Concerns, Objectives, Methods

It should have been obvious that certain parts of my body would require special attention. For the most part I do understand that bone density takes several months, years in fact, to become a reality. Joints are more than the muscle strength of the surrounding tissue. The Bones, the Ligaments, the Cartilage, and Tendons take longer than sheer muscle to heal and adapt to the rigors of training. This is why Form must be perfected long before speed is acquired.

Since my rest days seem to revolve around the same types of soreness and pain, I must again evolve my approach to training and application. My Target areas include:

• Knee Strength - ability to stay in range of motion to prevent twisting.
• Foot Strength - less cramps, less chance of fracturing of the delicate bones.
• Ankle strength - titanium ankle routine
• Core Vitality - The most important area
• Shoulders - range of motion, strength, endurance

After several weeks of general fitness goals, I do indeed see a huge improvement to my parkour/urban ninja skills. I also see the same joints giving me trouble, which could lead in the future to more permanent injuries. A new focus is in order.

• Flexibility Training - Dedicated
• Stronger Core Emphasis
• Lower Body - Low Impact for knee recovery
• Upper body - Low Impact, basic methods
• Frequent Jogging/swimming (less impact by far)
• Dedicated Endurance Day Once a week.
• Basic technique (like handstands, planche, martial arts moves in the water)

Strength training always works out if done correctly, so I'll keep that up. The swimming pool is a dream, as you increase resistance 15 times, and everything can be practiced in the water at very low impact. For the following two weeks the pool will be my primary location. Gotta stretch out statically at least twice a day. Proper diet and rest. No High Fructose Corn Syrup, ( builds fat, prevents fat from burning), no hydrogenated anything. Water, Water, Water. Getting dehydrated in Friday nights Jam was a major bummer and def. embarrassing to suddenly sit out and be tired. Rest solid eight hour stretches, with alternating days so the same muscles do not get over trained.

In two weeks I will note my status and adjust as I need to. I will be emphasising Low Impact, and those target areas, specifically the joints.

Parkour Field Trip

Last night was spent doing Parkour with the local group of people, and a field trip to another area to meet up with two Tracuers in their home territory. It was a total success. I have definately learned a great deal from the experiance.

My first completely successful Kong Vault was achieved over a picnic table. I remember when that seemed impossible to do. It used to be so scary. A kong is a sort of 'Superman' piece of action; where you straight up dive towords your obstacle so you are fully extended, and grasp your hands upon it, then continue to pull your legs through your still extended arms. Scary indeed to the unexperianced. Graceful and breathtaking to the practitioner. That is the very reason I love Parkour; It enables you to realize that Nothing is Impossible.

Lately I've been doing so much more conditioning. To see the results in my increased performance ability came at such a shock to me. By conditioning my body through excersise I gain so much more real control of my movements, and maintaining constant awareness of my level of progress so I do not ever progess too quickly. Conditioning 90% of the time to 10% of practicing your desired athletics will take you from good to great, in addition to greatly improving your chances of walking away un-injured. I spoke and exchanged some training/conditioning philosophies and methods with last nights people. The key is not that anyone is completely correct; the key is in fact to constantly evolve your ideas too make them more effective for you, while discarding continuously the aspects that are not your Truth. This constant refinement of your attituted and practice will banish any concept of monotony, while allowing you to achieve your absolute maximum potential over time. Baby steps dude.

Finally I've learned some great new abilites. Those Kongs I was doing, and some tic-tac action and running along side of walls...wallrunning is like the matrix man. One of us was swinging on a swingset...only not sitting down like we complacent Americans are so fond of doing; Rather swinging by his arms like a gymnist. That was awesome and I will definately be doing more of that with the turns he was doing. Some more basic techniques that are crucial to survival, like the parkour Roll, was drilled in a few different ways. Lots of climbing and jumping around, precision work with rails, balance work...everything was covered.

I know for certain that I walk away from this episode able to begin a new chapter in my life.

wisdom of the elder

Earlier this week I had my first jam with a group of people, at night. I took alot away from the session, most importantly that I do parkour for myself and to impress only me. I say this because I am in my twenties, and most kids doing parkour are just that: kids. Besides, I love the reservation normally associated with a talented elder. That special wisdom only true experiance can grant. It was special to note however, as I ran and did my thing, there was a group following my lead. The mantle of leadership thrust upon a soul is a weight one must beare with responsibility, in any situation I find myself within, I readilly accept the weight of the world.

After all it is who I am, at least. I study and train myself not for isolation...but to connect with the world in my own self expression. My knowlage is yours to share, so long as you possess the wisdom to seek it for yourself.

Blane's Training Blog: The Descent

Blane's Training Blog: The Descent

Survival

I have been reading some articles and blogs from those that have the knowlage and wisdom I strive to aquire. Some of them were thoughts on conditioning, or thoughts on technique, or philosophies, etc. It's important for me to take that stuff in and learn all that I can for what works for ME, while evolving it and discarding what does not work for me. Today I had a great conditioning session, with a bit of parkour thrown in. I was thrilled to know I improved in my ability to perform the art of parkour. I also realized again the most fundumental attraction I have to this way of life. Freedom. Freedom to move in any way, to be able to DO anything I tell my body to do, regardless of the situation or place, even regardless of what clothes i am wearing.



Being new to the desert gives me a brand new sense of awareness to my surroundings, especially while conditioning myself in the mid day sun when it's well over 100 degrees outside. While exploring these desert mountains, or seeing these new places around the city, I am struck by a certain impression; survival is what it's all about. By training in unfamiliar locations, in different climates, in work out clothes or my leather hiking boots, in jeans or whatever. Doing this is not nearly the same as training in your comfort zone, when you have all the correct accessories and the proper outfit, running in the proper locations after doing the proper warmup.



