Topic: Shay's Days

[Shay]

Saturday, Sunday

Ate like a fatty.  My brother's birthday party so I had cake, pizza, breadsticks, etc.  And then on father's day had more food .  But then I had to study for my math final for like 7 hours haha.

Monday, June 21

Took my math final, and then summer vacation started...with my dad yelling at me because I chose "crappy courses" for next year (Video Production ).  This lead to him taking me to my guidance counselor and switching it to some crap like Computer Science.  Grrr...  Anyway, my day was made better at about 3 with MY DAESCENTS ARRIVING!!!   They fit PERFECTLY, and I went to train immediately.  I love how light they are, and I got some great wall runs (my highest EVER).  Also, they helped my confidence so much.  I tried so many things I wanted to before.  I could've done them before, but I was just so excited with my shoes that I felt like I could do anything I wanted to.  Did some awesome stuff, some nice horizontal wall runs, tree laches, it was awesome

Also had one of my best conditioning sessions so far, I did reverse QM up a set of 7-8 steps and then QMed back down twice.  Also I climbed up a 10 foot fireman's pole at a playground using only my hands, and then back down.  Did that about 5 times (not in one set ).

That's about it, cya!

[Josh Wright]

Hey, Shay! I want to say I think you're doing an awesome job so far so keep it up ! You asked me some questions on Facebook but I thought it might be better to post them on here just so you can refer back to it!

So my first problem was finding weight. Fortuantly, every Wal-Mart holds a weight vest (20 dollars) and ankle/wrist weights (roughly 15 or so) I picked up some of those first. Second, I have a spare backpack and a 15lb weight. Now, I'm guessing you don't have all of that or don't really want to invest in that type of money. Well, Chris Salvato once told me in an IM "Weight is weight." So do you have something like a gallon of milk? I would say you could drink all of that and fill it up with water. I'm not sure how much that should weigh but you could stuff it in your backpack and then go for pull-ups! Of course backpacks are not recommended as much because it can throw your center of gravity off if you're not careful! But really, just try to get creative with it and I am sure you can find something!

Second, what is my reps x sets? If you read Steve's article on "How to Construct your own Workout Routine" he says to gain strength (which is what you are targeting I assume) you need to go for low reps high sets when doing strength training. Basically, it's recommended to do 3 reps and 5 sets and most likely a 3-4 minute rest in-between. If you can do 3 x 5 easily with 5lbs, then try 10 and so on. If you can't, then lower the poundage until you can get 3 x 5!

You can look at my training log if you would like to see what I do! I'm no expert but I do know enough to get the ball rolling and it has showed off big time! Right now I am kinda laying off the conditioning considering I hurt my leg, but I'm still staying active and keeping a pretty clean diet! I know you're vegetarian though so I can't recommend any diet suggestions to ya, bud! Take care and I always keep an eye on this training log (not a creeper )!

[Shay]

Oh my God!!! I did not think you would post this much.  This proves that APK is really the best community on the internet .  Well anyway thanks on the compliment!  I've been doing some unconventional training, like pole climbing (do not confuse with pole dancing ), upside down situps, reverse QM, etc.  I'll try and post a video soon.

I am definately going to check out that article by Steven Low, probably later tonight.  And now that you mention it, my dad had bought some ankle weights a few years back. They can go to 10 pounds each leg.  How do you think those will work for pullups? I'll try em out tomorrow, starting from 4 lbs.  A little, I know, but I think thats what I'll start at and move up if it's too easy.

I'm working on the diet too!  One triple slice PB and J sandwich per day and 4 glasses of whole milk.  And loads of fruit too!

Anyways thanks for all the help, I am definately trying some of those suggestions out tomorrow Joshy!

[Josh Wright]

Oh my God!!! I did not think you would post this much.  This proves that APK is really the best community on the internet .

Chyea dude for sure! I'm always here to help!

I've been doing some unconventional training, like pole climbing (do not confuse with pole dancing)

Don't lie ! Bahaha just joking with ya, Shay!

They can go to 10 pounds each leg.  How do you think those will work for pullups? I'll try em out tomorrow, starting from 4 lbs.  A little, I know, but I think thats what I'll start at and move up if it's too easy.

That will work, man! Just go for it and see where you are at! 40lb for me right now is my limit haha!

Best of luck to you, Shay and you can always ask me or any other members of the community for help. I always found the information to be so confusing so it took me a little while to truly understand what I was doing. You will find as you go things get easier for the most part, but sometimes it can still be very confusing and that is why people like Steve and Chris are out there to help!

Also this is a FANTASTIC article by Steve you should check out!
http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2010/03/the-fundamentals-of-bodyweight-strength-training/
The site made by Chris and Steve rocks as well!
http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/

Best of luck!

[Shay]

Thanks Joshy!

Tuesday, June 22

Josh Wright told me some stuff about conditioning, and I'm definately going to use some of his tips!  Other than that nothing noteworthy haha.

Wednesday, June 23

My report card should be arriving shortly...


