canberra, had become friends over the few days we had known each other, and so we made a sort of “pact” that if one of us did this level armjump, the other one had to as well. It was a good way of pushing ourselves to do something we were physically capable of doing, but mentally we had problems with. We both got it, which was a great thing for us to acheive, and sort of gave us this special bond. After that I was pumped up, and was trying things that I knew I could do, but just minutes before I would have over-analysed and taken too long to do.
For dinner, the only thing open was Superbarn – improvised cooking was the name of the game. I heated myself a schnitzel in the rotisserie and put some cheese on top – yummy! Top it off with some biscuits and big cartons of Ribena for $1 and it was perfect.
After this some people headed off to Castle – it was only after a bitme and Antek decided to join them- only problem being that we didn’t know where it was! Much dodgy google-map reading and phone calls to Chris for directions later, we arrived – only to discover hardly anyone was there. Sammy said they were “getting petrol”. Then he tipped me, and I had to chase him into the castle playground in the dark. I was getting a little suspicious of his behaviour, and then saw it. A rock with a jacket or something, in the entrance of one of the tunnels. Well, I wasn’t moving, in case it jumped out at me. So I stood there. I can’t remember how many times I said I was “fookin’ scared”, but by that time Sammy was grinning. Everyone came out of the tunnels, and were lolling pretty hard. They had overheard everything, and from then on everyone was saying “I’m fookin’ scaaared!” and other quotes, in a dodgy accent, for the rest of NatSoc. The night had one more funny incident, on the way back in the car – liberal amounts of Tiger Balm was applied to parts which buuuuurned. Somehow ended up with some in my eye after I fell asleep, I wonder how, guys? ;]
Saturday was probably my favourite day, and I forged many friendships with people all over Australia and New Zealand- its been great to catch up and train with them again after NatSoc. A lot of funny things happened, which keep being relived at most training sessions.
Sunday arrived and I was pretty weary, as were most people, however we still did some training around Civic, before heading to the lunchtime BBQ. After this, Rhys showed us some cool balancing things which he had been doing recently, and I was the test subject. With him as a base, I was to spring upon to his shoulders and stand there whlst he held the bottom of my calves. After a few tries, we got it, and it was a really cool feeling to be balancing on his shoulders. After more demo’s and instruction, we had 4 bases and 4 balancers ready – after the 4 pairs got the balance, we all moved together to form a square formation.
I said my goodbyes to a fair few people, as they were heading home that evening, and then I went back to Chris’ with a few others. I’ll leave it by saying it was an entertaining night ;]
Feeling amazingly tired, me and Antek got the train back home. Not much was said, as we were both on a comedown from an awesome week of moving, training, laughing, swimming, eating and meeting people. I nearly collapsed when I had to sprint for my connecting train at Strathfield, with backpack and travel bag being hauled along. Just got in the doors, haha.
Overall, NatSoc was a huge success across the board – thanks to the Canberrans for organising it, Chris for hosting me, and everyone for the good times. I met some great people and made some maaaaad friends, went to some sick places, and had an amazing time training- the atmosphere was inspiring, and it really helped me progress and have a new perspective on training and life.
Here is some media from NatSoc – video edited by Sammy, filming by various. (Click through and watch it on youtube, its better quality). Photos by me.
Hey – this is my new blog to document my training. I didn’t update my old one enough, and I have reached a new stage in my training and life, so I think starting a new blog that will be updated would be a swell idea.
