Don’t read this

Wednesday 5th of May

Alex Yakimov (of Ace Trelements fame) and I hit up Bikram Yoga Fitzroy for a night sesh. We both went pretty well, and stuck around in the room until everyone else had gone, then just stretched a bit more (the way we would after normal training, not repeating bikram stretches).

Thursday 6th of May

Alex Pavlotski (another Russian Traceur like Alex Yakimov, but less sneaky and dodgy) had a good play around session in the city. I spent a bit of time working vaults over my less preffered side and helped him out a bit with his vaults. All up it was a pretty cruisy session, but a good one none the less.

Stunts and pushups

Tuesday 4th of May

Mr.Chippapotamus invited me to some stunt training at The Trace Facility with two other stunties. We did a lot of mini tramp stuff. We got out some wooden swords and worked on being able to flip while holding them, then landing in ninja poses which was a lot harder than we thought it would be, but we worked out a few things. We tried some new stuff too, like pulling someone down from a wall, having the falling person go into a breakfall on a crash mat.

Later at night I smashed out 200 pushups to add to Melbourne’s 20,000 pushups by the end of May thing. It will be interesting to see how poeple go with contributing to that.

I can haz bronze medallion

Sunday 2nd of May

The second day of Bronze Medallion was heaps better than the first! We started off with going over CPR and doing role plays again, knocked them all out quickly then got into the water for the rest of the day.

The swimming we did was all focussed on safe water entries, towing victims without equipemtn and rescue using floatation equipment. The victims we towed ranged from non swimmers, weak swimmers, injured swimmers, unconscious people and people with spinal injuries. We learned what to do with people with broken necks who’re face down in the water, what order to save multiple people in water who need your help, which is determined by what their problem is and how likely they are to survive. An example of that is you’ve got a non swimmer, injured swimmer and someone with a spinal injury in the water. You need to get the non swimmer out first because they can’t swim and are thrashing around in the water, so they’re alive but are likely to drown. Next is the injured swimmer, because although they’re injured they’re able to stay afloat in the water and aren’t in as much danger of drowing. Last is the spinal victim, because their chance of survival is so much lower than the others right from the start.

I didn’t get the chance to do my 400m swim again because the people who came in for their BM update did that while everyone else started on towing victims. Bit of a bummer, but it doesn’t matter anyway.

I would seriously reccomend anyone who does swimming or even just goes out to the beach and jumps into water from piers etc… to do bronze medallion. There are a lot of useful things to learn in the course you wouldn’t learn otherwise, plus it’s just a fun course anyway.

Half way to a Bronze Medallion

Friday 30th of April/Saturday 1st of May

These two days blurred into each other, so I’ll keep it as a single post.

El Smo-Go went to The Trace Facility to do some stage fighting with Morgan and a few others, which had a decent turn out compared to the last session I went to of that. Hopefully these will keep growing and we’ll get more stunties and people training to be stunties along to them. I picked up a few new things in the session, particularly about body language during fight scenes, how to look more agressive etc…

After that session a few Parkour people came around and we played on the bars and vaults, doing some siiiiiiick stuff. I’m starting to get the lache to precision a lot more easily than before, I’ve nailed it a few times. At around 7 we all headed into the city for a good night of long boarding. Unluckily for me, I got home at about 2am, set my alarm an hour early by mistake (getting up to go to Bronze Medallion in Maribyrnong) and took about 60-90 mins to get to sleep-which means I probably got about 2 or 3 hours sleep.

So my alarm wakes me up, I eat, shower, get dressed and go down to the station for my train. It’s only when I get to the station that I realise I’m up an hour earlier than I needed to be, which is shit considering the long day ahead of me. After a bit of bumming around in the city, I get over to Maribyrnong Aquatic Center at 9am, right on time. From 9 to 12.30 I was bored out of my brain as if I was back in school. All we did was listen to the instructor go over things that are taught in first aid courses, which is obviously important and very useful, but tedious when you did level 2 first aid the year before…

After our lunch break, it’s straight into the water for our 400m swim which has to be completed in under 13 mins. Time to find out if all the swimming I’ve been doing since late December has paid off! Usually I find the 100m free style pretty tiring, but slip streaming the people infront and really relaxing through the whole thing made it loads easier. The people infront of me were actually quite slow, so I over took a few and powered through my other strokes. When I finished my 400m, I was feeling fine which is a little bit of a surprise. I knew I’d made it under 13 mins, but was pretty happy to find out my time was 9mins and 30 seconds. Tomorrow there are only a few people left to do their 400m swim, and I’m considering going again for a faster time. There wont be heaps of people in the way and I’ll be able to go for a better time much more easily.

Gangster midget long boarders

Wednesday 28th of April

After finishing work, I rock up to the CBD at around 9pm and find two honkies training on southbank. I have a play around with them near the broken pier, do a little bit of conditioning with them, then they bail so I continue to train solo.

Thursday 29th of April

With my Bronze Medallion just around the corner (this weekend) I dropped in on La Trobe Uni’s swimming pool and busted out quite a few laps of free style. I felt my breathing technique become better over the session which is a good improvement, then at the end of the session I did my 400m swim as if I was doing the actual BM swim and had no troubles. I didn’t time it, but I knew it was easily under 13 mins

I r yogi

Tuesday 27th of April

Just another Bikram Yoga session in Prahran. I’ve done 4 or 5 sessions out of 10 for my intro which is a bit of a fail, but I’ve been a busy ranga. This one was a piece of cake, I smashed most of the poses without feeling light headed or tired through the whole session. Again the place felt colder than Fitzroy. Next time I do Bikram it will be at Fitzroy, so I’m hoping that the heat will be crankin and that it will be more of a challenge.

Not the sharpest shed in the tool.

Sunday 25th of April.

Today, ranga did a full day of stunt training, focussing on wire work. We did big jumpies and flippies in harnesses with wires, pullie systems and other such things. After that I went to the Trace Facility and nailed the level lache to precision without putting my hand down. Win.

On the coming saturday I’m doing my Bronze Medallion. I have not been swimming much recently, so will be going a few times this week. I need to swim 400 meters in under 13 mins, which I know I can do but I still don’t want to go in there feeling out of practise, and obviously I want to get the best time I can. Shouldn’t be a problem, but want to make sure I nail it on the first go.

I’ll let you know how I go…

Two girls, one cu…wait no. Three days, one post.

Wednesday 21st of April

I didn’t plan on doing any training today, but wound up in the city late at night and felt like some climbing. I headed over to an abstract sculpture which is a favorite of mine for climbing, then climbed it up and down 3 times in a row, taking a different way up and down each time. I had a small break, then went to the other side of the sculpture and did the same thing. This session was very short, I was there for about 20 mins, but it was a good one considering how short it was and I’m pleased with my endurance in my climbing which seems to have made a bit of progress.

Thursday 22nd of April

Bikram Yoga again, nothing special about this class. Just the usual 90 minutes of breathing and postures. This night felt quite easy. I’ve missed out on doing Tuesday and Wednesday in my 10 day unlimited which is annoying, but will keep going as much as I can while it lasts.

Friday 23rd of April

Another Bikram session. I’ve been to the Prahran Bikram Yoga place 3 times now, and they have all been quite easy compared to how some of the sessions in Fitzroy have been. Prahran never feels as hot as Fitzroy. I’m sure they have the temp one or two degrees lower than what they say it’s meant to be, which is 40. One or two of the sessions I did in Fitzroy felt so hot it was like I was being deep fried. There are a lot of variables to take into consideration with how Bikram sessions go though. What you’ve eaten before class, how long you ate before class, how much you’ve had to drink through the day and how much you drink during the session and what ever other training you’ve done all influence how well you perform. This is relevant to any form of exercise or training, but in Bikram the heat makes it a lot more obvious.

No shorts, no Bikram

Tuesday 20th April

So I’ve just caught the train from Macleod to Flinders to go to Prahran Bikram Yoga, changed trains and as my train departs I realise “Shit, I don’t have a pair of shorts to wear for Bikram”. Trace Facility here I come.

I wind up at the Trace facility as Sam’s basics class finishes up technique and moves onto strength and conditioning. While they do that I start to play on the punching bag with some kick and punches, have a play on the rails with Nate, doing some balance and rail precisions. Then I have a crack at holding a flag, which I hadn’t tried in months. Last time I tried flags I couldn’t hold a tucked flag for more than a few seconds, now a few seconds is dead easy. I can extend my legs and hold it with a crooked body (legs pointing up a bit lower than 45 degrees while my chest is horizontal). I can also lift my legs straight and together up and down, though my chest stays where it is, so I’m not moving my whole body in a straight line. This is a massive improvement and an even bigger surprise. Thank you, strength and conditioning. You are my best friend.

Once Sam’s class leave, it’s time to work on lache to precision on the wall rails. I made some progress here. At the start I was hitting it with two feet, and using my hand on the wall a lot to balance. By the end of it my hand was still touching the wall for balance, but I didn’t rely on it as much. Next time I go there to train lache to precision I hope to be closer to nailing it without using the wall for balance.

That is all.

Bikram Yoga

Monday 19th of April

I’ve been doing this for a few weeks in Fitzroy. All the places that run it offer a 10 day unlimited pass for $20, so I’m doing this in Prahran now. Over the next 10 days I’m not expecting to do much more than Bikram Yoga, but will do some other training. If you’re unfamiliar with Bikram, it’s done in 40 degree rooms to make you sweat and to stretch further safely (amongst many other reasons). It’s a series of 26 poses, done over 90 minutes. Every class is exactly the same in terms of what order you do the poses in and for how long, but each class varies a lot in different ways. Sometimes you wont feel that hot, and everything will be easy while other times you’ll feel like it’s 50 degrees and that your head is gonna explode.

The main focus of the poses is in developing strength and flexibility in your back and legs, which is very beneficial to Parkour. The instructors sound very hippy like talking about all the healing benefits, emotional releases from certain parts of the body during some poses etc…but I have found at least with the healing benefits that they’re not just saying it because it sounds good, this stuff is great for your knees and mine have improved since doing it. Not sure about the emotional releases though, maybe I’m too much of an arsehole for that kind of thing.

Go to Bikram Yoga.