Annnyywayyyy...I figured out I've been doing the L-sit wrong all this time and I read the Beastskills article.  I'm starting that, all the way from the beginning so the L-sits can be perfect and I can have MONSTER ABS - RAAAAWWWR!  Lol sorry I'm a bit hyper today, excuse me.  So anyway, then I went to this new training spot, and figured out it's a lot better than my usual one.  However, I need a ride to get there.  However however, it's summer so my mom can drive me   So there I did some pretty sweet stuff, I almost got a 7/8 foot pop vault (my momentum carried me up the wall, to straight arms on top of it).  I think I could've done it, but my landing technique isn't perfect and the landing is concrete so I didn't want to risk anything.  Also I was wearing Daescents with next to no padding.

Also I got a neck height crane, I was pretty proud of it.  I didn't even try that hard, I feel like I could get to my height pretty soon.  Now to find a wall...  Also, I got some pretty sweet cat leaps and arm jumps, I didn't measure but they felt pretty far.  Then I got my first efficient climb up!  Actually I wouldn't call it efficient, but I performed the movements the way they were supposed to be performed, albeit maybe 3x slower and struggling.  It's a start, there were no forearms or knees touching so I was happy.

Pretty awesome stuff .

Oh and I found a cherry tree and ate a bunch. 

[Shay]

I haven't been able to update for a while, been REALLY busy. But some interesting things happened!

Thursday, June 24

Okay, so today, I finally decided to try out weighted pullups!!! I got my old ankle weights out and took them to a pullup bar near my house. Like I thought, I started off with 4 pounds - 2 on each leg. I did 3x5 of this. It was REALLY easy, haha! I was proud of myself . So I moved up to 8 pounds with 4 on each leg.  This was slightly harder, and I felt as if I could pull off about 6 or 7 pullups but I decided I'd stay at 8 pounds for a day or two and move up when I could do them very easily.  So I did 3x5 of that, and then went to train.  Now as I was training, two 7th graders were walking by and they asked what I was doing, and I said, "Here, let me show you!" and did a sick run through a handicap rail.  I'd never done it before, but it felt great haha.  So then they were like "Woah is that parkour?!  Do you watch the Ultimate Parkour Challenge?!" and I said "Ehhh sure, but don't do the stuff they do there on your first day, they've been practicing for years," and then they nodded and I taught them the safety vault.  I have to admit, they were fast learners - they were doing monkeys over hip height rails within 10 minutes, haha. 

So I let them be for a while, and then went to the picnic tables and started vaulting.  And something momentous happened   I kashed the table in this vid (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAHmXUqOwf0).  And it was CLEAN.  I'll definately get footage, or just put it in my summer sampler that I'm working on.  I was sooo excited...

...Until one of the 7th graders caught his feet on a monkey vault with a 5 foot drop when I was kashing, and starting screaming .  So naturally, I run up to him and he's like "Call the ambulance, I think I broke my leg!" and starts whimpering in pain.  So I get out my phone and then he says "Nah, just joking.  I'm fine."

I left, what a dick (please excuse my French lol).  I got so freaked out and I was f#cking worried and then he told me he was faking.  Grrrrrr .

Friday, June 25th

Nothing much, just played tennis for 2 hours.

Saturday, June 26th

Alright so today, when my mom went to work for part time my dad took some time off from his work (he works from home) and took me and my 5 year old brother to a pool.  It was really fun!  I got a nice workout, and was swimming really hard .  I can't wait till I join the swim team next year.  Also I was going to front flip into the pool to work up courage to do it on grass but the lifeguard said no, haha.

Sunday, June 27th

Ok I was a lazy bum today, I went to a friend's house and played Super Smash Bros. Brawl for 6 hours straight haha   It was awesome!  We also got nachos (his mom makes the best nachos in the world )

Monday-Thursday, June 28th-July 1st

These four days, I'm at a program at UCONN, so it's unlikely I'm going to get much training in.  Also, I waste a lot of time in the morning and evening because I need to take the train/bus there and back and it's a pain in the @$$, haha!  I try to blow over whatever objects I find, though.  Funny to see people's expressions when I'm training INSIDE a train station .

That's about it for now.  Phew.


 

[Shay]

Friday, June 2nd

Haha so I'm back after a break and something great happened!  I got 2nd place out of about 10 people in a talent show with parkour!  I did some handstands, some headstands, a 6/7 foot kong, a tic tac, and some other stuff.  I was pretty happy.

Oh, and 1st place was this kid playing a violin.  I have to admit, he was really good.

Saturday-Sunday, June 3rd-June 4th

Nothing, had a sleepover at a friends house and CRASHED when I got home.

[Shay]

Monday, July 5th

BLAZIN' HOT OUT!  It went to 110 degrees in my town.  I wanted to train anyway, but my mom said it was unsafe and I might collapse from heat exhaustion .