I ask people, why do you train? I train for functionality in any given situation. I wish to be the master of myself, so no situation or person can manipulate me. If there were a natural disaster, would those useless muscles from the gym help you to evade debree in an earthquake or avoid a mob of brutality if the police weren't around to keep sheep in check? In a global age with wars rampant across the globe, natural disasters shattering records...it's vital to be prepared for anything.



If one trains only in a way that is comfortable, with their running shoes and shorts, how will they fare if someone was trying to hurt them in a night club or after a long day of tiring work? This is essential to be aware of while training. Run barefoot, learn how to aquire water without plumbing, learn how to track animals, study combat. These are just as important as mathmatics and science, writing and music.

Find your own path, don't just imitate and try to do what you are not prepared to do. Spend free time at study, or on a project you really want to do but never seem to find the time, spend it preparing for situations by creating those situations in a controlled manner.

Running in the desert today made me feel like fajita in dragon ball z back in the day...he trained in a place with much stronger gravity...so back on earth he would be stronger from that extra difficult training. It made me feel while running today that I could do anything, that no obstacle, physical or mental, could ever hold me back.

Adaptation

I quit smoking about three weeks ago. It feels like an eternity and insanity all meshed together like my childhood thanksgiving dinner bites...I guess they're the same. I have been training and conditioning myself really aggresively to help achieve the goal of becoming a non-smoker. Funny thing is how much more difficult it makes everything. I want to train more today, but I cannot because I lack the endurance. Being clear across the country...not much to do. And this is the path to the dark side....this cynical line of thought.

I guess being alone for the time being with my girlfriend on a work assignment will help me. One simply cannot fall into the pattern of unknowingly using your relationship, your lover, as your sense of identity. In other words when you have no crutch to lean on, you have to figure something else out on your own. The ability to function independently is crucial for your health and well-being individually as well as in your relationship. Jealosy is a cruel master to live by.

I would know. Instead of cherishing the wonderful moments I have, I would be overwhelmed by paranoia and jealousy. This did nothing more than make us miserable. Don't do that. I'm incredibly lucky that I have a lady who overlooks that and see's me for me. I'm not like that...I won't be like that. As quitting smoking, my training, and everything else is a sort of ongoing evolution; I will grow and become more than I am. Just don't waste the time you have, make the most of every moment you have, especially with her.

See that's the whole point, the ticket to sucess. Be yourself, be aware, be free. If you are self actualized and actively pursue your own rational self interest you will by Darwins law if nothing else attract your lover ever more so. Someday may never arrive; do it now. Your dreams, happiness, and success await you.

Much more than your magazine cover tells you to be...

Parkour - the art of movement. Jeet Kun Do - the art of expressing the human body.

In a time when there is so much stimulation with the media and distraction with advertisements telling you what you need, who you are...

I've discovered an approach at life early on: It was up to me to do anything. I was not sheltered from the world and it's joys and horrors. In the beginning this was negative from being exposed to tremendous mental abuse in my early and impressionable teenage years. Hey, it made me who I am today.

My current evolution is taking place through the art of movement, le parkour. I am very new to the actual techniques established as the most effective techniques...however I am not new to conditioning my body. What trully sets parkour apart from every 'sport' out there is it's requirement and at the same time it's purpose: to master yourself, to master your enviroment.

It continuously amazes me how parkour attracts my interest by setting me free to move about spaces as I wish to, to liberate that railing with one official use and create with it a thousand jungle gyms. The grace and elegance you can feel as you flow from one move to the next...like water. It let's me be like water; constantly flowing life over under around or through anything...becoming any confinement by being shapeless and every shape at the same time. One of the only human purposes in life is our capacity to create. Through parkour training my imagination fires and my mind is so much more active in ways I long thought I had forgotten about. To envision yourself doing a difficult move, to see unlimited ways to move over or around obstacles. To imagine, to envision, to reaize that vision. This is Parkour.

I've trained most of my life...at least I've been very active my whole life. Parkour has introduced me to myself. To train properly requires a tremendous amount of thought and awareness, or else you soon realize why you keep getting injured. My routines constantly shift and flow with my new awareness of some obscure stabilizer muscle I never knew I had. Constantly changing my conditioning routines to adapt to knew insights to my body, by a new level of awareness and understanding...I'm so thrilled by these sensations, this understanding of how my body works. To know thyself. This is Parkour.

Fear. Some of us see more of society becoming based on fear. It is everywhere. The grim vision put forth by Aldus Huxley's 'A Brave New World', or Orwell's '1984'. Our wars across the globe, our lack of attention to other crisis centers, that hot body in the magazine, or the kid everyone picks on...fear is a reality in the shaping of our world, and this negative energy is spiraling out of control. It seems to dominate alot of our world in such a sublte way. Goodkind wrote, "Evil thinks not to beguile us by unveiling the terrible truth of it's festering intent, but comes instead disguised in the diaphonous robes of virtue, whispering sweet-sounding lies intended to seduce us into the dark bed of our eternal graves." Everytime I go out to train I shatter the ability of evil to hold sway over me. To precision jump from one spot to another knowing I could be seriously injured, to build up to that move slowly untill I accomplish the feat... I shatter the unrational sence of fear. I shatter the fears I'm conditioned by society to accept as my reality. I am not afraid of the dark, I am not afraid when I have the ability to defend myself or flee when I cannot defend myself. I am not afraid to defend LIFE.

This is perhaps my greatest love of Parkour - to know that I am no longer a captive of unrational Fear. I am not alone. I don't need to spend a dime to be happy. I'm not afraid.

This is parkour.