And thus had a bit to much energy and was like well lets just do stuff.
So I decided today to start work on trying to swing through my Flash Gainer from my Btwist. Also threw in some 540 variants, my Aerial, and a few Back Handsprings. No major goal but the btwist swing through flash gainer.
Lesson Learned:
Once I get more comfortable with swinging through I will start to straighten out my legs more on the Btwist. Also noticed that my Btwist was getting a little vertical, Probably because I was focusing on making sure I was stacked for the next move. Aerial is feeling great, I am going to have to start doing combos with that soon. THE POSSIBILITIES! My standing Back Hand Springs don't really matter to me, I just have to push more with my legs, squeeze them together, and push with my arms more, then I will be flying, that's all an easy fix.
So yeah I'm almost done being sick. My friend asked me a question about his ankle sprain and I so I made this vid for him to test if it was something else. This is a common injury that occurs in Parkour and I just want him to test to see if it is this. Just so you know if you are training your Cave Man Squat, Correct Pistols, and work your rail balances often this injury should not happen often.
So the reason for no post recently is I have been sick the past couple of days. I thought would take this time to talk about some things involving Tumbling or Tricks in general.
There are a couple of things to think about that will help you to do all of your moves with ease so long as you can get over the fear, fear is just discomfort in a situation, if you focus on slow progressions and foundation movement then you will be comfortable and fear will be less a part of the equation.
Any way.
Obviously we are talking about Tricking or Tumbling by the way and the first part of this talks about flips versus moves like back hand springs.
First of all for any beginner trick you want to focus on extending and reaching every available limb prior to the rotation of the trick. .
For example in a Front Tuck/Flip: Opening the shoulders (Reach up and back with the arm extended) prior to blocking. As you block you extend the hips and the knees while also pushing through the ball of the foot which extends and points your foot and toes. You would be in a completely straight line from head to toe prior to the rotation. Now based on if you are traveling forward this can be slightly varied but for a beginner this is sound advice.
Reach and Extend every possible limb.
Second thing to think about: Rotation and spin are primarily driven by the lower half of the body and how it is moved around the bodies center. Your Arms, Head, and Hips are the areas that people tend to over use but do not yield enough power to make you spin or rotate at the right speed.
For Example: If you are bend over at the hips hoping that the forward bend will speed up your flip, you're only partially right, it will speed up your flip but you will not get sufficient height, so don't bend forward at the hips or arch to much if you want height. The arms if thrown fast into a spin to early will cause you to not fully extend your hips and once again you lose height but you spin very fast. Finally the head. If you throw your head back, forward or turn it to the side it makes you flip or spin very fast but your lose height.
For better rotation in a front tuck for example you want to wait until right before the peak of your jump and then from the farthest part of your legs "your feet" you want to throw those over your body to start rotation and then follow through with chasing them like a mad man with your upper body.
For a back tuck, after you have reached the peak of your jump by extending and reaching all limbs (this means legs are extended pushing through the feet, hips are open, spine and chest are up and open and shoulders are open [it's all OPEN!]) After all that and you feel the lift you pull the legs from the farthest part of the limbs, your feet, up and over your shoulders, this causes your hips to tuck and creates the rolling motion in the air.
It is obvious from the emphasis of feeling the lift of the body in an open position that it is important to work on just the jumps, take offs. and sets prior to any skill.
When it comes to spinning again you want to focus your spinning power coming from the farthest limb away from the center and pulling that in, it also has to be the limb that is not giving you your rotational power unless you are taking off of two feet, in which case you have no choice.
Lets look at some examples of spinning moves off of one leg.
The butterfly twist for starters: So you do your butter fly kick set up, you are extending both of your limbs and it's time to pull the twist. Now most people just pull the arms across and turn their head way early killing the height land very low if they land at all. What I want you to do is pull the trailing leg behind the leading leg and then wrap the arms and turn the head hard this way your starting your spin with the lower half of the body (which is also the heavier part and thus has more leverage) and then adding to the spin with the upper half (the butterfly kick is a flat (horizontal) aerial rotation) Since you are pushing of the ground with one leg you have to use that leg you push off with as the initiator of the spin.
