Topic: Sdwinder9x's Log

[sdwinder9x]

I started on Saturday, but I'll begin my logging today since today was my first official day of training.  I'll start my log by explaining a little about my body structure as of right now (5-13-2008).

• Age: 21
• Weight: 220 lbs.
• Body Fat: 21% (non-BMI)
• Height: 5 feet, 9 inches
• Squat Max: 500 lbs.
• Bench Max: 230 lbs.
• Dead Lift: 800 lbs.

My friend John and I began our training at a local park in Burbank, CA. John is a more experienced Traceur than I so he was showing me proper technique.  We trained from 3:00 until about 5:30 because John had class at 6:00.  We covered several training techniques which I'll get more in depth with right now (I won't list it in any particular order).

• Vertical Wall Run
• Thief Vault
• Front 360 Vault
• Crossover Vault (I think that's the name)
• Monkey/Kong Vault
• Palm Spins
• Over/Under Rails
• Rolls
• Conditioning
• Cat Walk
• Balance
• Precisions
• My First Line

For the vertical wall run as of right now, I am capable of taking 2 steps successfully.  The technique is becoming easier to do because I'm sprinting at the wall from 10 feet and applying my feet at a 45* angle while looking at where I was going to place my hands, not where I was going to place my feet.  According to John, I had the proper technique down on a smooth surfaced brick wall within 20 minutes, and so we moved onto a wall with more grip.  On the flat surfaced wall, I was surprisingly able to do it more easily because I didn't have to worry about where I was placing my feet.  The wall we practiced on had all several bits of concrete sticking out of it, so placing my feet properly without getting a bumpy part was difficult.  The shoes that I was wearing were the Brian Biebel edition Lakai's.  They're designed for skating, so I know they're able to flex and have excellent grip.  I'm going to keep practicing on the flat brick wall for now until I am capable of taking 3 steps, and at that point I plan on moving to the bumpy wall.  John said the bumpy wall will be MUCH easier than the flat wall once I get used to it.

The Thief vault I have down with my right hand, but I don't seem to have as much strength in my left hand as I do my right.  That said, I end up stalling when it would come time for me to jump over the rail.  I think with time as I work my upper body strength, I'll be sure to get better at it.  I'm just not used to using my left hand in situations like these when I would normally use my right.

The Front 360 vault is probably my favorite trick as of yet.  I'm able to do it going to my left far more easily than going to my right, but I'll be sure to have it down by tomorrow when we go to practice again.

The Monkey/Kong vault was way too difficult for me to do right now.  Currently, I'm not able to jump high enough without bending my knees out (we were jumping onto a standard concrete park bench), so this totally ends up ruining my form.  John said it'll get easier as I learn to jump higher, so I'm not too worried.

Palm spins weren't too difficult, but I need to get my form down.  There really isn't much to say about this since I was so caught up in doing wall runs while John was showing me.

The over/under rails were great to cover, but were something that I'm sure I'll pick up as time goes on.  I have that psychological barrier that says I'm going to hit my head, but I'm a psychology major so getting over things like that isn't hard.  I just want to make sure I'm capable of doing other tricks before I cover these.

My Rolls are a bit sketchy because I keep landing hard on my shoulder, so I ends up landing onto my back pretty hard.  I'll be sure to work on these more and more as time goes on, but since I'm not doing any high landings as of yet it's not a huge priority.  I want to get my kong vault down before I get to my rolls, because I can implement the two into a line.

The conditioning we did was mainly upper body because John knows that I have a lot of lower body strength.  He's more concerned that I won't be able to pull myself up after doing a long line, so he's working my upper body into shape.  We did lots and lots and lots of pull ups in several different positions, push ups which aren't really a problem, and reverse push ups.  We also did this move where we arch over a pathway with our hands against a rail and our feet against a ledge.  Then we side shuffled all the way across, dropped down, and reverse bear crawled back to where we started.  After that, we did made ourselves go vertical and do a 360 around a tree.  Every 90 degrees, we'd go down for a push up and go back up.  The conditioning is the most important part for me as of yet since I need to strengthen my upper body a lot.

Cat walks were a problem by the time we got to them because my abs were so sore.  Because of this, I wasn't able to do them as well as I could have, so I decided I'd cover it as soon as I could tomorrow while my muscles were still "fresh".

