Train Hard - Stay Humble

All Blog Posts (154)

SoCal Group Session no. 2 (Invading Huntington Beach)

July 19

"Lonnie! Jason!"

Taylor spotted some of the San Diego guys getting out of their car as we combed the parking structure for a spot of our own. The drive had been decent but traffic made us half an hour late, which of course made us on time in pkcali time. As we rounded yet another level, King greeted us with a drop kick to my side door (a fake one :).

Our entourage headed down to the pier, you could already feel the energy among us. Lonnie, Jason, Tim,… Continue

Added by orem on July 21, 2008 at 2:30am — 2 Comments

LCHS Conditioning 4 (upper body)

July 15

Damn the Summer is going faster than I'd thought - a mere 6 weeks or so before I venture North again, 12 since I left. I've learned loads, my LA brothers (and sister) welcomed me back and beat me :P Training bi- or triweekly has been a pleasure I've been savoring, something I expect to lose went I return to school. At least the triweekly.... I'll be trying my damnedest to keep biweekly with Andrea ;)

Tonight Taylor lead a workout of our arms, shoulders, and core.… Continue

Added by orem on July 16, 2008 at 1:30am — 2 Comments

UCLA #5 i think

July 12

Arrived a bit late, I think I'm getting to the level of a lazy regular :P It's not unusual for people to show up half way through the session, so it's like "An hour late? Ah whatever... they'll still be at the med center... and if not, I'll find 'em in Jamba (Juice)." We go around the campus in kind of a predictable schedule.

In fact as I showed up they were about to leave for Jamba, but King suggested playing a quick round of follow the leader hot lava. He lead a… Continue

Added by orem on July 13, 2008 at 11:30pm — 7 Comments

presidio photos

My photos from today's session at The Presidio are up on Flickr.

Added by sarah on July 13, 2008 at 7:30pm — 11 Comments

LCHS Conditioning 3 (lower body)

July 9

We started at the track. Went for a jog, then literally kicked our butts, then high knees, then backwards. That was lap 1, a quarter mile. Lap 2 was galloping sideways, springing to the side as our legs closed together then spread apart in landing in preparation for the next spring! That went on for a hundred yards, then we walked as the track turned. Grapevine step for fifty yards. Then jogging. Walked as we approached the start of lap 3, which we sprinted the first… Continue

Added by orem on July 10, 2008 at 4:30am — 11 Comments

UCLA #lost count..

July 5

Hell of a session today :] Greg and Nozz (guy Nozz, original Nozz) both came out, the latter I'd only met that morning on an errand, and they both pumped the session in different ways. Greg is always high-energy, and like I guessed, he wanted to do runs, so we ran from south campus to north campus - completely enlightening. I was shocked at how quickly my body tired and wanted to run around everything as opposed to vaulting or jumping or climbing. And how sloppy everyone's… Continue

Added by orem on July 6, 2008 at 3:30am — 2 Comments

Gym Day!

July 3

Thursday. Gym day. Thor's day.

Anyway

HA, this was one of the best gyms ever. I arrived a bit late around 10, and it was Brian, Cliff, Andrew and I. It started slow, but when I went to do kong to cats Cliff took me away and instead helped with a bunch of different conditioning exercises for my jump. After all, Parkour is about training movement itself, not moves. As he explained, the strengthening of the basic abilities of jump, climb, run, etc would… Continue

Added by orem on July 4, 2008 at 5:00am — 6 Comments

LCHS Conditioning 2

July 1

GOOD session. After the laziness of Saturday, this meet was gratifyingly rough. Taylor wanted to focus on upper body, and he and King came up with a bunch of things to kill our arms and core. Mostly arms though. We only worked for an hour, but man, everyone really pushed themselves. Dips, bear crawl, push ups, catwalk push ups, backwards qm up stairs... good stuff. The group is highly supportive, too. Encouragement is always yelled for anyone struggling, and even if you think… Continue

Added by orem on July 2, 2008 at 1:39pm — 2 Comments

Lazy Session

June 28

I dunno if it was something in the air, or because Neither King nor Cliff were present to crack a whip, but this session was really really ...relaxed :P We didn't move away from the starting spot until closer to 2:30 if memory serves; it was cool though because it felt very thorough. And now it feels odd writing this as I think about the sessions at GWHS where we spend ALL our time at one place :P granted those sessions are usually 3 hours whereas UCLA usually goes for at… Continue

Added by orem on July 2, 2008 at 1:23pm — 1 Comment

scorching weekend part 2

June 22

Conditioning at LCHS. Just as hot as Saturday, and with crappy high school plumbing instead of university plumbing. Trust me, on a day like this, paying a dollar is completely worth a bottle of ice cold vending machine water. And when that was finished, at least I knew which water fountains served cool to lukewarm water and which would be boiling because I used to go to school here. That made me feel helpful :P (Sheesh just remembering this makes me want to get a glass of ice… Continue

Added by orem on June 24, 2008 at 3:00am — No Comments

scorching weekend

June 21

Mmmm another UCLA session. I thought it was going to be a small group, but I show up and it's a party, felt like 20 people. I was shocked because half the crowd I didn't know, gym newbies, and the heat wave we're experiencing has been unforgiving. At 12:30 it was already high nineties or in the hundreds. I was sweating driving there, and here were all these people for their first or second time ever training outside.