Tuesday, July 6th

Okay, so this morning I went to a nearby school to drop my brother off at a camp, and there were somr great spots!  I got to try some of them too after convincing my mom to take a walk in the 105 degrer weather (it wasn't easy ).  There was this nice low wall (7 feet or so?) that I could use for pop vaults and cat leaps, and kong to drops the other way around.  Also there were some nice rail sets, and picnic tables too!  I'll have to revisit when I have more time though.

In the evening I said to myself "I am not skipping another day for this damn heat wave" and trudged over to DFS (Daniels Farm School, my training area) in the 105 degree weather.  Nothing eventful, but I got closer to my kong to precision.  Oh and also, I hurt my ankle .  I was trying my kong to precision and I landed in a cat grab for warmups, but my feet were too far up and all my weight went on my right ankle.  I went home and got an ice pack for my booboo .

Wednesday, July 7th

Fun as hell.  My mom went to work so I had to babysit my 5 year old brother.  So why was this fun?  Well, we went to play on my back porch.  My bro and I played this game where one of us stands on the porch an the other stands on the other side.  Then we get to the opposite location as fast as we can (I vault/climbup the rail and my bro runs to and fro) and we yell at the same time "HOW DID YOU GET OVER THERE?!?!". Stupid, I know, but it was nice drilling.  Oh, and my porch is raised off the floor by about two feet and the rail is about 4 feet high and I pop vaulted it .  Awesome.

Thursday, July 8th

After watching a buttload of Philly Doyle's vids, I was inspired by his style and wanted to start striding.  So I trying and face planted on woodchips.  Need to condition my legs if I wanna be a beast like Philly :d.  I can do pistol negatives extremely slowly and easily now, so that's a start.

Ok so today it was "only" 95 degrees out , so I trained a bit.  Ok, a lot.  I went over to DFS and did a bunch of stuff.  I did this cool bench rewind thing, it's hard to explain, easy to do, and looks pretty cool.  You can find it at something like 3:15 on Noah Mittman's Melting Snow vid.  Somewhere in that run.  Also, I worked on laches!  I did this awesome lache to cat where I did a lache from the monkey bars, traveled about 5 feet and landed in a cat grab on a vertical pole.  Then I climbed the pole.  It was a great workout.

I was THIS close from landing my kong to precision (imagine my fingers scrunched up together with an itty bitty space between). Actually I landed on the rail and then slipped to cat grab.  I should be able to land it in the next few days.

Also, there was this funky bench with a big fat rail as the top of the back part, and after working up my courage and doing easier precisions for about 15 minutes, I finally went for it and got it first try!! Then I tried again and got it!!  Then I tried it a third time and hurt my ankle again!!!  Lol.  Same exact feeling as last time, I really need to start doing Dogen's Titanium Ankles drills.  My ankles are shitty as crap lol.
 

[Shay]

Oh no, training log!  I forgot to update you for the last two days   Well, I'll try and remember.

Friday, July 9th

Well, today failed a bit .  I tried to do my bench precision again and I couldn't jump.  It was so frustrating and I tried to jump, but every time I did there was like an invisible force holding me back - like a weight on my ankles that wouldn't let me jump.  I hate rails .  On the bright side though, I got my first 90 degree wall hop (step off one wall perpendicular to the other and cat the other).  That was fun.  Also, my long kongs are a lot more consistent, nearly hitting the 6 footers every single time comfortabley .

Saturday, July 10th

Okay, today I still couldn't bring myself to do the bench precisions, but I did loads of other stuff.  I tried standing 180 cat leaps (stand with back facing wall, then stand jump while twisting in air and grab wall), and those felt good!  And then from the cat position I would do a 180 tic tac precision back onto a yellow line on the floor 4-5 feet away.  I was surprised when I got those

Then I wasted about 10 minutes trying to do the bench precision, which I will not speak of until I find a solution .

Then I realized that I am ADDICTED to laches.  They are soooo much fun!!  I did dozens of them yesterday, I love the free feeling that comes with them!   My hands were completely wrecked with blisters and open callouses after though lol.  Oh and I tested my max lache exit distance (lache to just plain landing on floor) and it's about 8 feet from a 6-6.5 foot bar.  I need to get some footage of my laches, I think they're pretty impressive (I think Oleg would think that I'm the biggest noob ever, LOL).

Then just some random kongs, I can split-foot nipple height now .  Again, almost got my kong to precision.  Just need to refine my technique a bit more!  Also, I'm changing up my sit-turn height for maximum adaptability, they're looking reaally good.

[Shay]

Sunday, July 11th

Chilled, just some casual training.  Just kinda played around.

Oh, and I found a better way to do handstands, before I was balancing on the bottom of my palms and trying to hold an overbalanced handstand by leaning my legs over.  Now, I put all the weight on my fingers and overbalance that way and it' a lot easier!  Before, I was unable to do this, but I've been doing lots and lots of fingertip pushups (sets of 3x5) and it has helped a lot!

Oh and I can't believe I forgot this, and I said I would update if something happened in my conditioning, I got pistols!!!!  After working them for so long, doing tons of negatives, and box ones, and rolling into ones, I finally did it!  And since my right leg was stronger than my left leg before, I did more training on my left, and now they're the same power!  I love it!  I can currently do one pistol and one negative on each one, soooo happy.