Balancing is starting to become far less like a chore and far more like second nature.  I want to work on my precisions more because the two go hand in hand with each other.  I'm pretty good at getting distance and some height, but I need height as well as distance.  I want to work on my crane for landings from low ledges to higher ones, so that's going to take some time.

Precisions are going excellent as of now.  I just need to be able to land and not move, so I'll concentrate on fixing that problem tomorrow.

And last but not least, my first line.  We did a small follow the leader line around the entire park. This ended up being harder than I thought it would be because at this point I was really sore.  My hamstring was acting up so I wasn't able to vault over rails as fluidly, and my precisions were compromised because of this.  I also couldn't even so much as jog.  It got to the point where the soreness was causing me to second guess, and when I'd push through the mental barrier the pain from landing would remind me why the barrier was there.  But it was no matter because I managed to get through everything until the cat walk.

So today (as my first official day of training) was in my opinion an utter success.  Tomorrow, I plan on pushing my body and my mind even further than I did today.  I'm starting to grasp what my boundaries are (or aren't ), and that'll help me get to my goal of being a great Traceur in no time.

All it takes is time and dedication.

[Steven Low]

You can deadlift 800 lbs? Holy crap.

It might be a good idea to drop some of the weight (well, BF%) because Parkour as you know is pretty high impact on the joints. Heavier you are.. well, the more your joints take a beating. And if you're powerlifting (assuming) your joints are probably already taking a beating. So it's definitely gonna shorten your training span in both. Although you might not want to drop the weight cause it may cause you to lose strength so... yeah. There's a dilemma IMO.

[Chris Salvato]

holy sh!t, 800 lb dead lift?  are u a competitor?

I think you are off to a FLYING start.  Your lifting background already has your hip extension pretty solid.  Now to work on power for your jumps.

Some things that bothered me:

The Front 360 vault is probably my favorite trick as of yet.

Nitpicking maybe, but, personally, i don't consider what we do in parkour "tricks".  I call them "techniques".  Maybe I am nitpicking though

Another thing that I saw is that you want to get your kongs down BEFORE your rolls.  Rolls should be #1 priority dude.  Once you know how to roll, that kong will be a lot less scary since if ANYTHING goes wrong you can just roll out of it.  Kong to faceplant isn't fun.....luckily I never had to experience it since I knew how to roll first.

Rolling is probably the #1 most important skill you can learn as an athlete, in any sport across all domains.  I would highly recommend you get that down first.  Watch many tutorials and experiment with different methods until you land on the meat of your shoulder rather than the bony structures.

I think you're going to be a beast.  Don't go too quickly though.  The last thing you want to do is rush into techniques you are not ready for and develop fears that are harder for us older folks to overcome.  This is a personal problem I have faced many times.  I would try something I was not ready for and rack myself and then it would take months to get over the fear again.  Those who don't get hurt by staying in their means have much less fear.

[sdwinder9x]

Thank you so much for the advice as of yet!  It's awesome to hear things like this from Traceurs with far more experience than me.  It's very reassuring, I'll tell you that much.

The reason I deadlift so much weight is because used to play football and as a defensive nose.  Because I would go between the guard and the center, often times they'd double team me during plays.  That said, I had to really work my legs in order to have the strength to push through.  My thigh muscles are huge, and my hips are really big too because of it.  I took pride in my lower body but never really cared about my upper body, and that seems to be affecting me now that I actually need my upper body strength.   But I should also make a note that I don't work out my legs and body as much as I did.  I can still do all my max-lifts, but I don't plan on making myself any bigger.  How I am is how I'll stay, you know what I mean?  I will start benching and doing more rows however to increase my chest and shoulder strength to aid in pulling myself up.

Since I'm going today at 3 to train on my techniques (thank you Chris, I'm still learning so be sure to correct my terminology), I'll make it a priority to work on my rolls before anything else.  I see what you mean so far as kongs go, and I can see how faceplanting can be a result of poor kong form.  I'll be sure to update my log when I get back around 6:00 tonight.  Thanks again!

[sdwinder9x]

Day 2:

So far, today went successfully with little to no mix ups.  I did however manage to ruin my shoulder practicing my rolls.  I previously dislocated my shoulder playing football, and now I have to be careful with it or it'll tend to get nit picky with me.  I'll list what I practiced in order today.

