The moment.

Its been a while since i've posted, and I must admit, I wish my posts had been a bit more consistent up until this point.

Whats changed? Well a fair bit i guess. I last posted in January about how I was struggling to cope and how all the training was taking a physical and mental toll on myself. Since then i've adjusted my training a bit. I now attend MMA class 4 times a week, train parkour 1-2 a week and lift when I can, usually after beginners class on a Monday.

Training looks a little like this -

Monday - MMA - Weights.

Tuesday - Flexibility

Wednesday - MMA

Thursday - Rest

Friday - MMA

Saturday - MMA - Parkour

Sunday - Rest - Maybe some light Parkour

Its pretty hectic on top of a part time job but I'm away from school now - more on that later.

The MMA training has paid off, and i've since my last post had two chances to test myself.

Once in June against Jet Harris from Tei Karate (see below)







Jet Harris proved more a mental test than physical, it was my first fight, he was bigger than me, older and looked like the kind of guy people would cross the street to avoid. When that bell rings though, i tend to become emotionless, neither angry nor afraid.. just ready to do what I need to do. Luckily this paid off and 1:42 into the first round I caught my opponent with an arm bar.

My second chance to test myself was in August, I was much better prepared, despite taking the fight on 12 days notice. I had none of the pre-fight nerves I had before, and was excited just to get going. I was fighting against Jamie Leslie, a fighter from Edge MMA. I caught him fairly early on and despite his resistance on an arm bar and a close escape I caught him with a rear naked choke after 59 seconds into the first. Improving my previous fight time and passing what I expected I could do. (see below)



My time with Team Jigoku has been amongst the happiest i've been my entire life, and im truly grateful that i've has the chance to train with everyone in the team, especially the Saturday boys (you know who you are) and also had the opportunity to train with Marc Howes, the coach, and pretty much the father of the team. Both his knowledge and skills is vast, and his fitness is incredible, amongst the best in the class with the average age of about 22 despite him being 50. I hope im half as fit as him when im that age.

Unfortunately my time of being able to train with Team Jigoku week in week out is limited, but as every door closes another opens. I have been accepted by RSAMD (Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama) to do Contemporary Performance Practice. The audition process was both fun and stressful, luckily I was lucky enough to gain a place in the Academy, so end of this month im off to Glasgow for uni.

After allot of thought i decided that I would never like to see myself as part of another MMA team, as i stated before Team Jigoku means so much to me and has helped through more times and more reasons than you would believe. Therefore I have decided to work on individual MA's, possibly Muay Thai to begin with whilst in Glasgow and train MMA with Jigoku outwith term time. This will allow me to address weaknesses, possible compete in individual MA's and still be able to represent Team Jigoku in MMA. I was fortunate enough at my last fight to receive some good information on clubs and invites to train with people which will help a load.

Parkour wise, for those who know Scottish Parkour, will know that Glasgow is our traceur capital. I will be training with allot of guys ive met there previously such as Chris Grant, Zeno, BJ Lange, David Mcfayden and for the first week Blane (all of which have excellent blogs I would recommend you check out). So that wont be affected.

Anyway, this post has reached its end, ill address individual thing from now on as they happen instead of getting to the stage of making a 6 month update.

Peace.

Parkour is not enough..

I found myself lying down on my sofa half asleep, half awake, trying to get the energy for Intense Cardio night at MMA. My dad (transport for the night) came into the room and suggested I take the night off. I became angry within myself for being so weak, so i got up went to MMA and as usual gave it my all.

It's this moment that I reflected on the amount of things I do and there connections. I go to two MMA classes a week, four gym sessions and two parkour sessions. This allows me (as I stack days) one rest day per week although every month or two I take three to four days to allow my body to recover. I take protein supplements and eat clean to allow myself to recover fast enough to allow so much activities.

I was discussing my weekly regime with some friends and one asked me "Whats the point in doing all that. Why not focus on one thing and try to be the best." Basically he couldn't understand why on earth i would want to be the jack of all trades when I have the potential to focus on one thing and become amongst the best. I realised that I've became almost obsessed with trying to become the best at everything. I don't see this as a negative thing though, I'm always growing this way. I've began studying survival and have already put into practice make shift fishing, gutting a fish and skinning an animal. I hope to gather a wealth of survival skills for no more reason than I feel it essential to feel free. I will continue to buy my food from shops and live in a house but I think that if am dependent on such a system then inside i feel like a lesser human to those who live off the land, for this reason I would like these skills if only for the confidence that should society fail in such away were living in the wilderness that I will be fine.

I'm beginning to rant so I'll close this up. Parkour allows me to escape and reach, MMA allows me to defend and attack, combine this with the ability to live off the land then yes.. I will be free.

(Example of our coach pleased because he wrecked us all so badly he created a steam room...)

Catcrawl (April)

I'm mid-way in the process of collecting sponsors, it's only just really hit me what I've achieved. On the grand scale of things it may not seem much but to me the event tested me both physically and mentally.

I prepared physically for about a month leading up to the event which proved difficult as i didn't want to adjust my normal training too much and only have gains that would aid me for the catcrawl. I did allot of planch training mixed up with press-up variations and of course catcrawls. For the catcrawls i spent allot of the time going backwards up stairs and such to put a greater strain on my arms, this proved most effective in training for the event and is the exercise i did most.

Mentally i also prepared for the challenge, i spent allot of time reading articles about people who had pushed themselves to the limit in endurance event's. I also watched Jin's catcrawl video a large number of time to really drive me through training and have a mental picture of things to come. On the day of the event i was pretty sure music would drive me most the way and i had relied greatly on this until Darren forgot to bring his i-pod to lend me on the day, this was, at first, a huge blow to my confidence and i began to panic at the starting line. As the event proceeded without music i was given allot of time to think. I was without distraction so in the end I'm thankful Darren forgot the i-pod, i really began to reflect and question why i was doing the event based on a parkour movement anyway, i started to consider my training and parkour lifestyle and pondered quite a bit on how selfish parkour really is. Parkour is about you and your journey, when i thought this i truly began to believe i was creating a balance between the selfish side of parkour and the selflessness of the act i was performing. This was comforting and really helped push me. That was one of many thought trains i went through on the day and don't think that my family and friend's presence wasn't as big a pushing factor because it was. This all i really have to say on this milestone of my parkour journey so far, as for the charity and how much raised etc.. the following video pretty much explains it all.