Monday, July 12th

Okay, so today was alright!  I did a few sets of pistols (5x1), and I went to downtown with my mom to drop something off and found this cool wall about 11 feet high, I think.  I wall ran it and this old lady said I was going to break my neck someday, lol.  In the evening I went to DFS.  I worked on the APK Cat Balance progression, and it's going pretty well, I can almost do the first step .  I did some rail walking on this huge fat rail (seriously, it was at least a 6" diameter lol).  And then I did some on slightly smaller (about 3" diameter).  Also, when I was doing laches, MY FIRST CALLOUS RIPPED OFF!  My right hand now has a great gaping hole where the first layer of my skin should be, I'm so excited haha!  My fingers are going to get so strong .  Also, I tried to kong that table I was trying to a long long time ago that I kashed a few weeks ago, and I'm really close.  I should be able to kong it by the end of the month, and the kashes on it are feeling really good.

Also, I feel like I'm getting a lot stronger, because my climbups are a lot faster.  There's still a bit of forearm and knee but I'm trying to eliminate that completely.  It should take maybe a month or so to develop the full climb-up, but I'm going to do loads and loads of weighted pullups until then.

Oh, and I did the coolest thing.  There's these fireman poles at my playground, the ones you slide down.  They're about 9-10 feet high.  And also, I can do the fake flag (where your armpit is around the bar and your elbow in your gut is holding you up).  So what I did was climbed up the pole and somehow went into the flag position, and held a fake flag at the top for about 10 seconds.  From the people who were watching I heard it was awesome.

I really need to wok on my balance/rails, so I'm going to make tomorrow a full rail day.  Not going to do anything else, just rails the whole time.  Hopefully they'll get better.

[Shay]

Tuesday, July 13th

Rain.  Shizz .  It was raining pretty hard too...  I did do some conditioning, and I've been noticing that I've been slacking a lot.  I have to get back into this.

Wednesday, July 14th

Rain.  Shizz .  It was raining pretty hard too... Haha.  Anyway, I did some normal conditioning before, and then I got this awesome idea to make an indoor parkour spot in my basement.  We have this huge unfinished room that's fully concrete except for the ceiling, and I could definately do something with that.  I want to get duct tape and mark out maybe a QM course, and also I could also mark my tic tac distances with tape and write on the tape to keep records and stuff.  It's a lot more complex than that, and I've been drawing out plans.  As soon as I can get some duct tape I'll start making it (yeah, we don't have DUCT TAPE??!?   I almost killed myself).

Yeah, and I was listening to The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song by The Flaming Lips and idk how but it got me soooo pumped up and I was loaded with adrenaline (that happens a lot actually, sometimes I just become completely infused with adrenaline and I need to go do something extremely tiring to stop the shaking   It's bad when it happens in class though LOL because then I just have to close my eyes and imagine myself running full speed through Latvia with Oleg and try to stop the extreme shaking).  So I was home alone and I played the song at full blast and I became completely loaded, and I said "Oh crap, something going to f#cking break in the house."  So I went into handstand to stop myself from full on sprinting, did my first jump with my hands, almost SPRINTED on my hands, did 4 perfect HSPUs against the wall (most I've ever done) and then got down.

Then the rush still wasn't gone, so I said wtf, to hell with this, and sprinted around the entire first floor of my house, konging the couch, kitchen island and somehow nothing broke.  I don't know how, but nothing broke.  I think with that rush today, I could have landed my first frontflip/backflip because there was so much euphoria running through me and I did a lot of things I usually couldn't do like the 4 HSPUs, I was literally high off adrenaline.

IT.  WAS.  AWESOME.

[Shay]

Thursday, July 14th

Alright, today was pretty epic.  I'm just gonna say that.  Got the old camera, went to DFS and trained for about 2 hours.  I didn't want to do any rails because there was a big softball game going on and I didn't want to screw the batter over by distracting them haha. 

BUTTTTTTTTTT, I got some awesome shots of kongs and dashes, remember the table I was talking about earlier that it was my dream to kong since day one?  The one that I konged a while back?  Well, I dashed it!!!!  And I got it on vid haha.  It was really good form, if I may say so myself.  Also I konged it a few times.

And remember that kong thread I made a while ago for konging that table lengthwise?  Well, I did it!!!   It took me many many tries but finally I did it.  I first tried to kash it, then a sloppy kong with legs to the side (diving simple vault? ) and then finally normal kong.  I got every single try on video and that'll be up on this post pretty soon, as soon as I can edit it.  I was sooo excited when I got it, this is a huge milestone for me.

