A New Mindset

I recently finished reading Blane's Parkour blog.

An article that should especially be noted is 'When Worlds Collide.'
http://blane-parkour.blogspot.com/2007/11/when-worlds-collide.html

It really got me thinking about the way I train. I've taken a few points from it that I plan on applying to my own training.

A little while back, I made a training program for myself, that focussed around parkour and exercises to improve parkour. Blane spoke about not having any set regimes for parkour training, jsut listen to your body and train in the areas that are not tired. Like if your arms are tired, train things that don't require your arms working hard, like precisions and balancing. I've now decided to not follow any set program, except for Friday Night Conditioning, just go out and do parkour using the body parts that aren't exhausted.

Blane also talked about the best way to improve your parkour, this being drilling movements. For example, to get better at precisions, do precisions, to get better at climb ups, do climb ups. I've been telling people that pull ups and dips are great dexercises to improve your climb ups. Now that I think about it, the best way to improve your climb ups, is to go out and do climb ups. I've now decided to not go to the gym, but to go out and do parkour more regularly.

Blane also talked about how drilling technique si the best way to improve. Nolt drilling as in ten times in a row, but 50 times, 100 TIMES. And also keep focus and concentrating through each movement, even though I'm getting tired in the process.

After reading Blane's blog, I went out to give this drilling idea a go.

I did 100 pecisions between a chair and a concrete landing, 50 each way. My goal was to stick my lanings. As well as landing silently on the concrete landing, and landing on the edge of the chair, without it moving. i focussed on my breathing, and getting height into my precisions.

During APA classes, we get the students to do 50 landings from a small height. This way they will condition their bodies for bigger landings. I now realise that while I've been telling students to do this, I haven't actually been applying it to myself. I thought why not start now, so I did 50 landings from a small height, focussing on silence, technique and breathing.

After this, I practised jumping up onto my table, which is about 1.5 metres high. I did this 50 times in a row.

At the end of the session, I foudn that Iw as extreemmly tired, but i felt that I was on to something great for my progression.

From now on, I'm going to try to get out and do some parkour training every day, if only for an hour. Toast will be a really go area to practice precisions and arm jumps, the bottom of customs will be a good palce to practice high standing jumps, and the rail at the old bus depot in civic, will be good for practicing balance. There is also a good wall there to practice climb ups. Im going to try to drill techniques at huge amounts, like 50 or 100 times per session, focussing on my technqiue. I can even go out and do this by myself. Solo training hasn't been to appealing to me, so this will just be another test for me. Weekends can then be for training with other people, and applying my training to different environments.

I'm also keen to go out to do some night runs, like follow the leader type sessions.

Im heading to the coast today, and I plan on starting my new training idea while I'm down there.

In summary I plan to train more regularly, doing more drilling in technique, whilst also listening to my body to decide what technique i will train.