Lets look at a Cork: So you have extended everything you can with your set up and now it's time to spin. Lets say you push off the ground with your left leg and you are kicking with your right leg and all is well. At the peak of the move you snap your jumping leg up and behind the kicking leg initiating your spin. You add to this by pulling the right arm across and looking to the left. Most people twist from the very get go of their Cork and that kills your height, If you are doing a Cheat Gainer set up you want to spin around the kicking leg at the peak of your jump, for most average Joe's that should be your shoulder height.
How about a more complex one the Raiz Twist twisting into the kicking leg the fourth variation shown in the video below.
Any way I push off my right leg and left leg is driving me over the top so I cant use the left leg for my spin because it will make me drop. I chase my entire body after my left leg because it is helping me rotate. Notice I don't tuck in at all because it would make it harder to flip my body.
If you're going off of two legs then you have no choice but to coordinate the spin with primarily the legs and then secondary are the arms of course all of this after a nice stretched vertical take off and figuring out which way your flipping.
An even weirder one is the 540 kick, but it still follows the same principals. You take off upright use the first leg as heel drive for rotation and the second leg over takes the first making the hips cross and creates a very strong spin.
Third thing to think about is what primary shape is your trick: There are technically two types of flips ones that are cross lateral which are off axis or are open limbed based tricks in their simple form, and ones that go straight across the axis that are almost always legs together and follow a more perfect symmetrical look. Many flips are variations or combinations there off.
If you know the shape of your flip then you can actually practice the trick on the floor without jumping at all. you can lye down on your back and just go through the pattern of either the symmetrical flips, or the cross lateral flips and it will help you greatly.
Now before I go to bed I want to talk briefly about back handsprings or any move that has a touch down with the hands in the middle of the trick.
One thing that does transfer from flip tricks versus touch down tricks is that you have to still reach and extend the limbs to the full range of their mobility. The one thing that changes is that with touch down tricks you have to bend your spine a FREAKIN lot. These type of moves like back handsprings, touch down raiz, helecoptero, or front handsprings require a tremendous amount of bending the back and constantly look in the direct of the where the hands are being placed. These moves do not go up and down they stay level and should be done fast with extended limbs. If you see a good touch down raiz the tricker does not jump up but rather bends and glides, watch their hip level, it does not go up and down, the same thing for back handsprings or front handspring, cartwheels. honestly watch videos of them and you will see the best trickers and tumblers do not go up and down they stay level and bend the spine.
Any way I could go into more detail but I feel that will do. As always.
This is the first of a series of episodes involving the Parks of AZ within Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Mesa, Chandler...etc area. Basically the Valley. I am hoping to do shoot one of these per month and any body is welcome to join me. In any case enjoy the video. I was lucky to enjoy the company of Pedro. Also some random guy in a wheel chair approached me and just started to talk to me about his family and how he liked what we were doing because it reminded him of Capoeira and he used to do it as a child. Another Movement Connection, Imagine that.
Argh, woke up late. Don't care. I had arrangements for later in the day any way. SO today I just did 2 sets of mobility exercises shown below, if you make it through the whole thing I got bored before teaching and decided to do some reading.
Lesson Learned:
Constructive rest is always a plus
Happy as a little school boy today. So after last weeks dead lifts I said okay lets see of the old max still stands. As I said before my last max was 375lbs. My goal today was just to keep adding weight until every Power Lifting Rubber weight was off the rack and on the bar. I didn't want to count the weight, I didn't want to even know or think about it. All I thought about was victory. That each weight just needed commitment and that all I needed to do is keep moving forward, that if I didn't give up the weight would say "This guy won't quit, okay I give up!" and I would lift it. After that I decided to do some Standing Jumps, A Jumps, and Plyo Jumps. I stuck with doing about 10 of each, starting with the hardest variation on two feet, a normal standing jump. In each new variation I increased the speed thus decreasing the amount of force necessary but due to me still putting force in it I was able to jump higher. I handicapped myself so that I could overload the muscles making it easier to jump once I added speed. Is this by any means a very impressive standing jump, not really, to my standards my jump is okay, but it can be so much greater and I know it will.