Alsooooooo, I've been working at the human flag for a long time and GUESS WHAT??!  I made it, I made it, I used to dream about the life I'm living now, I know that there's no doubt, I made it, I made it... Lol sorry.  That's the singer in me coming out haha.  Well, it's in my profile picture, so you can look at it if you would like   I cannot hold it for long, only about 1-2 seconds, but hey, it's something and I can work with that   It hurts a ton though and I think I might be hurting my abs, so I'm going to go back to a vertical flag and after I can hold that for at least 20 seconds going to start lowering down.

I love parkour .

[Shay]

Sunday, July 18th

Ok so the last two days not much training was done, just some conditioning.  For handstand pushups I can do 2 full ones with my head touching the floor against the wall easily and another one with great difficulty.  Well hey!  I'm improving haha.

So today kind of sucked.  I went to play tennis with a friend and we wanted to go play in the woods after (play=me doing parkour and my friend going "can we leave now dude this is boring as hell watching you doing 40 precision jumps in a row!").  As soon as we got into the woods I tried to vault this huge log across a stream and guess what?  I guess there's a wasp hive on it!!  I felt a sharp pain in my ankle and thought to myself "aww probably just snagged a thorn."  Then about two seconds later I look down and there's this giant wasp sitting on my ankle.  I was like "crap crap crappity crap crap" and hualed ass out of there, but not before I got munched on my eyebrow and my arm 3 times haha.  The arm was pretty scary because I looked down and saw three huge wasps sitting on it lol.  The whole thing was pretty scary actually because I could hear buzzing all around me and I was vaulting and precisioning so much crap.  I guess it was a good thing in some way because I actually moved pretty fluidly because I was scared of getting stung to death haha.

Well I went home, got an ice pack, found a dead wasp in my shirt (scared the bejeesus out of me ), iced my whole body pretty much and just chilled.

Oh also my whole body is pretty dead by now because I did this huge stride barefoot and landed on a pebble so my right heel can't touch the ground.  Also I was QMing through the shelves at Home Depot and got clotheslined at full speed by one of those chubby metal wires, it hit my straight in the face and shoulder area and now I've got this huge bump on my face and eye area and my right shoulder. 

Well it looks like the next few days are going to be conditioming guys!  Cya!

[Shay]

Yesterday I had a great journal entry for the past few days but then my computer lagged and I lost it all so this crappy one will have to do /

Monday, July 19th

Well, today was just basically conditioning since it was thunderstorming out...whatever.  I did land some nice 180 precisions on a family trip though, about 6 ft.  Other than that it was just pushup variations and handstand holds (which are getting a lot better, 10 second + holds consistently).

Tuesday, July 2oth

Today was also a lot of conditioning, and then I went to Middlebrooks (the school with awesome parkour spots that momma has to drive me too ) at around 4:30.  I finally got someone to train with, a buddy of mine, and he said we could start at about 5:00, and I wanted to go early and get some of my own training done and warm up.

So in my warmup, I did some pretty sweet stuff!  I got standing kongs pretty well (those things where your standing on a wall, then there's another wall in front of you that's the same height as the first, and you dive kong the second wall from a standing position).  They were about 5 feet!  I just need to work on that landing, it was really choppy.  Also, I did it on a rail to a wall .

Also, I've also been interested in 180 tacs for a while, so I decided to try some of that!  I cat leaped from the curb of a sidewalk to a windowsill, hung there, and then 180 tac precisioned back to the curb.  I got it first try, I was really proud of myself!  The distance was about 6 feet, and I sure as hell did not think I would make it .  I'll keep working on those and try to get height so soon I can get 180 tac level precisions.  And while we're on the topic of precisions, I can easily running precision an entire parking space.  I want to increase the distance as soon as I perfect it, I keep taking a step forward at the landing.

Oh, and I did this great handstand on top of a 5 foot structure and held it there for about 15 seconds, nice stuff.  This new control is fantastic. 

After that my buddy came, and he is really new to PK.  He should be okay though, he's in good shape and can easily dunk.  He's also 6'+ .  I taught him some simple and safety vaults first, which he easily got, and saved lazies and monkeys for next time.  Then I taught him precisions, and he's good, but he's having trouble with the technique.  With full technique, I can broad jump exactly as far as he can, but that can't be right, after he gets his technique good he should be able to outstrip me by a good foot (no pun intended ).  He needs to tuck his legs more at the top, and use his arms better.  I can't expect him to get those perfect the first day though, it'll take practice and dedication.

Then we did wallruns, which he wasn't too good at.  I however, while watching him, almost got a 7 foot pop vault!  I got all the way up to a straight armed cat position at the top of the wall with the momentum from the kick.  I probably won't try to pop vault it though because there's a chain link fence directly on the other side and I don't want to face plant it while landing if I succeed.  Oh, and also I got a head height crane step.  I'm going to see if I can get that even higher .

Also, while playing in the playground I got my lache to cat on a vertical pole again which was nice.  Had to do it barefoot.  Then my bud left, I tried running precisions again, and then left also.

Wednesday, July 21st

Okay, today was EPIC.  Didn't think I was going to train but I did, and man oh man what a good idea. 