• Rolls
• Standing Landings
• Cats
• Wall Runs
• Several Over Rail Vaults
• Cat Walks
• Balancing on Rails
• My Second Line

The rolls really did some major damage today.  I started practicing my technique while standing still.  I did what I saw to do in the HIPK instructional video (lead with my right knee while resting my wait on my left heel, and then following through with my right arm).  That worked awesome in the beginning for my standing still rolls.  But when I got up to roll while at a slow jog, I fell too hard on my right shoulder and popped it out of place.  This did lead to some pain during the rest of my training, but a Traceur doesn't let pain stop him from training unless it's a major injury.

After the rolling incident, I decided to work on my standing landings (any landing that doesn't require a roll).  We were jumping off of a small ledge and I seemed to have it down for the most part.  I didn't get any negative feedback from my friend John, so I practiced the move until I was sure I had it down.

Next came the cats.  We are lucky to have the perfect wall to practice cats on at this specific park, so I practiced jumping and grabbing hold of the wall.  Because of my shoulder and a lack of upper body strength, I wasn't able to pull myself up.  That said, pull ups, pull ups, pull ups.  It's the only way I'll be able to pull myself up from a cat.  But when we were against the wall, I didn't remember to kip my legs to help give me momentum, so that may have been a problem.  I was relying solely on my feet and my arms as they were making contact with the wall.  I'll have to work on this by doing vertical push ups and pull ups.

The wall runs went well today.  I wasn't able to get as high as yesterday because of some soreness of my groin muscle, but I did my best at trying to touch the highest portion of the wall.  I was able to on every attempt, so at this point I just need to keep it up while my muscles get used to the soreness.

For my vaults, I've got the cross vault and theif vault (with my right hand only) down.  I don't have enough confidence in my left arm for some reason which really bothers me because I hinder my motions and am not able to do vault rails to the left of me.  This is probably the next thing I'm going to work on (more than likely first thing tomorrow).  I have to practice my rolls before I can move onto a lot of the other vaults like the kong, speed vault, and so on.

The cat walks weren't hard so much as they were tedious.  Because the shoulder plays a direct role in this certain technique, my shoulder wouldn't allow me to do it as well as I could have.  Training myself on cat walks will have to wait for when my shoulder is better (hopefully it'll be a bit better by tomorrow).

Balancing on rails completely blew my mind today.  Yesterday I wasn't able to do it because I thought I was surely going to fall.  But today, I was standing on a rail and managed to balance myself for a good 20 seconds while standing still.  Since it was easier than I thought it would be, I took my first few steps.  I took four before my feet began to tell me that I was going to fall, so I flowed with it and jumped off the rail only to repeat it again.  I really want to work on this more tomorrow.

And lastly, my second line.  This was a blast because I was able to keep up better than yesterday.  Because I was able to do a lot of the techniques more fluidly today, we went and did a line.  I managed to get 3/4's of the way before I got too tired to move on.  Endurance plays as big a role with Parkour as tires play a role in the Formula 1.  I'm going to work on my endurance throughout the coming months and hope to have enough endurance to do a real line by winter.

[Chris Salvato]

The rolls really did some major damage today.  I started practicing my technique while standing still.  I did what I saw to do in the HIPK instructional video (lead with my right knee while resting my wait on my left heel, and then following through with my right arm).  That worked awesome in the beginning for my standing still rolls.  But when I got up to roll while at a slow jog, I fell too hard on my right shoulder and popped it out of place.  This did lead to some pain during the rest of my training, but a Traceur doesn't let pain stop him from training unless it's a major injury.

Hm...what is the history of your shoulder injury?  I have had many shoulder problems over the years including a torn subscapularis in my rotator cuff due to hundreds of sequential dislocations due to a torn anterior labrum.  If the downward impact is causing a dislocation, then its either:
1) Torn Posterior Labrum (which is EXTREMELY difficult to do)
2) Subluxation as opposed to dislocation.

If you were able to keep training afterwards, i am going to bet that it wasn't a dislocation -- but then again you may just have a much higher pain tolerance than I do or your shoulder is like mine used to be  -- so used to dislocations that it no longer causes pain except when it is out of place.

More info is needed on this before I can be of much use...but a roll should NOT be dislocating your shoulder.  Work it from standing or even in a lunge position.  Practice on grass, sand or wood chips to start....avoid drops and only do diving/running rolls once you get much more used to the sensation of flinging your body over itself.

After the rolling incident, I decided to work on my standing landings (any landing that doesn't require a roll).  We were jumping off of a small ledge and I seemed to have it down for the most part.  I didn't get any negative feedback from my friend John, so I practiced the move until I was sure I had it down.

