I wanna be rye bread!

Haven't given a proper update for a while now, especially concerning training and just what is cracking in general, and I feel now is an ok time to just write what is going on at the moment.

Well with regards to parkour, its all going well and I am keeping things ticking over as the weeks go on. When I first got out to China, I had lost strength from about 1.5 months without a structured routine due to a whole bunch of things going on, all of them good and worthwhile for sure. So, I had about another 2 weeks till i started training again in China, and the regression felt quite obvious to me so I have had to work back up to the standard that I was feeling back home, and now really feel like I am getting back on things.

Chinese is taking up a fair old chunk of the day with about 6 hrs being spent studying, as well as working at a kindergarten twice a week and volunteering at a home on mondays, so I have managed to get in a good set up where I have 2.5 hrs every week day of training, as well as free movement on the weekends. So the current schedule is every weekday 1 hour of drills, 1 hr of strength training, and about 20-30 mins of stretching. I do pulling movements twice a week, pushing once a week, and rotate every week so it becomes 2 days of pushing, and 1 day pulling. Also leg strength on tuesday and thursday, with deadlifts and weighted squats having been intergrated into the legs session, with drills working the legs a lot as well.
The drills usually consist of drilling touch and precisions, for example, today I did 75 drops, 75 height jumps, 50 precisions (alternating left/right/both legs), 50 arm jumps (with climbups obviously), then an hour split into dips training and one arm pushup training. I am just following a structured routine in this way to make gains with the strength goals that I currently have, and also to keep progressing with the fundamentals through drills such as touch, balance, combinations, single movement repetitions.....etc. But I am certainly training at a satisfactory standard again, making sure that I am working hard each evening, making the most of the time I allocate. I am blessed with really nice training areas around my campus as well, and the exercise parks are great places to train strength.

Also got a fair bit of interest from Chinese students here since a few people approach me every time i train (so i have found a few quieter spots). I have only done one conditioning session with a bunch of them so far, and it had to be knocked down quite a few notches from the nights we were doing in Sheffield (really miss those). But I really feel there is a fair bit of potential for parkour here, I just need to organise and set aside time to train and teach people as well as try and set up a little infrastructure to help it grow. Planning on chipping up to Beijing in January to see the heart of the Chinese parkour scene and a friend from a couple of years back, so that should be interesting.

In a couple of weeks I am also doing the Shanghai half Marathon as a build up to the ever impending marathon des sable's. With this in mind I plan to do a few runs out of the city for a couple/few days at a time sleeping wherever and with everything on my back, a bible, and God for company. Its fairly daunting since the Chinese countryside is really not the most cheerful I have been in after the cycle trip, so it should be a good challenge mentally as much as anything else.

I really feel as well that I have a much better balance to my life with regards to the ratio of training to other things. During my first year at uni I was pretty much using the majority of my spare time to train, or thinking about training, with a lot of time sacrificed to this end. Now I realise that training is certainly not the be all of things and that it is unhealthy (for me) to be so obsessed by it, BUT, it is still a huge part of my life and helps me live better in so many ways. It is really important to me and I feel it is a vital part for everyone's life, that movement can enhance a person's quality of life so much that i feel everyone can benefit from it, but should not be ruled by it. I feel that parkour and training is part of the whole, rather than the actual whole.
I also used to get fairly stressed when thinking of where I should be, and also used to compare myself to people too much, which made me beat myself up a bit when I thought I was not at the standard where I was. My mind and goals would often flit when I saw where certain people were, thinking "ah i need to get back on learning more acro", or "damn get back on the movement/conditioning more!". Being out in China and being really the only person who trains parkour that I know of, I am more focused on myself and find myself enjoying the process for what it is. This is another important thing I have learnt a few months ago, to really take pleasure in the means, the process of training and to to not get caught up in the goals or ends, but rather keep ticking over and taking enjoyment in the training and letting the goals take care of themselves, which they will if the training is sound. So I have definately learnt to just take more enjoyment in the training itself and to be happy in the grind, the familiar strained and sweat-soaked focus that accompanies a hard going session where you truly grow in mental and physical ability.