I'll start with the kong to crane.  Remember the wall to rail I've fruitlessly been trying to kong to precision for about a month?  Well, I always landed in a cat leap and after I got the part where you're supposed to jump up into the kong, it came so easily and I landed in a crane step on the rail.  I didn't want to push my luck for the day, and it was starting to drizzle so I decided I'd try it again tomorrow and go do the other stuff I wanted to.  So I went to this other rail that I've also been having trouble with and kong to craned easily.  Fun stuff.

Then I went to work on precisions, and there's this one standing precision that I've been trying for weeks now, and I got it first try, I hardly even tried to do it, it just...came.  I was feeling the flow, man.  I repeated the precision about 5 times, then went to do some other stuff.

Next was rail work.  I worked on cat balances, and did the thing where you're in the position and you walk your hands back and forth and don't move your legs.  Worked like a dream.  Although then I got cocky and tried the actual walk and fell on my ass lol.  I need to practice more. 

Then I did some sit turns which also worked like a dream, just did them over and over and over without any messups. 

The only bad things about today were that I wasn't confident enough to try the bench jump again, and the 5 pullups have gotten harder from neglecting that out of my training and just working on technique.  I need to balance the two, looks like next day at DFS will be purely conditioning.

Thursday, July 22nd

Alright, today was...okay.  I went to drop my brother off at camp in the morning and played on a nice rail set, did some sit turns (started amazing but went worse and worse the longer I was doing them ), and then did this nice combo.  The funny thing was, I was showing my mom the combo and this was the conversation-

Shay:  Hey mom, wanna see a cool combo?!
Mom: Sigh, we've been here for about 20 minutes, I'll watch your combo but we need to leave!
Shay:  OK OK!  Sit turn, to lazy vault 180, to sit turn, to monkey vault fail.
Shay and Mom proceed to laugh.

Yeah, I clipped feet on the monkey and almost faceplanted on concrete but caught myself.  Well I shoulda seen it coming, I had been messing up on everything.  I guess my body is just too tired from yesterday so today will be a rest day.

But I couldn't resist, oh no.  I went to a dentist's appointment with my bro, and I went first, so after I went I took a little walk.  I did this nice smooth 7 foot wall up, just for kicks, it was awesome.  Then I worked on cat hang dynos up a wall with a rail on the top, the rail had to horizontal bars in the middle, this was the setup.

____________________________________________________________   rail

____________________________________________________________   rail

____________________________________________________________   rail

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They were really smooth, and I was going to do a 3x5 workout with them (3 sets of dynoing up the rails from cat hang) until I saw a sign that said "This building marked with electronic surveillence.  Trespassers keep out."  Then I realized I looked really suspicious in the back of a building climbing up walls and rails and decided to leave.

Then I tried to vault some picnic tables and almost faceplanted.  THEN I realized today wasn't my day and I should just take it off.  So now I will watch Aladdin with my brother .  Good day.

[Shay]

Friday, July 23rd

Well today sucked.  It was bad weather (raining slightly and humid) and I failed almost everything

Fails

Running precisions: Landed with too much force and took a step after the landing.
Kongs to drops: Landed with too much force and noise.
Precisions: The jump was only 1 inch short every single time and I touched the landing rock with the tip of my toes before sliding off every time.
Level Kong to Precisions: Was about 6 inches under the landing rail every single time.
Pullups: 5 pullups in one go was difficult each time, NEED TO DO MORE PULLUPS.

Wins

Sit Turns: Very easy and nice.
Precisions: Did one precision I've been trying to for a while.
Conditioning: Did cat balance extensions from Demon's Drills.

*sigh*

[Shay]

Saturday, July 24th

Was doing a lot of stuff today, took a rest.

Sunday, July 25th

Today was epic!  It rained a bit, but I still went out and boy what a good decision.  I really needed that rest day.

I succeeded in almost everything I did.  It was literally a mirror image of Friday.  First thing: balance.  Today was by far the best balancing day I have ever had in my whole time doing Parkour.   I catbalanced across a 15 foot rail, and then walked it.  I'm not sure how I did it, but I just kept saying to myself, "Don't fall.  Don't fall.  Center of balance.  Keep it, and keep the body firm." and somehow, I just didn't fall.  I repeated the feat about 2 more times, and then slowly it started to get worse as I got more tired (I was doing other stuff and coming back to this).  Sit turns were nice as usual, and I tried them on rails of different heights which generally went well.

I also did a lot of Demon's Drills!  I did cat balance extensions, which are basically going into a tight catbalance position, with one foot on top of the other, and very slowly stretching out your body by sliding your foot backwards.  It's very good for balance training, and also works the core loads during the end portion.  I did this 3 times, it was a great workout.

Also, I did the heel hang and knees to elbows drills, which also went great.  The heel hang was surprisingly touch, I held it for about 5 seconds before I gave out.  My goal is to take it to 10 at the moment.  The knees to elbows:  I went up to 10 reps and that was very difficult for my core.  I'll be sure to follow up with this and keep doing it.  I recommend the cat balance extensions and knees to elbows to anyone who is relatively inexperienced and looking for a stronger core.