The goal is silence, FYI.  Make sure your landings are silent and that you are stable.  Stable implies that you can jump directly from a silent landing up into another jump.  Avoid doing this excessively in one session since, to land quietly, you need to land on the balls of your feet and will likely be pressing off without the use of your heels.  If you do not use your heals most of your knee extension and hip extension will be due to the quads rather than the posterior chain (gluts and hammies).  This will cause overuse injuries in your knees.  A way to minimize this is to reset after each landing and drive the jump from the heels in a sort of explosive squat -- this is more time consuming and doesn't allow you to flow as easily from one jump to the next.

Also, make sure your knees trace over your toes and that no adduction or abduction occurs at the knee joint.

Next came the cats.  We are lucky to have the perfect wall to practice cats on at this specific park, so I practiced jumping and grabbing hold of the wall.  Because of my shoulder and a lack of upper body strength, I wasn't able to pull myself up.  That said, pull ups, pull ups, pull ups.  It's the only way I'll be able to pull myself up from a cat.  But when we were against the wall, I didn't remember to kip my legs to help give me momentum, so that may have been a problem.  I was relying solely on my feet and my arms as they were making contact with the wall.  I'll have to work on this by doing vertical push ups and pull ups.

Climbups are actually quite the full body movement.  Here is a great video showing how to properly climb up.  Note that he sets fully into arm extension before trying to climb up and that he also uses a "Stagger step" so that he can "run up" the wall as opposed to "pushing off" the wall:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfFgFkAs_Ns

The wall runs went well today.  I wasn't able to get as high as yesterday because of some soreness of my groin muscle, but I did my best at trying to touch the highest portion of the wall.  I was able to on every attempt, so at this point I just need to keep it up while my muscles get used to the soreness.

How high is the wall from ground to top?  Keep track of this to bench mark.  A good thing to do as a traceur is measure ur body from toes to extended hands.  This allows you to quickly assess the size of a wall by standing next to it and extending your arms up.  Also, carrying around a measuring tape is useful too if you know u will be trying for a new max climbup.

Quantitative benchmarking, in my opinion, is as important in PK as it is in weight lifting.

For my vaults, I've got the cross vault and theif vault (with my right hand only) down.  I don't have enough confidence in my left arm for some reason which really bothers me because I hinder my motions and am not able to do vault rails to the left of me.  This is probably the next thing I'm going to work on (more than likely first thing tomorrow).  I have to practice my rolls before I can move onto a lot of the other vaults like the kong, speed vault, and so on.

Left arm confidence will come with time as you use it more.  Don't rush anything.  It will come a lot quicker than you think.

Speed Vault and Lazy vaults you can work before your roll.  Rolling is really important on rolls where you go head first like the kong and kash vault.  This is because if you clip the obstacle when you are learning you will kill your momentum over the obstacle and not be able to torque back to your feet.  In that case you have 3 options:
1) Faceplant
2) Land Hard on your hands and chest
3) Roll

The cat walks weren't hard so much as they were tedious.  Because the shoulder plays a direct role in this certain technique, my shoulder wouldn't allow me to do it as well as I could have.  Training myself on cat walks will have to wait for when my shoulder is better (hopefully it'll be a bit better by tomorrow).

Cat walks take tons of patience.  I am still working on them a lot, myself.

Balancing on rails completely blew my mind today.  Yesterday I wasn't able to do it because I thought I was surely going to fall.  But today, I was standing on a rail and managed to balance myself for a good 20 seconds while standing still.  Since it was easier than I thought it would be, I took my first few steps.  I took four before my feet began to tell me that I was going to fall, so I flowed with it and jumped off the rail only to repeat it again.  I really want to work on this more tomorrow.

Good job on jumping off.  You might want to consider starting to train your Balance-to-Cat.  That will save you a bunch on higher rails.  If you can start training your balance on lower rails that is definitely preferred.  Also, check the grip on your shoes.  If its slippery, pass on the rail work.  For 2 months my shoes had no grip and twice in that time I slipped off a rail while balancing.  One time I just rolled out of it (after my hip fell onto the bar..) and another time my extended arm hit the rail and (because of previous instability) it dislocated setting me back a few weeks in my training. In short, make sure your grip on your shoes is ok and don't rush to rails that are more than 3 feet high to start.


Hope I helped and I hope i didnt scare you at all

[sdwinder9x]

You cant be a good traceur if you keep making mistakes.  Advice like this is fantastic to hear.  I was actually checking my every half hour or so in case of a possible reply.  So thank you for that.

I'll start with my shoulder injury.  My shoulder has a tendency of "wobbling" where it'll pop out of the socket for a second, I'll jerk my arm in pain and it'll just slide back in.  I have no idea what the hell is wrong with it, but it hurt like a bloody f#ck.  I stopped for a good 5 minutes because the pain was so bad at first.  What happened was that when I went into the crouch position to begin my roll, my shoulder went right into the ground rather than rolling off my tricep.  Then my body continued its forward momentum and that's when I felt my shoulder kind of pop.  By the time I was through with my roll (I still managed to get onto my feet in a semi-rolling/falling up manner), my shoulder was in a lot of pain and the joint went back in.  But I tried to let the initial pain subside before continuing.  No sport goes without consequences, and this is just one of the consequences from parkour.  Pain isn't a problem for me, so I try to walk it off as best I can.

I'll work on landing silently next time.  One thing I didn't understand however was when you were talking about the balls of my feet and my heals.  Basically, I try to stay as far away from using my heals as possible.  I try to stay on my toes throughout the whole day, land on my toes, and so on.  That's what I'm supposed to do, right?  I'm just clarifying because I was somewhat confused, I'm sorry.

As for climbups, I've already found my mistake.  I would try to pull myself closer to the wall and my feet would slip down because my leg's angle would go from a 45* to like a 20*, hence causing me to lose traction.  I'll work on that tomorrow, as well as work on my kipping.  I still need to get more "hops" so to speak, since my standard jumping height is practically nothing.  I can barely get onto the top of a standard height concrete park bench.  I'll know I'm better when I can get onto that.  I feel lighter on my feet with every passing day of training, so I know that it'll only come with time.  I'll also try to cut my body fat percentage by cutting unnecessary bad foods from my diet.  I don't drink soda and eat fast food as it is, so anything else will only help me.  I'm considering changing to a 6 meal a day diet (6 meals totaling 2,000 calories) to help speed up my metabolism.

The wall that we were doing wall runs on was roughly 10 feet tall.  It wasn't extraordinarily high, but if I were to stand next to it with my arm full extended, I have another 2 feet before touching the top.  As it is, I can get my fingers over the edge but I don't have enough height to wrap them over the other side.  The wall is roughly 6 inches wide (like the width of a cinder block) just in case you need to know.  I'll keep the tape measurer idea handy, thank you.

For my left arm, I'm glad that being unconfident in it isn't hard.  I can see myself vaulting over a rail slightly higher than my waist with my right hand, but even the smallest rails with my left hand just shake my confidence.  I just don't see myself being able to support my body with my left hand.  I don't know why.  I guess it'll just come with time.

As for speed vaults and lazy vaults, I need to improve my jumping height before I attempt them.  Again, I can hardly jump onto the top of a table yet.  I'm ALMOST there.  My feet will slide off the edge every time I try, but not yet.  Thankfully, jumping will come with leg strength (and I thought I had enough, haha).

The catwalks I'll practice a everyday until I perfect them some months down the road.  Any arm strength I gain will only help me down the road.

And thanks for the advice on the shoes.  I'll keep that in mind, haha.

[Chris Salvato]

You cant be a good traceur if you keep making mistakes.  Advice like this is fantastic to hear.  I was actually checking my every half hour or so in case of a possible reply.  So thank you for that.

Being a parkour is all about experimenting and making "mistakes" and learning from them.  My goal here is to minimize the needless mistakes.

I'll start with my shoulder injury.  My shoulder has a tendency of "wobbling" where it'll pop out of the socket for a second, I'll jerk my arm in pain and it'll just slide back in.  I have no idea what the hell is wrong with it, but it hurt like a bloody f#ck.  I stopped for a good 5 minutes because the pain was so bad at first.  What happened was that when I went into the crouch position to begin my roll, my shoulder went right into the ground rather than rolling off my tricep.  Then my body continued its forward momentum and that's when I felt my shoulder kind of pop.  By the time I was through with my roll (I still managed to get onto my feet in a semi-rolling/falling up manner), my shoulder was in a lot of pain and the joint went back in.  But I tried to let the initial pain subside before continuing.  No sport goes without consequences, and this is just one of the consequences from parkour.  Pain isn't a problem for me, so I try to walk it off as best I can.

Your roll form is improper.  Many traceurs roll by "threading the needle"....where they thread under one arm with the rolling sides arm.  Watch the video on the main page (which is for advanced training).  He goes over the two techniques breifly, and you can learn a bit from watching the comparison.  If you are "rolling off the tricep" this will be harder for you to maintain as your rolls induce more impact due to a botched vault or higher drop.

I'll work on landing silently next time.  One thing I didn't understand however was when you were talking about the balls of my feet and my heals.  Basically, I try to stay as far away from using my heals as possible.  I try to stay on my toes throughout the whole day, land on my toes, and so on.  That's what I'm supposed to do, right?  I'm just clarifying because I was somewhat confused, I'm sorry.

No intention to confuse.  Just stick to landing off your heels and on the balls of your feet.  Pay attention to how your knees feel.  If you feel pain, then stop immediately and try something else while training something else for a few weeks.  Landings don't necessarily require immense amounts of training as it can lead to potential overuse injuries, but they should have a place in your regimen somewhere.

Keep up the good work.  I will be checking in your logs to let you know if I have any other tips for you.

Train hard and keep moving.

[sdwinder9x]

Thanks again.  As an update, my shoulder feels like hell this morning but we're training again at 3 today, and I don't want something as simple as a bruised bone to take away from it.

[brewer.kyle]

Alright where to begin... ah, all of what I say is opinion I've formed from training myself.

Okay so, you're just starting out, that's good. You're going to want to devote a lot of time to rolls and landings, both are extremely important. The tutorials by HIPK, really help out so it's good that you've seen some of them, I would recommend watching all of them. Quadrupedal movement is a good way to even up, I guess I'm having difficulty saying what I mean here. I guess I'll stick with my specialties, when it comes to vaults there are really two phases. Landing it successfully once, and then perfecting it. Be mindful of your form, your speed at takeoff, your hand placement, and your landing. All will vary depending on the vault. Most important with vaulting is to listen to your body, I've found that most of the mistakes I've made/make are in my form and takeoff speed. Too fast and you've got a lot of momentum to deal with and getting your form correctly will be difficult, too slow and you're likely to fall short of your goal. It'd be a good idea to go into the movement slowly at first, just plan to land halfway through the vault. This is especially true of the monkey/kong vaults, and dash vault. If you have bad form, the move will always be difficult. Signs of bad form are falling short on a vault that should allow you to clear something, excessive pain in your shoulders, arms, or hands on impact, and failure to repeat something you accomplished prior. You definitely cannot expect to have perfect form right away, and you cannot expect to have perfect form all the time, but you must strive for the latter. It is also important to walk through your vaults after you land them, to feel out exactly how you should be doing it. Of course if you're having a difficulty with a particular move, it would be a good idea to post on here. Don't forget to read through these forums, there's endless information here.

In most techniques, it is important to "sink in" to your legs. Squats help with this, if you haven't done so already you should read the APK workout. Landings, cat leaps, most take offs, it'd be a good idea to practice sinking into your legs. By sink in I mean, for landings extend your legs to the ground, touching with the balls of your feet, but do not support pressure with them and continue falling, going into a squat and bringing your hands down, for cat leaps hitting the wall with your legs first and bending them as your hands grasp the hold while continuing to sink into your legs with your feet planted, and for take offs bending your legs slightly after the initial hop that is required for most vaults, just enough to give you a springing effect, all of these go hand in hand and it shouldn't be too hard to pick up one right after the other. Cat leaps can be a bit difficult to hit with your legs first, often times I still land with all four at the same time. In my opinion, the sinking is more important that the leg first impact as long as you land with them at the same time.

Okay kind of strayed off there and I'm not sure that'll even help, basically it's important to learn to bend your knees and sink hips down at the same time. It will help you tuck and it will help you overall.

Practice, listen to your body, and discuss problems. < That's my guide to success.

[sdwinder9x]

Thanks for the advice!  Again, I'm going to be applying all of this to my training today.

[sdwinder9x]

Day 3:

Today has been the best day yet!  I managed to land a 360 cross vault, did my first "cheater" kong (throwing my legs from the side and moving my hand rather than going between my arms), perfected my lazy vault and managed to do better on my thief vaults.  I also managed to do my first tic-tac precision, and I did a 2-step wall run to a 180.  Last but not least, I did my first cat hang and managed to climb up a wall.  I'm VERY happy with my progress.  I'm slowly getting walking on rails.  I took 4 steps today on a hand rail today and all went well.  I didn't practice my rolls because my shoulder is bruised and sore from the fall I took yesterday (not much of a fall, haha), so I took it easy.  It was hard enough using my arms for a lot of the techniques, but I know a roll would have killed me.  Time for the updates!


