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.