Taking a Break...

...To work on schoolwork.

Aquarium and Freeway Park fun!

Heading out to train at the Aquarium and Freeway Park jams today. I'm usually leery of jams, just because they're more social gatherings than anything else, at least they were when I went to the frequently. I'll give them another chance today, I guess.

Back in seattle

So I'm back from my school retreat to Duvall, and my legs are mostly recovered! I participated in the NWCrossfit class yesterday, and am planning on going out early tomorrow and training for a little while. Most of my training during the school year will be either crossfit- or PSCS-related classes.

Duvall

I haven't posted in a while...trying to make my leg heal. For some reason they've been sore for about a week now, and I haven't been able to figure out why it's taken so long for me to recover. Hopefully three days of R&R with PSCS will help.

Update 09.12.08

Late-night training postponed to parental paranoia...did it this morning. Struggled to the end and basically stretched myself back to sleep and woke up again at 10. I spent all of today hobbling around work, but I think that I'll be in good shape tomorrow to train with Aaron "ParkourDoll" Carlisle. 'Til then, I bid you a sore farewell, at least on the blog front ^_^

Rest day

I woke up today with my legs very sore, especially my quads.

Therefore, today's going to be a rest day...sort of. I'm going to be starting work again for the first time in a few days, which is going to be a lot of standing and walking around. After work, I plan on doing the PKGen warmup, QM around my Mom's property, and doing a cool down, just to see how much I can work my legs ;)

NWCrossfit 10.09.08

• Training on NWCrossfit front steps
  
  
  
  • Several Challenges: a kong up the steps through the doorway, a running precision to the top step, and a running precision from the sidewalk to the metal plate in the doorway.
  
  
  • I worked on the SdC challenge a few times, turned out not to challenge me in the areas that I wanted to work on. I have the form down, conditioning the push that I get from my upper-body will be necessary to progress in this challenge.
  
  
  • Then I moved on to working on the first jumping challenge. I started by jumping off of my left foot (this is an important detail, as I am far more comfortable jumping off of this foot) at the second line back from the steps to a precision on the top. once I felt comfortable jumping that distance, I moved my launch back to the third line, which was much more difficult, not only did I have to jump farther, but I could only take two steps (including the plant for the jump). Pushing the distance back caused my landings to fall apart. I shortened the distance a little and slowly increased it, focusing on getting precise, controlled landings every time, keeping at a distance until I felt rock-solid.
  
  
  • After doing those for a while, I worked on the second jumping challenge. I focused on having silent landings on the metal plate, which had a tendency to wobble and rattle unless I landed on it just right and absorbed a lot with my legs. Then I moved the jumps off of my left leg back to the first line, and started jumping off of my right foot from the sidewalk just before the steps. Jumps off of my right foot are still awkward and dumb, but they're definitely getting better.
  
  


• NWCrossfit Class
  
  
  
  • Before class: Explored ideas for the class on the pretty vault boxes with Janine and Tyson.
  
  
  • Warm up: Ran up and back around to some flights of stairs near crossfit. Did the "Lean forward against your partner" running drills while we waited for the new participants to get signed in. QM on the stairs: forwards up, forwards down, sideways up and down, backwards up. Run back to crossfit.
  
  
  • Class proper: Landings. i need to work on not always leaning way forwards when I land from a straight up and down jump, I have a tendency to lean forward and brace with my hands, which is a good thing overall, but I would still like to control when I do so. Rolls. We did a lot of roll work, an area where there's a lot of progress to be made on my part. Vaults. We broke out the boxes and worked on a circuit that involved vaulting one direction over the boxes and a fun cadence/precision course. Tyson proceeded to move the obstacles around, and added rail precision trainers to the end of the second leg. It wasn't entirely instinctive, but I recognized right away that I was going to have to change one of my safety vaults with a lazy, I was particularly proud of that for some reason.
  
  
  • Cool down: Cat traversal on the wall outside crossfit. I ended up demonstrating muscle-ups instead of completing the traversal, which is fine, since all those muscle-ups were quite the workout, and I think the students got the basic idea of what they needed to work on. I still haven't completed the first leg of that challenge without resting. After that we went inside and Tyson led a stretching session to finish the class.
  
  
  • Post class: After class ended a bunch of people stayed around and we worked on the same challenges that Janine and I were working on before the class. It's amazing how much good training you can get from a simple set of stairs!
  
  
• Bus stop: 30 minutes of dedicated training at the bus stop. The curb had a lip about 8mm higher than the sidewalk. I did various jumps to that curb, focusing on landing on it perfectly every single time, especially once I started to fatigue. I mostly did step jumps off of my right foot, varying the distance foot-placement, height, and speed of my jumps, forcing myself to concentrate and adapt my movement every single jump.


• Final cool down: When I got off of the bus, I walked home, quickly internetted for a few minutes, took a hot shower, stretched for a good long time, then took a cool shower.

So that was my day: a lot of good training, and a great way to finish the summer!

Goals

These are Kellen's main training objectives (as of 10.10.08):

• Become comfortable with running jumps off of my right foot


• Be able to complete a palm spin to crouching on a railing; with control, any direction, any angle


• Vertical standing jumps; upwards and downwards


• Off-foot vaults, especially kong, lazy, and speed vaults


• Rail precisions


• Cat traversals


• Muscle ups


• Two-step wall passes

September 10th

What a day! Needless to say it was very inspiring, how far I was pushing myself doing solo training...a great step in my Parkour journey, for sure. My comp's gonna kick me off shortly, so I'll do a nice beautiful write-up tonight and post it tomorrow.

The Plan

Today I'm mostly going to be hanging out with friends.

Training-wise, I will be apprentice teaching at the NWCrossfit class at 7:30, maybe showing up a little early to get some training in on the wonderful wall that they have outside. I might head over to a park to practice rail work in the earlier parts of today, too.