Lesson Learned:
The feeling of accomplishing your goal (a realistic one) is always going to give you a strong uplifted feeling for the rest of the day. I beat my last max by 10lbs, Now I am up to 385lbs. the next few sessions of dead lifts will be geared toward reps at a lower weight but keeping my back neutral. I don't use a weight belt, i have a very strong core and I feel the weight belt is a luxury versus a necessity that though beneficial at a safety level is not as important if your being mindful. I need to get my butt down more and get my chest vertical. As far as my vertical jump (plyometrics if you will) I just need to push more and feel that lift, I want to be able to vertical jump my shoulder height (that means I will need to get my feet up that high in a tucked position) I can do this from a run no problem but standing still in the blink of an eye I want to spring up like a cat. Some inverted knees might help, Damned Quadrupeds. Happy Training.
Woke up Monday morning and I felt great. Of course I promised Mom I would go run the water through the pipes at her condo so that took up a bit of my morning, also had to cook beans and clean a little. It was a long amazing weekend.
I really wanted to just work on my Raiz and B Twist today and thus I did my warm up with that in mind. Went for my barefoot run and did my dynamic stretches, and the rest...well you get to see the rest for yourself. Here is my training between 2-3:30pm
Lesson Learned:
My Raiz is feeling great, another session like that and swing throughs are going to happen for sure. I kind of want them to be a little more vertical but the legs are straight and it is very smooth. As far as the B Twist? It was pretty powerful today too. It does have a tendancy to travel backward sometimes but it is very solid, high, and strong. It makes me happy know that it is also almost ready for swing throughs. My left ankle is a little tight from the repeitive landings.
Part 2.
I just wanted to get out and do some Parkour Style Conditioning. I haven't trained outside very often recently and it felt good to get out.
Lesson Learned:
It always feels good to get out and enjoy the fresh air. My shoulder hurt a little bit from the first flag I did because I didn't warm it up properly so the next day it was a little stiff. My standing verticals need a bit of work I am not fully extending in my hips when I jump up to get maximum lift. I finally put a hole in my Vevo Barefoot Aqua Lights. I guess I will have to see how long they will last from on out. I feel a fire rising in me and soon I will be back to where I was before I destroyed my Ankle. Much Love
Sorry for posting this late. I got side tracked... in a very good way.
In any case after working my Doubles Trapeze (well actually it's not my piece it's Khrystia's and I am honored to be working with such a talented artist and proud to be picked out of many to continue the repertoire ) piece for an upcoming show in December
I decided to do a little workout for my middle splits, front lever, and pike press to handstand.
I also was using the Abb Roller at first but I found it was to much of a challenge for my core and shoulder girdle and I couldn't get enough rest between sets so I took it out half way through.
Lesson Learned:
I am really liking the Super Sliders for static active stretches they get me into a nice deep split with very little prep time. Also I found that even though I had not been training my Pike Press to Handstand in a while it felt very strong. Yes I had a hard time finding my balance but the press part feels much more stable. Levers are also feeling good, but I don't have enough room to fully straddle my legs so I had to bend them, which felt kind of odd. It's always tricky figuring out what I want to do with these workouts, but so long as I have a flexibility element, a strength element, and a balance element I usually feel productive.
Just a heads up, I know I put "15th" in the title instead of "16th." Oh well.
I felt I had just enough of doing corks for a while so I took a different approach because I needed to rewire my set up. I slept in and decided to have a nice slow warm up and just focus on the progression on one move. So I started with my Gainer Flash, then I moved on to Gainer Flash Switch, finally started to throw a good circular cheat gainer and then moved on to Corks. Any way take a look at the footage.
lesson Learned:
Take the time to really get into your groove, to be calm, and to feel so sure of your technique. By the end of this session I was spinning faster, jumping higher, and felt very secure with my form. The only thing I have left to work on now is my legs being a little straighter.
Today I really wanted to get back to weight training so thus I forced myself to go to Club SAR next door and get some dead lifts and back squats in. Now first of all my max Dead Lift is 375lbs and my Max Back Squat is 245lbs and I weigh in at 167 lbs last time I checked. So that means I am in the intermediate range for dead lift and back squat. But today I stuck with 200 for Dead Lift and 160 for Back Squat because I wanted to check my form so I put my Epic music on turned the Gopro on and this was the first session of the day.
Lesson Learned: Dead Lifts are not something you need to do every day, or even every other day, especially when you are doing as much jumping and performing as me. So I want to incorporate two days of lifting where I lift very heavy. I noticed that with my Dead Lifts I need to sit back a bit more and my back squats I didn't sink into my heals enough. Will I feel it in my back? Yes I should feel it a little bit but I really should feel my legs screaming if anything. I know I had the bar as close to my shins as I could get it in my dead lift, because it left scratches on my skin. It was a good reintroductory session the next time I go though I will only pick one of the moves to do, either Back Squat or Dead Lift not both.
Part 2 of The Day
So I am a bit obsessed with getting my cork back down strong I'm okay with that. The second part of my session was geared toward my Front Tuck, and Cork Screw. lets watch and learn.
Lesson Learned:
Man those corks are pissing me off. I keep seeing the same thing My legs need to be tighter together and need to squeeze straight. I hate that they do this bent leg crap when I prepare for landing. I just need to hold it tighter. As far as my Front Tuck I just needed to the lift off more get that height feeling before tucking like a mad man. I bottomed out a few times when I was punching, now I know what your thinking, punching is more impact in the ankles and knees then jumping I should be jumping. Well I kind of do both I have a punch set up but I focus on making as little noise as I can so it is more like a blocked plyo. If I go strictly for plyo which gives me a good three foot vertical, it is very hard to flip, I am not saying I will never train it I am just saying I know what works for me and I will stick with it.
Well so I have decided to take a step back and think about the smaller things in my movement. I made a list today of moves I can do and then I started to ask myself why am I not making combos and making sure I can always land my moves that I already know. It is nice to practice new moves and get new skills but not at the cost of losing older skills, plus as a performer it doesn't really matter if you can do some really intricate flip because to the audience they can't tell the difference between an aerial and a handstand. So no need to beat myself up, but I do enjoy what I do. So any way my hope is to just really get my moves I have down looking amazing and then I will focus on some new things and of course it is always fun to just go to an open gym and tear it up. Who doesn't like to do that.
Lesson Learned:
Not bad training past couple of days. I have had some great moments with the people I have trained with. Khrystia, Cleodora, and Dakota you all are awesome. My Rais is getting better it almost is ready for swing throughs, but I need to invert it a bit more. My round off back handspring flash kick is feeling much better, however I notice that my legs are a little bit apart at the end of my round off. Still have okay running precisions considering I haven't been outside training parkour for some time, but then again I guess it is just how you view it. I did that shoulder buster I was talking about you can see it at 1:53 after the failed attempts. Feeling pretty good actually, and almond butter is awesome.
My strength and agility has definitely increased over the past couple of months. I was able to hold a shoulder buster for the first time at aerial practice the other night. I'll get a picture tonight for you if I can remember it is hard to explain what it is... Wait a sec this is a Vlog i'll just find you an example... right here is a shoulder buster at the beginning when he has the rope behind his back and he is arching into it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3Yq7XiQ1no
I have that in a static hold but it something I've wanted for sometime. I'll film it later.
I did some personal flip training at the Aerial Arts studio on some thin Mats just to get use to the hard ground feel in barefoot and I was very happy with that little practice session, it was something on a whim and I forgot to tape it so I am sorry but all you need to know is that it was very uplifting and way better then my Friday session.
Here's the footage from last nights light conditioning routine at home. I did four sets of the main workout but only got 3 on video again sorry.
Lesson Learned:
I didn't eat very much today and though I like being resilient feel I pushed that card a bit much recently, or did I.
Well I was hoping this day would have been a bit more thunderous, but it instead taught me a few things about myself. I wanted to get out and enjoy they beautiful weather and I did, but the skills I wanted to show great progress in I found myself falling down and being very heavy with. Take a look at the footage and you will see what I mean. However, toward the end of the practice I did start to wake up a bit more and accessed something a little deeper. I just had to yell and curse a bit. I apologize for this video having so many grammatical errors, but at this moment I don't feel like fixing them.
Lesson Learned:
Lighten up and enjoy the day. I know I am better then this and I just need to find that place again. I was jumping way to much forward, I need to be more fast and direct, focus on my lines and lengthening. Use more verbal cues and get more expressive. It may be about bio mechanics, but that's just it. I am not a machine I am a human and I have emotions and have to deal with stuff just like everybody else. I think at the end I started to access some of that inner animal I posted about a few days ago on Facebook. Just got to get raw with it, that's where I am coming from. True expression. If I feel tension I must not be expressing something, I was missing something. In any case I feel I found what I was looking for that day.
I wanted to take it easy today, less fast motion and more strength based today. I only worked my aerial today and I was very happy with the session. Also fairly happy with the strength work today. lets review the video.
Lesson Learned:
Push down more with jumping leg in my aerial and straighten the trailing leg as I am coming down. I know that when I was doing my Bboy Swipes especially in the last two sets that I felt a little cramped. I need to open up more and make the movement longer. Flags felt strong and so did the Baby Iron Cross, time for the next progression of those. Front lever is just where it needs to be that's the best I have done it in straddle with a bit more work I will bring down to parallel insted of just above shoulder level. The korean dips I feel I need to do slower but my big butt gets in the way I guess that means I just need to push more.
What an awesome session. I had a nice run before it and it opened up my muscles a bit more, I completely forgot that when I run for about 5 to 8 minutes barefoot prior to my sessions I almost always do better. Some dynamic stretching in there for ya and me getting back to working on my Cave Man squat, Depth Squat, Third World Squat. My ankle has had some damage the past year so I lost some mobility in there and I am working to get it back. Enjoy.
Lessons Learned:
Short runs are awesome, do them! I am getting the confidence back in my ankles so I can push harder in ending skills out of my back handsprings, where as before my ankle would buckle. Standing Double Backs went well today. I decided to go off a lower platform to force me to rotate faster. I am going to keep this up for a while and then eventually go off the higher platform and this time hopefully land the stupid thing. I'm trying to get a really good Side Swipe (inverted 540) so I did that a little today and it felt very strong, however I need to delay the tucking back of the non kicking leg so I get more laid out. A friend of mine complemented me on my fast progression. I thank him for that but also realize I have been training in many art forms for 10 years now and that allows me to make changes in form quite easily. Especially with the help of the camera and reviewing my form. See you next time.
I did so many corks today. And it was a good thing. Because If I had not done that many I probably would never had seen the habits I have been forming. I threw a good one here and there but I know now what I have to do to fix them. Enjoy the vids, train safe.
Lesson Learned:
I was trying to modify my Webster with doing a slightly side ways set up, the only problem with that is that it would screw up the second one. I went back to my old set up but tried to work on laying my body out more like a front aerial and feeling the foot position of the first webster so I could duplicate it in the second one. The final two in a row I did were the best I did, I'll remember that for next time.
The corks... I'll talk about the corks in a bit.
The windmill...Well the thing is I wanted to do something that required me to keep my self in straddle so I could better develop my split. Windmills work perfect for that, they are a great active stretch for the middle split. I need to feel my legs squeezing straight though it will give me a better torque.
I had a second wind so I did some more work after I was done teaching.
Lesson Learned:
I thing the best thing for me to do is to start trying to swing my leg while I feel it squeezing straight when I had my best cork of the day I felt that present along with me stacking my hips over my jumping leg. You can see I have a habit of taking off at an angle (my hips are not stacked over the jumping foot) and it throws me backwards instead of straight up. I think if start doing a combo after the cork it will give me more drive through the end. I feel that I am trying to slow down and stop and it kills my momentum. My left side of my back was getting a little sore from spinning to much that way so I did some movements that were similar to the cork but on the opposite side in order to make the muscles pull on both sides. I think my next practice in these two flipping skills are going to be really good.
So after a nice training session putting together a little bit of Partner Acro and working on Partner Trapeze I went home and was like "I am not finished yet" so I did this. Also I had been only drinking liquids the whole day so I was interested to see my fatigue levels after it.
The back pack has 20lbs in it and I held the skin the cat at the end for 1 minute.
Okay you're going to need 2 small cans of El Pato Sauce Jalapeno Sauce (the one with the Green Duck on it) Black Pepper, Fresh Garlic, A lime, Eden Trace Mineral Salt, Small Chicken Wingets. Preheat oven to 350-400 Degrees F.
Peel the Garlic and seperate them and then crush them with a knife to get them out of the sheaths. About 9 to 10 should do.
Put them in a food processor or mince them on your own.
Add to top of Chicken in a Bowl
Add the El Pato Sauce and mix with minced Garlic.
Cut Lime into fourths
Lightly oil baking trey and add wings and legs to pan and cover them with remaining sauce from bowl. When sauce is spread evenly take the Lime and squeeze them so the juice covers the wings.
Spread Black Pepper and Salt to desired amount.
Mine looked like this >>>>>>
Add some Cholula for extra zing if you want.
I let this batch cook a bit longer, almost an hour. So awesome. Enjoy
This morning I was quite tired from the Partner Trapeze work I did the night before. I couldn't get that on video because it is for an upcoming show and I don't want to spoil it.
Today I decided to do a series of moves only about 5 to 6 times and do them right after one another. I chose to do High Bar Giants and Toe Shoot Front Tucks, J Step to Cork, and Lever to handstand in Hollow Position. This was a very minuscule workout but like I said I was tired and High Bar was a B$*^$ to say the least, I had one of my worst falls ever off the high bar, but some how when I was falling I was just like "Don't Care, too Tired" and just let it happen. Remember that these are my training sessions they are not the cool videos I like to make that show me landing all of my skills, this is the down and dirty work when I screw up a lot and learn from my mistakes.
Lessons Learned: I have to learn how to slow down my giant if I want to combo it into the toe shoot front tuck. Also I have to do much better shapes in general because my giant is strength based and I could be making it a lot easier on myself. Secondly the Cork Screw, Until know I didn't realize why I was having such a hard time with it, especially since I was doing very well with them for a while, however I think it has a direct correlation with doing my Rudy (front layout with a one and a half twist) with an opposite side take off to my front aerial. You see when you do an Aerial Rudy you spin away from your kicking leg and when you do an opposite side take off kind of like a Raiz you spin into your kicking leg and in my opinion that is way easier because your going with the kick instead of against it. You can see in this earlier video what I mean.
Also keep in mind I was very fresh that day so I had much greater spin and lift.
Any way what I am trying to explain is that in my recent cork I would do my J step Cheat Gainer kicking my right leg up high and over my shoulder I would chase my trailing leg (left jumping leg) to aid my spin, for some reason it helped me get more twist, but only further training will tell me if this actually works or was just a fluke. As far as my handstand goes it felt pretty good, Trying to slow it down and find the push through my shoulders more and in my opinion I accomplished that.
As promised below is the first of some of my daily training sessions and many more to come.
I did nothing on Halloween except rest and eat so on November first I had a lot of energy. I woke up and took my morning shower drank some water and then did my Dynamic Stretching session followed up by some Green Tea and little Bacon. I left the apartment and went across to Indian School Park to shoot a short tutorial on Basic Ground Tumbling Foundation. That will be up soon. I went back home and got my snacks prepared for my training session before work and then headed out. This specific session had two parts because My main Camera went into Buffer Overlflow (an anoyance by far the worst I have ever known.) Below is everything I caught on that camera.
Lesson Learned: Pretty much every move has more time to execute then you think, take the time to actually feel when you're in certain positions and then act fast but don't rush it, My goal is to get two consecutive websters in a row, I have done it before I will do it again. For my Round Off Back Handspring Layout it looks like I am not reaching up enough to fully aide my layout and I like to Pike my rotation insted of keeping a solid shape in my layout. This just means I need to keep my core tight and of course "Squeeze My Butt!!"
I got the rest of my session on the new go pro and I forgot I was shooting at 120 frames per second.
Lesson Learned: Never practice two different moves that have the same start in the same day. Of course if the second move is just a level harder and you need the same set up then go ahead and do it, but if the move is something entirely different but has a similar set up you are probably going to confuse your Muscle Memory. Now if you are doing a combo then that is something else entirely.