• Cat Hang
• Wall Run
• Vaults
• "Cheater" Kong vault
• Precision/Tic-Tac Precision
• Rails
• Table Vaults
• My third (and smallest ) line

The cat hangs went very successfully today.  On an ADD induced side note, my cousin has been coming out with my friend John and I to train; needless to say, he fell in love with Parkour and is coming everyday.  Today was an easy 92* and he had the dedication to come out with us.  Tomorrow is Friday and he's coming again.  But all random rants aside, the cat hangs went amazing.  I managed to hook myself and drag myself over (not very Parkour like, but I wasn't even able to get up the wall 2 days ago).  After climbing up, I did my first high jump landing and my flow from landing and running was awesome.  I didn't bend my knees enough from my thighs being so sore, but the drop wasn't high enough for it to hurt me (I was lucky in that part).

Next up was my wall run.  This was my greatest accomplishment.  Using standard shoes, I had enough time to run up a wall and kick myself off to a 180.  I kicked off with my left foot, so I turned to the right so my legs wouldn't cross and landed it perfectly.  Running it off was easy as well.  I'll practice these more until I can get three steps up, but for now I'm happy with my progress.

My vaults are going awesome.  I have the right handed thief down, the right handed lazy down, and I managed to nail my first LEFT HANDED lazy (albeit that it was sloppy, but I wasn't even able to do it yesterday).  The 360 crossover vault (I don't know the proper name, excuse me) is easy now that I have the technique down.  I want to attempt a 540, but I don't have the hops yet so I'll give it time.

The "cheater" kong vault was awesome.  I looked at the rail, held on with both hands, and jumped over as hard as I could.  I moved my left hand out of the way to get through and landed it.  Because the rail is so close to another, I followed it up with a left handed lazy and it looked sloppy as all hell but I didn't care.  The fact that I was able to do something today that I wasn't capable of two days ago just makes me happy.  I'm so excited with the progress I'm making.  With each passing day, I'm getting better and better.

My precisions are going good.  I have good distance, but sticking my landing needs work.  Ironically enough, I was confident enough in my abilities to attempt a tic-tac precision off a rail onto a ledge, and I stuck that one with very little problem.  I attempted it about five times before I was happy with my progress, and moved on to walking on rails.

Walking on rails isn't as hard as I once imagined it would be.  I was able to take 4 steps before I gained confidence in my abilities to attempt more.  Tomorrow I'll try to go across the entire rail.

Table vaults aren't much of a problem anymore.  Once in a while I still end up putting my foot down near the end of my vault, but I'll get over that with time.  I only know one vault as of yet, but when I gain confidence in my abilities, I will be attempting the lazy vault over the table.  I'm shooting for Monday of next week to start trying.  My arm should be better by then, so it'll also give me time to practice my rolls.

And lastly, my third line.  I lead this one for a change, and I managed to go from a table vault to a lazy over a rail, I then followed this up upon landing with a 360 crossover vault (again, excuse my lack of terminology), and then with a thief vault.  I'm pretty happy that I did a combination on my own.  I ended the line there because some kids that were walking single file got in the way of my line and I didn't want to have to run through them to keep going.  This was at the end of our 3 hour session, so it was a nice rest that we had earned.

All in all, I'm 100% satisfied with my progress.  I also just got my cousin to sign up to APK (literally as I was typing this log), so he's here to learn as well now.

[itsERIC]

Dude when i first started this im like wow none of this is possible the person that got me into this, *Sdwinder9x* said its all in your head if you can get through it mentaly and say you can do it you can acomlish it. Well i tried and im able to go up a wall, i was honestly not even able to climb a fence 

true props to my man Sdwinder9x

[sdwinder9x]

Dude when i first started this im like wow none of this is possible the person that got me into this, *Sdwinder9x* said its all in your head if you can get through it mentaly and say you can do it you can acomlish it. Well i tried and im able to go up a wall, i was honestly not even able to climb a fence 

true props to my man Sdwinder9x

And that's my cousin.  I guess being a traceur just runs in my family.