I feel like a really focused, tight and uncompromising session of training is similar to eating really heavy, wholesome, thick, stone-ground bread, as opposed to the light, refined, fluffy, processed white bread of a half-hearted, confused, undirected session.
I am trying to apply this kind of mindset to everything that I do, with my Chinese, God, people......trying to do the best I can in each area of my life, applying myself to the things I choose to do, to try and be wholesome, nutritious Rye bread! (This is going to read very strangely to me later I reckon...). I am lacking in so many of these areas and have a lot of work to put in, but its a whole life process, and ultimately its up to God to decide where I go, but I want to go wherever that may be. I feel like my priorities in life can be simplified to three things:

-God
-People
-Training

I am thankful to God that I do not care to much for other things like money or material things, and that I have been shown that the best things in life are what is right in front of our eyes.
Ultimately God is the only thing that I need and am learning to cling to, there is literally nothing better or more important in the world than that.
I am also appreciating just how lame I am in all areas of life and how much I have to learn, and how much of a complete noob I am in everything! So many shortcomings that I have and still so much to learn, but ultimately everything that I do is so temporal in this life and has so little meaning attached to it. I just feel like a child in the world and the more I grow up the more I see how little I have achieved, and how little I can do by myself. I used to think that I wasn't doing to badly, but although I know I am on the path, I now see that I have so many areas to change and grow in, mainly as a person. I say all of this with no sadness at all though, but feel like I am starting to see more and more how much I really on God and how much about me I feel is wrong or lacking. I just love knowing that I have SO much to learn, to be humbled by, and that there will never be a point where I have 'arrived' in this life. It feels good to know this because I have to trust God with it all and can know that he has my back and just go for it, like a kid trying over and over while failing and getting picked up, but being a kid, not getting to caught up in the failures and trusting his dad.

Anyway, properly rambled there but my fingers just kept typing so there you go!

If anyone wants to chat about anything then hit me up on my email, would love to hear from people about....anything!

Peace, and hope life and training is fruitful for everyone.

j,

Halloweeeeeen!!!

So while I have been in China, I have been teaching at a kindergarten twice a week just mainly to get myself out of my comfort zone to be honest. Each and every time I go I get absolutely destroyed by the kids, just because I run out of things to teach very quickly when surrounded by 30 three year old kids who would rather just go mental and run around than learn what 'brown bear' can see....
I was asked by the teachers to bring a few friends to help out at Halloween, and AFTER getting them to say yes, I told them we had to do a dance in front of the school.....haha they werent best pleased.
So we got there and then were asked 'what dance have you prepared'....clearly none since its me they are asking. So we were lead to a room, some music slapped on, and then told 'ok you have half an hour to prepare'. What ensued was the most retarded and unco-ordinated dance that has graced that kindergarten, complete with me and Tom doing a backward roll into each other.

Anyway, just thought i'd post it up because it was a funny day and we got some funny pics out of it.

This is how happy they were to do a dance...LOL

"How to scare the shite out of kids for dummies"

Preparations going swimmingly,

Freestyle!!!

Yippppeeeeeee!!!!!!

Huang Shan - Yellow Mountains Trip

The past week has been National week here in China, which basically translates to an opportunity for travel to many people, including myself. So, using the recently purchased touring bikes bought specifically for this kind of time, Tom and I decided to undertake a trip to Huang Shan, the Yellow Mountains.
It turned out to be one of the most intense and tiring but ultimately rewarding weeks ever for me and Tom, with it consisting of virtually nil planning and things somehow coming together in our favor when all was uncertain. We originally planned to travel by bike all the way to the Yellow Mountains, but discovered while cycling that it was actually double the distance and time that we had anticipated and we didn't have the time to add another week onto our current one since we had classes the following week and a degree to be working for!
So we cycled about 100 miles south to the nice city of Tong Ling to catch a bus from there on to the Yellow Mountains.
This trip gave us a much bigger insight into the more average living situations for the chinese people and we saw a lot of smaller towns and villages which just made us appreciate where we live in Nanjing just so much more.
Here is a brief summary of each day:
Monday: Cycle about 100 miles 10am till 1am, sleep next to road (and mosquito lake...)
Tuesday: Cycle about 50 miles from 7am till about 2pm, sleep in hotel (very soundly)
Wednesday: Catch 7am bus to HuangShan for 2.5 hrs, hike 8 km to top, sleep in hotel lobby
Thursday: 5am for sunrise, hike back down, 8hrs of waiting and bus riding to back, sleep in hotel
Friday: Cycle back about 200km to Nanjing from 10am till 3am

Here is an unedited bit of footage of the trip, i didn't film any of the yellow mountains because the camera was hassle to take around.

Looking nice and fresh from Nanjing, the bikes "Mergatroid" and "Mutti"

The first nights sleep, the tent collapsed at about 3am so we slept on it,

Even just buying fruit brought a fairly big crowd in the smaller towns, who were amazed that we could speak (very bad) chinese

A village church literally out in the middle of nowhere, odd sight

Some kids we met who were on their way home

The only guy out of about 20 willing to get a picture with me, probably cos i smelt bad

The first 3km of the trek up the mountain, food and drink for the days on back

Lookin' fly on the mountain

What can i say....except 'you have legs!'

A view we found very much off the beaten track, absolutely stunning views from the rock side

Compulsory pose on a rock no' 1

Compulsory pose on a rock no2

This was a small jump i did to the thin rock, with a pretty gnarly drop either side, needless to say i was pretty psyched after that!

Sunset or the second coming?

This was very funny, since our plan to sleep on the mountain was foiled by the fact we didnt actually bring a sleeping bag and it was very cold, we asked to have half price for sleeping on a mattress that was stacked at the side, assuming they would drag them into a room, but the guard just dragged them onto the floor of the lobby and left us to it!

One of the hyped kids who didn't let us sleep much haha

simply.

Sunrise at the mountains at about 5am, really the best natural thing i have seen

I love the colours of this, just looks like a painting or stencil, was just before the sun started to appear, and when it did, people went absolutely crazy, there were more on the mountain at 5am then during the day! Well it looked like it...

A new path....

To cut a long story short, as of the last few weeks I have put my faith in the bible and Christ. I say the last few weeks because unlike what I expected, when I made a commitment to Christianity, I felt nothing revolutionary, in fact it was a huge disappointment. But I have come to realise that like in anything with life, practice and time is needed to understand things, so although I have many questions that I am struggling with, I have made a commitment to this and to search within it.
Its been a thing that I have been questioning for two years now and I feel that I need to choose whether it is the truth or not, and through many different influences and looking at different forms of evidence and views I have chosen to try and give myself to God. Like I said I still have many issues with it that i struggle with, but to keep it short, I have chosen this as my path.
I think all of us who practice parkour are looking for something in life that has meaning and is something above and beyond what the world and society offer. Parkour has brought together many of these types of people looking for something true, so I just want to say, don't let your search stop at parkour, but think about why you are here and what life is actually about and what your purpose is. Don't let yourself drift through life without considering what is above and beyond what is on offer here, because as we all know, the best things in life are free (eg parkour) and not a product that man can offer.
I wanted to just shout it out on here since it has become more than just a blog for training to me, but somewhere to say whats happening in my life in general also.

Aside from that, China is going well, start lessons next week. Will keep updates on here about what is in the works and what is going on for those interested. If anyone wants to talk at all of anything just email me,

Much love everyone, hope training is good,

Until next year...

Well, today is my last full day in England for almost a year. I am actually off to China tomorrow as a sandwich year for my chinese studies degree course.
I must say, it has come round so fast. I only just got my visa yesterday, and i am completely not in the mindset that i am leaving, its just dawning on me. However i am really looking forward to it and have lots of plans for while i am out there, so i will definately be kept busy enough.
Just want to say to everyone, i am really going to miss you all, and its been a really great summer for me and just another massive thanks to all those who supported the crawl, big plans for the future with New Foundations that you will be kept posted on.
Be sure to keep checking back here for updates from China, i'll let you know whats cracking with the parkour scene and how training is out there, as well as all the travelling.

Take care everyone, see you next year,


God bless