Also, I made sure to do pullups, and sure enough they are getting easier again.  I'm still nowhere near where I want to be with them, though.  I need to get the muscle-up soon, it's an integral part to my training as I want to achieve a fast, fluid climbup.  My efficiency with those is sorely lacking.  And just now I realized I haven't said anything so far about bar dips in the log - they are actually much easier than pullups for me, and I can rock out 10 comfortably.  I haven't tested my complete max yet, though.

My precisions were...okay.  I went pretty far, but I am still getting a loud sound and a bit of force on the landing and I want that to go away completely, I don't think I need that much force on a precision of that size.  I'd appreciate it if anyone can help me out in this area?

That's pretty much it for today, the highlight was the great balance training and conditioning.  I'm going to keep working on that.  And somehow I feel like I forgot something...I'll edit when I remember if I remember .

[Shay]

Monday, July 26th

Today was pretty nice.  Some conditioning during the day, and then during the evening I went swimming at a local park with a public pool!  My brother is taking lessons every day Monday-Friday until August 6th so I figured "heck, let's go swim too."  And so there I was.  As soon as I got there, the whistle blew for adult swim which is 20 minutes where all kids get out of the pool and quite obviously, adults swim .  So what did I do but parkour.  There was this great huge tree with a limb about 9 feet up, which I easily caught with a wall run and then played around in the higher parts of the tree.  Then the problem was I couldn't find a way to get down without a pretty big drop and I couldn't go back to the original branch, so I had to hang from another branch about 15 feet high and drop, so about a 10 foot drop...with Daescents .  Needless to say, I'll be working on finding a smaller drop before climbing that tree again, don't want to end up with Osgood-Schlatters or something like that.

Then I chilled, hung around, did some handstands, and then it was time for the pool again.  I've always been a decent swimmer, so I just hung around, did a few laps, did some flips in the water, and then tried a standing front into the water.  I was surprised, there was no drop and I landed right on my bum in the tuck.  I thought I'd be too slow to even land on my upper back from a standing front.  This boosted my confidence for trying fronts outside but still hasn't done it to the point where I'd try one.  Curse my fear!

After swimming, which was a great workout for my shoulders and just the whole body, I vaulted a few picnic tables, played around on the playground, and then vaulted some picnic tables the long way.  That didn't go so well, I always feel really drowsy after swimming and tired so I fell a few times on stupid mistakes, next time I'll train before swimming.

Tuesday, July 27th

Same as yesterday, and I also started stretching.  I'm a total novice and my legs are super tight, so I thought I'd start with some beginners tips from 3RUN at http://www.3run.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7163.  Oh and I just found http://www.3run.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7164 while getting the link lol so I'll check that out after typing this.  Stretching hurts but I'm determined to increase my flexibility, maybe even start some yoga?  I dunno.

So I trained before swimming today and also a bit after, actually I mostly trained after again .  I wanted to help my bro out with strokes and stuff before his class.  So swimming was nice again, I met a few middle school kids who I thought were okay but then turned out to be cocky little punks who walked around the pool screwing the little kids days over.  I showed them with a triple backflip.  (in the water lol).  Swimming was as great a workout as always lol.

After I did some nice stuff, some big laches at the playground, climbed to the top of the playground, did some handstands in the play area (there's these huge buckets that drop water on you when they're full and I tested my handstand stability by doing them under the bucket lol.  I only kept it once ).  I did some cranes on this big fence which turned out to be pretty easy and then played on the tree again.  That was bad because I thought I had a route planned out but when I got up there it looked undoable, there were about 4 branches in my way and I didn't want to risk it and fall, I was a good 20 feet off the floor.  So I had to do that stupid drop again and although it didn't hurt much this time I don't want to keep doing it.  If I keep doing stupid mistakes at this rate I'll have Osgood-Schlatters in no time .

Came home and tried to condition and just collapsed, swimming is very tiring .

[Shay]

Wednesday-Friday, July 28th-30th

Haven't commented these past few days mostly because nothing's been different :/.  I've been swimming every afternoon, with small parkour breaks before and after.  However there were a few (read: small) milestones for me, which I will now describe.

I've been trying running fronts into the pool (carefully when I'm sure the lifeguards aren't watching...NO FLIPS!! haha) and am landing them just about every time.  My technique could use a bunch of help. but it doesn't help that my eyes are closed the entire time because I hate getting chlorine into them .  I think I'm well set for trying 'em outside, and will do so when we go to the beach (we should be going within the next week or so ).

Also, something happened that made me feel really good.  Remember those two kids I taught at DFS a while back?  Well I saw one of them at the pool with two of his buddies and he saw me and yelled out, "Hey you're the kid who taught me parkour!  I've been practicing a lot and I've gotten a lot better, wanna see?!?!?" and then he turned to his friends and said, "Oh my God, this kid's the man!  You have to see him, he's so good and he's the greatest teacher around!!!"  Maan, those are the moments that really make it worth being a traceur.  Those words made my DAY .

