The Creek

Today I was out training at the park all day, with my friend and next-door neighbour Nathan. We also watched a bit of cricket my school friends were playing.

However, the best moment of the day came when Nathan said he would show me the creek that is at the bottom of our road through some bush.

We went around a few paths and the first thing I noticed was there were a few rocks. And then as we got right near the creek, there are some great rocks for training on. I looked at a few runs and jumps, and then we headed on, and decided we would come back and train there later. We crossed the creek using some thin logs, and then followed the path on the other side.

We passed underneath some huge rock overhangs, which were spectacular. On one you could see lots of layers of rock, they started off horizontal but as we carried on walking they twisted to about a 45 degree angle, it was really cool. I need to take pictures of it.

After walking along the path for a fair way, we came to the dam wall, which we balanced across, back to the original side. The paths here were very bushy, so I suggested we crawl up this large fallen tree, which was laid across and above the bush. After coming off the other end the bush thinned out, and we crossed a cow paddock back to the park, after some more walking.

Then we headed back down to the rocks for a while. I spotted a fairly large arm jump across a water gap onto this rock, which I subsequently did, and then did a few runs and tic tacs. I suggested we explored to the right of the rocks, and we ended up doing this big long run through the trees, over branches and rocks. It was so fun, we felt like proper animals.

After all our fun, we headed up back onto our estate, fully tired and sweaty and dirty. Only later did we find out that it was getting warmer, so there could have been lots of snakes. We knew about the spiders and leeches and lizards, but it was lucky we didn't see any snakes. Will look out next time, Kurrajong is Funnel Web Spider and Common Brown Snake central, the deadliest spider and one of the deadliest snakes in the world.

Rail Precisions + Conditioning

I have been out training in the park quite a bit this week. On Monday and Tuesday I did quite a bit of conditioning, my left thigh is nearly equal in size to my right thigh now, all those pistols have nearly paid off, and all the upper body stuff I have been doing has helped, I can do 7 pullups in a row now rather than 3. Pretty poor still I know. Im working on getting simultaneous muscleups, so pullups, pushups and various dips is what I have been doing.

Today I didn't feel like doing conditioning so I did movements instead. I've got a training partner now, my next door neighbor, who is a few years younger than me, but is pretty eager to learn things, so I have been teaching him a few things. Today I noticed quite a bit of progression. I have been getting gradually more confident with rail precisions, on these wooden beams. Today I did barefooted ones, which were nice, and felt really good. All my training recently has been barefooted, except for a few rail precisions I need to get more confident with. There are some precisions I have been looking at for a while now, onto these thin metal railings from a wooden plank. The plank is at an angle, so the further you move to the top, the further away it is from the railing, and the more level it becomes with the railing. The precision at the bottom is a small distance but upwards, so I got that first,and did it a few more times. Then I moved up the plank, further away and more level with the railing. I did the precision from the middle a few times, until I was happy with it. Then I did it from the top of the plank. I knew this part of the railing was slightly slippier than the rest for some reason, but after a few tests with my foot I knew I would be able to stick it well. The first time, I landed it and stuck it nicely, so I was really pleased. The second time however, after I had landed, my left foot slipped behind off the railing. Luckily I managed to control my fall pretty well, by moving my left foot over the railing, so I wouldn't scrape my shin, and then rolled out of it to stop myself cracking my face, and I then landed on the dirt on the other side on my back. All I got was a tiny cut on the base of my thumb from the wire fencing underneath the railing, and the little scab on my elbow came off and bled a bit. I got up, being pretty pleased with myself, as I had acted instinctively to stop the fall from hurting me. The fact that it felt like I knew what I was doing as well, I could have so easily panicked and hurt myself.

So thats my training from the past few days, can't wait to go train there again tomorrow. I'm so lucky it is only a fence-hop away.

Leaving Party Photo

Just thought I'd share my leaving party group photo:



Seeing this just reminds me of these very special people I miss.

Love you all.

Sydney//Richmond.training

Well, been making this for about a month, finally got the chance to film a few things in Richmond today, so I edited it together. My thumb/hand has healed enough to put weight on it, but I can't put it at weird angles and push off it.



The catpass-squirell is harder than it looks, I only landed it once properly because my right foot kept slipping off the tree, as I had worn the rough bark off it. It took about 20 minutes to get it, as there is a thin gap to fly through, a fair distance (I couldnt get an angle to show it much) quite a high box to vault over and clear, and then you have to get your feet exactly right to stick the landing. I was so chuffed at finally getting it!

Front Flips

Back in England, my front flips were pretty bad - ie landing crouched. I would try into the tricking bush at Magistrates, and I managed to land standing up sort of.

When I moved into my new house, I discovered a long jump put in the park next to us, and I figured I would try a few front flips. My first one, I landed leaning way far forward, and stood up, so I fell over. So on my next one, I untucked earlier, and landed pretty much perfect! In my excitement I ran to grab my camera, and then filmed a few. Since then, I have learnt to do one footed takeoffs, and got more height aswell. These are only my early ones, I have practised quite a bit more since filming them, but here ya go: