Sydney Trip - Day 4

Woke up today, still sore like yesterday. I expected this, but knew that a proper warmup would get rid of the DOMS, for the time being.

Met the guys at Town Hall. There were some familiar faces, like Sammy, Antek and Robbie, but there were also others who I hadn't met before.

I also got to get my new parkour pants. They're so comfortable, and I now have something different to wear than camo pants.

From there we moved to a spot close to Darling Harbour. There were sets of rails and ledges, that were really good for cat passes, precisions and arm jumps. This enforces my belief that the most random public spots, like toast, usually tend to be the best for parkour.

I made sure to do a long and proper warm up, to work out my DOMS. This involved a lot of dynamic stretches, then handstands. I've found that handstands help to warm up the body to movement. They especially helped in working out the DOMS.

So I played around for a bit, doing my own thing. Practiced my high cat passes, and found some cat to arms. Then I went over to join Sammy while he was trying to a get a pretty big cat to precision. I gave it a go. I was able to get the cat pass down pretty well, but couldn't get my head around the rail precision. I really have to work on them. So while tying to getthe precision, I realised that I was getting a lot of height out of my cat pass. So I started thinking, why not forget about the precision, and just clear the rail entirely? So I did. To the complete surprise of everyine watching. I don't think that they were expecting that to happen. Instead of the normal "yeah man, that was awesome" I got "WOW! THAT WAS NUTS! DAMN MAN!" This then followed with high fives and congratulations. To sound corny. It felt really good though, to be able to do something that other thought was amazing. I then realsied that I was shaking slightly. It really was a pretty big distance. I then did it two more times, just to enforce that I was able to do it. Sammy then showed me an even bigger cat to precision, which I wasn't able to get, but it is definately something to work towards.

From there we moved to Pyrmont. There we found the broken jetty, that I've seen in so many videos coming out of sydney. Looking at it, I realised that you have to a fair amount of skill and mental to be able to get out to it. It required a lot of mental enforcement to make the standing precision out. I didn't have too much trouble with it, but I saw ruoF really had to work his head around it. He made it though, which is awesome. Then we scratched Canberra Parkour REPRESENT intot he wood, using a stick. The running jump back was a bit tough, I found that I had to mentally prepare a lot more for it, than the standing precision back. But I got it in the end. Then Antek and Sammy started looking at the running precision onto the broken jetty. This is a much bigger distance than the standing precision, and it was also onto a higher point. I looked at it for a few seconds, then did it. It was as simple as that, just doing it. ruoF told me that i made it look easy. Running jumps have always been my thing with parkour. Then I made the standing precision back. Those jumps onto the broken jetty were a real test of mental confidence in ym skill. I'm proud to say that my mental level has really developed. I'm spending less and less time prepping mentally, which then leads me to progress further and further. I've found that I'm training more physically than mentally, trusting my ability and not second guessing myself.

From there we went to teach the class. The class was really small, with only a handful of students. There were a lot of instructors though. Sammy then decided to make it a free training class. No instruction would be initiated. So we did a warmup, then headed up to pyrmont, where the enclosed area is.

During the time we were up there, I helped teach some guys climb ups and rolls. While I was demonstrating, I realised how much my climbups and rolls have improved.

I also talked with a lot of people while we were there.

I talked with some of the Newcastle guys. They're thinking of starting up classes in their area. It's really good to see that people from all across Australia are interested in getting involved in the APA.

I also got a better opportunity to sit down and talk with Sammy and Sino. This was really good, as we got to share thoughts and ideas about training and classes. I find that I learn the most from talking with people.

Then the time came for ruoF and myself to leave. We said our goodbyes, then made the walk back to central station to catch our bus.