Jo, King, and Brian were around, already leading the… Continue

Added by orem on June 24, 2008 at 2:11am — No Comments

a little conditioning

June 18

Was out running errands so I took a couple hours to stop by a local school and do some conditioning - plus I knew I wouldn't be able to go to the gym Thursday, so I wanted to get stuff in. Did backwards qm up and down every staircase I could find, and found a wall I could do repetitive work for muscle ups. I also drilled lazies by vaulting one way and immediately going back over way - something the guys had been playing with at the SD jam. At the least it's improving my… Continue

Added by orem on June 20, 2008 at 10:00pm — No Comments

proprioception drills and finishing strong

Inspired by the Parkour Generations Quadrepedie on Rails and Conditioning Through Movement videos and by looking for a way to stay focused during recovery from aerobic activity, I've started thinking about proprioception drills. I imagine everyone here knows what proprioception is, but in case ya don't, it's basically your internal awareness of where your body parts are relative… Continue

Added by Seng on June 19, 2008 at 10:30pm — 5 Comments

How to Practice Parkour: A guide for those about to take the first step

Before beginning to train Parkour, you must consider your physical condition. You should not attempt any technique that your body cannot handle the consequences of. You need to either build strength, endurance, speed etc. before you start training, or progress at such a slow rate that your body is conditioned by your training process.

There are many different ways to train Parkour, most of which are valid and useful depending on the practitioners intentions. One of the original… Continue

Added by Chris on June 19, 2008 at 12:12am — 9 Comments

Random thoughts

I'm still new to parkour, I definitely admit that. My first session was literally a month ago at Sloat, one day before my archaeology final. (Which I know now was probably a bad idea since my quads were so sore the next day I was almost crying when I had to go down stairs, so sitting in a desk for two hours and ever time I moved, I winced...bad.) I remember seeing those parkour videos on YouTube and in movies/music videos, etc. and thinking "Wow...that's amazing. Too bad I'll never in a million… Continue

Added by Faye on June 18, 2008 at 10:29pm — 7 Comments

SoCal Group Session no. 1 (super long post for a super long day)

June 14

"Hey!" Ninjaboy (Paul) shouted and jogged over to greet us. It was 10:40 am, we'd made it to Balboa park in much better time than I'd planned, and were just reaching the meeting spot. I'd left home at 7:45 to grab Taylor and Jacob, and then Brian#2 and Rick in West LA, and traffic to San Diego had been blessedly light.

We had quite a group of people that showed up early for Paul, a good 13 or so (Paul had to leave at 1 for a wedding). We trained a little around the… Continue

Added by orem on June 16, 2008 at 3:00am — 4 Comments

2fer

June 11

Short night session around my old high school. It really has a lot of potential, but mostly fun if you're more advanced. Not too long ago Taylor made a nice video showing some of it off:

While there I ended up mostly practicing my kong run up, learning to trust it more and more in the outside world. I want to have enough trust in it that it serves me well on Saturday :P I also worked bear kong on both sides and nearly made the wallrun you… Continue

Added by orem on June 13, 2008 at 2:00am — 10 Comments

UCLA 3

June 7

small group today, low key cause UCLA is having finals. me, Tayzon (Taylor), Rick, Brian#2, Shiloe, and Lo.

improvements on myself i've noticed:

more controlled precisions and improved distance (8.5 of my shoes. used to be 8)

new kong run up is a-go for objects waist height or lower :] i kinda wished any of the guys from thursday night could have been there to see me take it outside for the first time, but i guess they'll see later… Continue

Added by orem on June 8, 2008 at 12:00am — 5 Comments

Technique Discipline

June 5

Thursday. Gym day? I hadn't been to the last several classes. Either I was busy or was hesitant to go because the classes were really focused on absolute beginners. The time that was valuable to me was the time after when I could use it as an open gym and work on slightly more complicated tricks. Oh. Yeah. Maybe I could just ask Cliff if I could come after class. Even just an hour or so of that time would be useful. However, when I talked to him he told me the cleaning crew… Continue

Added by orem on June 6, 2008 at 5:30pm — 6 Comments

Santa Cruz beach: Sun, fun, near death experiences

Today I was stuck in Santa Clara with about 7 hours to kill in the middle of the day, so I thought what better place to go than Santa Cruz? Just a hop skip and a kong over Highway 17 and the beach is there for my enjoyment. Beautiful day for it, and what do I come across just east of the Boardwalk but a seawall made of giant concrete obstacles dumped loosely into the ocean, creating an unrivalled playground for flow practice. The obstacles are these giant tetrahedral concrete things, each one… Continue

Added by Bio on June 3, 2008 at 4:31pm — 10 Comments