Also, this happened one day - I was at Beach Park and a kid, 11 years old or so, was trying to climb the playground. His mom came by and said, "Down, ****, down! It's not safe and you're too old for that stuff anyway!". That made me very sad...so AH CLIMBED UP THE DAMN THING MYSELF RIGHT IN FRONT OF THAT WOMAN'S FACE!"  The look on her face was just spectacular   Man oh man, that kids going to be pissing her off SO MUCH, I think by the delighted look on the kid's face I may have changed the course of his life haha.

Well, that's pretty much it for now guys!  I'll post later on what I did Sat!

[Shay]

Saturday, July 31st

Ok, I wanted to go out in the morning to train a bit, but my dad needed some help assembling this gigantic table for his new home office :/.  It wasn't a big loss though, some of the stuff was pretty heavy and I think I got a nice workout in!!

Then later on I had to volunteer at this Senior Citizen home, and I found out there was a big playground nearby.  I made plans to run over to the playground after volunteering and did so, the run was 3/4 if a mile, with lots of hills.  I was proud though, whereas before PK I would have gotten owned from that run, I felt like I could've run it twice

The park was fantastic!  There were picnic tables and the park was huge!  It was one of those big wooden ones, with lots of nice precision jumps on rocks and wooden blocks, and I pulled off a nice precision across one of those wooden bridges lengthwise.  Also, there were some really nice underbar spots.  There was a lot more too, but I don't think I'll list every oppurtunity, there were far too much.  However I'll be coming back there more often, I was pretty tired for some reason and didn't do nearly as much as I wish I could've done.  My precisions improved tons though, I'll say that, and also, some lady at the park said my handstands were amazing

[Shay]

Sunday, August 1

Okay, today was fantastic!  Chilled through the day, and went to DFS in the evening for a few hours.  I was all alone, so that was really good.

My balance continues to improve.  I think the day when it was amazing was just a really good day, because I did worse than that, but it is really improving a lot compared to my normal days before I started training balance exclusively.  I did more cat balance extensions which are helping tons in regards to my cat balancing, and I can walk about 20 feet on a rail in QM easily now, whereas before it would be a great struggle to take even one step.  Also, I tried to walk on the rail again and found a neat little trick - after getting on top of the rail, try to start walking as soon as you achieve even the smallest feeling of equilibrium.  For me, the longer I stand on the rail trying to achieve total stationary balance to start walking, the more I lose balance.  So the faster I begin to walk, the better it goes.  After I start actually walking it isn't that difficult.  Getting to that point is the hard part.

Conditioning went well.  Did some pullups, some bar dips, etc etc etc.

Man, laches are the funnest things on the planet.  I trained these exclusively for about half the time I was there.  I got loads of blisters and *almost* ripped a callous open (I was trying for about 20 minutes lol).  I did this sweet lache where I swing off a horizontal bar and land in a cat position on a fireman pole, t'was sweet.

I walked into the woods for a while, and found two awesome things - this gigantic pile of mulch stretching for like 20 feet and also a random scattering of different sized rocks for about 20 sq. ft.  The mulch was really cool - it looked like it was built for practicing flips.  However, my fear got ahold of me again, and I didn't try.  Plus I was tired .  I will do it tomorrow though, no excuses!  The rocks were amazing though!  I did loads of big precisions on them, some that I didn't think I could do at all!  I will definitely be going back there!

Alright - best part.  I've been training at DFS for a long time now, since I started training actually.  I have been running out of things to do, so I took about 10 minutes to just walk around the school to find any new potential spots.  And guess what, I found a fantastic one!  It was a sort of diagonal kong to cat, but it wasn't level, it was like...it was a big rail just below my pecs, and then a window ledge that is about the height of me standing on the ground with my arms raised.  So basically, instead of arcing up and down on the exit of the kong I would have to try my best to just go up, and catch the ledge.  I know this is hard to understand, I'll get a pic next time I go there.

I firmly believed I couldn't do it.  I thought I wasn't nearly good enough.  And then after about 10 minutes of messing around and getting closer...and closer...and closer, my trajectory finally allowed me to touch the window ledge (my main problem was not getting nearly enough distance/height so my hands wouldn't be able to reach the ledge).  However, I was too weak to actually grip it .  But I got really close!  I was about to try again when I heard a door open on the other side of the school.  Now, my first week of parkour, I had...er...an incident where I thought I was a badass parkourist and climbed to the top of the school from a drainpipe.  Needless to say, I was...er...caught and a janitor threatened to call the police if I didn't leave.  So I left.  And ever since then, I only practice there in the night on schooldays and of course, all day during the summer.  I am absolutely paranoid of getting caught by the janitors.  So, when I heard the door I bolted, grabbing my stuff and sprinting home as fast as possible.  I'm not proud of doing that, but I dunno, it was just instinct.  So anyway, I didn't make the kong to cat, but I WAS SO DAMN CLOSE AND I'M GETTING IT NEXT TIME!

Cya.