APA Class - Belco

Class was good today. We had 13 participants, with 6 who had come to classes before. We've gone back to the trend of only being able to retain half the class. This may be due to the weather, as we are now moving into winter, and people will be less inclined to come outdoors.

We went through the normal warmup, then taught dashes, catpasses, arm jumps and pop vaults. Then finished with a bit of conditioning but got rained out. So we went under cover, did some squats and burpees, then warmed down.

I did a bit of training during the class as well. I still have to work on my climb ups, more towards the strength and explosive side.

On friday I'm going down to Melbourne to do some serious progressive training with Chippa and the other guys down there. I will be there for about five days. You might be thinking, why can't I just do serious progressive training in Canberra? Well, one reason I'm going to Melbourne is for the people and the thinking that goes on down there. I always learn a lot when ever I talk/train with Chippa, which is why I want to go down to Melbourne. Hopefully I can learn some things to bring back to Canberra. I may even come back with my APA Instructor qualification.

I plan on documenting each day of my trip, but we'll have to see what happens.

APA Training - Civic

Since there was a mixup with the forms at class today, we decided to run a training session instead of a class. This meant that it was free and not under the proper APA label. We basically told the group to do their own thing, and that we wouldn't give formal direction. If they wanted any help we would be more than happy to provide it, but all we would really be doing was supervising, as well as doing our own training.

We only hit up toast and CIT. At toast, I found a lot more new things that I will be able to have in my video, one being stupidly awesome. Josh, Conan and myself also did a run through Customs. it was awesome as. I practiced what I plan to have in my video. The thing is that I have to be able to film it in under 3 minutes, because thats how long it takes for security to come and kick us out. Little did we know that the railings had been freshly painted. We wondered why it was so sticky, and only realised after we had done the run. The dodgy thing was that we left our hand marks all over the rail.

I planned on meeting up with Eliot before the class today, to film the civic part of my video. I rocked up a bit late, so was wondering where he was. I gave him a call only to find out that he had forgotten! So I went to basketball training instead and came back for the class.

Hopefully my video should be good, the mainly problem is just finding the time to meet with Eliot to film the rest of it.

Canberra Tourism Commercial Pt 3

Today we did most of the filming for the commercial. I could only make the second half of the day's events. The first part involved a lot of stuff at the skatepark with skaters and bladers. From there the guys went across the lake to do a coffee shop bit. Then I met them at toast where we did Conan's intro scene. This involved doing a run through toast, and vaulting off what a ppears to be a big drop.

It was so cool, and I can't wait to see the finished piece.

There's talk that we will be doing some green screen shots, plus we still have to do my intro scene.

We're finally getting our names out there in the public, as well as developing the knowledge of parkour in canberra.

This will hopefully be the first of many media things to come.

Canberra Tourism Commercial Pt 2

Tonight we filmed Travis's hero seen, where he comes into the commercial. It involved him flipping through a Muddle Bar window. From there he chases after Josh and myself.

It was really fun, and Trav got to hit on some hot chicks that were involved as extras.

We're doing the rest of the filming tomorrow. Should be good.

Youth Week Demo + ABC Radio interview

Today we had the Youth Week demo.

A few days ago, a guy from ABC radio called me up saying he wanted to do an interview about parkour and the demo. Little did we know that it would be a filmed interview!

It started out before the demo, where we were at toast. I was interviewed while the rest of the Canberra APA instructors did parkour in the background. After the interview we filmed different bits of parkour around toast. I got that massive arm jump again, this time without anyone spotting me.

From there we moved down to noise wall for the demo. It all mainly involved us doing parkour, while the ABC guy and Che (the guy making the tv ad) filmed us.

People came and watched, and Hef moved around and talked with them, about the classes and parkour in general. We got a lot of publicity for parkour in Canberra.

This is going to be an awesome week for parkour in canberra, and it all started last night with the beginning of the filming of the ad for canberra tourism.