[brewer.kyle]

It is good to see you progressing quickly, it's good that you have what sounds like an experienced traceur guiding you as it's easy to make mistakes and for them to become routine. Keep in mind that most anyone can learn the techniques, a good traceur knows which technique is most effective with just a glance, works on their vaults until they're second nature, perfects their form so they flow seamlessly over obstacles, knows their limits, and never stops learning.

[sdwinder9x]

I'm practicing my techniques as much as I can and am slowly gaining my "traceur vision".  I'm going to push myself as much as I can so I can reach my goal of being an experienced traceur.  I just got back from a small session with my friend John after we got out of the hookah bar.  As much as I love training at night, I still prefer being able to see with adequate lighting, haha.

Training starts again tomorrow at 3.  On Sunday, we're going to UCLA to do some training over there.  A lot of the guys from PKCali are going to be there (I think King is going to show up along with a lot of the other guys).  I cant wait.

[sdwinder9x]

Day 4:

Today was a lot of repetition on top of training.  I tried to work out my upper body some today by doing push ups, but my abs were really sore and I wasn't able to breathe so I had to cut it short. I followed suit by doing precisions from one picnic bench to another, balancing on rails, going over my vaults to perfect my techniques, and doing some cat hangs/wall runs.  Now onto my progress (in somewhat of a chronological order):

• Precisions
• Vaults
• Rails
• Wall Runs
• Cat Hangs
• My fourth line

The list isn't as long because I spent more time doing each technique which I think is more crucial than trying to cover every technique in one day.  Anyway, the precisions are getting easier.  I'm starting to learn how to stick my landings, and it's kind of hard telling your brain not to jump further than you really are.  But that comes with muscle memory and so I'm not too worried about it.  I'm getting better at jumping and having my knees touch my chest while my feet/knees stay together.  That was one of my problems when I started and so I'm trying to perfect that.  I'm hoping to be able to do a speed vault within the next week, but I won't know until I try it.

Since we're on the topic of vaults, I didn't practice vaulting over any tables today although I probably should have.  I did however managed to get a lot of my standard vaults down (crossover to a 360, left handed crossover to a 360, crossover to a cat hang, thief, left handed thief, lazy, left handed lazy).  I'm getting better at trusting my body instead of my mind, and it seems to be working out very well so far.  All I have to do is try to keep it up.

Rails are still somewhat difficult for me.  I managed to get 6 steps in today (some progress over yesterday's 4), but I still wasn't able to cross the entire rail.  I think I need to start spending more time on that along with my upper body workouts.  Balance is a key component in Parkour and if I don't have it down, I won't be able to do have the techniques I could do.  That said, I'm going to spend a lot of time on that tomorrow.

My wall runs are getting better.  I managed to get a 3rd step in finally while my left foot was still planted on the wall.  I didn't get any height with it unfortunately, but the fact that I attempted it goes to show that my brain is losing a sense of the boundaries it was once aware of.  I'm not too worried about my wall runs because I'll practice them more as time goes on.  I'm contemplating using a brick wall from now on.  The wall I'm using right now could be considered cheating in that is has a rough surface which allows your shoes to get more grip than it would have on a regular wall.  I'll be sure to keep that in mind for tomorrow.

My cat hangs need work still.  I don't have the upper body strength to pull myself up, so pull ups, pull ups, pull ups until I can.  I'm able to get height and plant my feet so I'm not worried about that so much as I am not being able to pull myself over.

And last but not least, my fourth line.  It went well.  I did everything at the same pace in which I started, unless I had to sprint at any point.  It consisted mainly of rail vaults, but I need to learn endurance and I'm limited in what I can do until I start going over other techniques.  In reality, I really need my shoulder to heal so I can a) sleep on it again, and b) start practicing my rolls.  Right now, all I can do is watch several videos trying to learn and that's not as fun as watching the video before you go out to attempt it for yourself.

That's all for today.  More will come tomorrow when I do my first 5 hour session.

[Steven Low]

Heh, if your shoulder is actually subluxing (aka popping in and out) you should definitely be resting it, and then strengthening it after it's better. You don't want to have joint problems because of chronic subluxation.

[itsERIC]

yea dude my wrist hurts tooo and thats why i decided to take today off
hahahaa but still gona go tomorrow

[sdwinder9x]

Just got back from a huge session at UCLA with the guys from PKCali.  I had an awesome time and was taught a lot of proper form by some amazing traceurs.  I won't log my training today only because it's the weekend, and my personal training is what I care for the most.  That's when I can do the most growing and attempt all the hardest techniques.