This is hopefully the first of many to come!

Canberra Tourism Commercial Pt 1

Last night we started filming for the ad. It's finally going ahead! My character is a gangsta graffiti artist. The goal for last night was to film a scene were we drop on to an escalator and go into character poses. We spent about an hour jumping up and down on the escalators outside Dendy cinemas. It was great fun. Especially since I was getting weird looks from people, with my gangsta image.

I think the plan is to do the Nuttle Bar shoot on wednesday night, then get the main footage on thursday.

THIS IS SO AWESOME!

Pine Island

Tonight I trained with ruoF at Pine Island near Tuggers. it was really good natural training, around the rocks and the river. We were training pretty late in the day, and soon found ourselves caught in the dark. I had to rely on a lot more of my sense to be able to move around int he dark. The biggest achievement was how we got back to the mainland. You see, to get to Pine Island, you have to jump from rock to rock, and these jumps aren't that small. Now coming back from Pine Island, we couldn't make the jump that we had used to get there. It was starting to get pretty dark, so we were starting to lose our sight dramatically. We looked at another way to get across the river, but realised we couldn't make that jump either, especially not in the dark. Searching along the island, ruoF foudn another jump we "might" be able to do to get back. I first thought that it was too big, but he managed to pull it off. That then meant that it was my turn. I lined myself up, sizing up the jump. Remeber that it was really dark, and the jump looked so big, especially over a rushing river. I remember thinking, "I have to make this jump or I won't be able to get back." I set myself, then I did it. I just did it! I would have to say that it was the biggest standing precision I've ever done, I'll have to confirm this though when I go back to Pine Island during the day. I'd like to think that I put myself in the 'Fight or FLight' mindset, where i had to do it in order to get home.Im proud that I made that jump, but even prouder about how much I committed myself to making it, because I knew that if I didn't, I would have met a vey wet ending. I'll have to go back to Pine Island, but will make sure that I leave the island before it get dark.

APA Class - Belco

Taught a class last sunday. I decided to split the class this time, as we had more than enough people. I split them into beginner and experienced. I took the experienced guys and had them doing climb ups and arm jumps. The begginner guys did tic-tacs, turn vaults and balance. From there we did conditioning.

We had a good turnout for the class, 17 people. We only had 3 new people, which means that our retention rate is increasing.

I also trained a bit with the guys during the class. I got my climb ups a lot better, and also got reverse climbs up from a drop.

Overall it was a good day, except for the screw up at the beginning of the class, where some of the instructors did turn up until when the class was supposed to start.

Conditioning Program

I've been thinking that I need to condition more than I have been. And I have been getting pretty slack not going to FNC. So I've designed a new intense conditioning session that will motivate me to train and leave me exhausted at the end of each session.

Warmup:
- dynamic stretches

Running:
- up stairs 50% x2
- walk down stairs
- up stairs 100% x8

Quadrapedal Walking:
- down backwards
- up forwards
- down forwards
- up backwards
- pushup quadrapedal down forwards

Hops + Upper Body:
- two foot jumps up stairs (up 3 down 2)
- 20 situps at top of stairs
- crouched silent landings down stairs
- 20 pushups at bottom of stairs
- left foot hopping up stairs (up 3 down 2)
- 20 leg raises at top of stairs
- crouched silent landings down stairs
- 20 diamonds at bottom of stairs
- right foot hopping up stairs (up 3 down 2)
- 20 crunches at top of stairs
- crouched silent landings down stairs
- 20 double width pushups at bottom of stairs

Lower + Upper Body:
- 20 sit ups
- 20 push ups
- 20 leg raises
- 20 diamonds
- 20 crunches
- 20 wide push ups
- 20 squats
- 20 dips
- 20 lunges
- 5 pull ups
- 3 sets

Upper Body:
- wheelbarrow walking up stairs
- walk down stairs
- wheelbarrow pushups up stairs
- walk down stairs

Warmdown:
- static stretches