Forever Fitness

My first video

The concept was to get a short uncut take, 30 secs or so. Spent a few minutes planning out a line. But then when running through it I couldn’t get the last jump landed in a cat like I wanted to. So after trying a few times, I decided to edit the clip with my real training of frustration and failure. And forgive the writing at the top of the video. I downloaded a free editing program and it forced its branding upon me. Still, for my first video I’m proud.

Filmed at Wellington Hospital, Newtown. August 09.

Take Flight Apparel – the world’s first parkour clothing company.  The people from Take Flight, in response to my previous post about their recent launch in June, contacted me kindly offering a code for a 10% discount off any purchase! Sweet, I knew there was a reason I started this blog! …I’m kidding. I asked and they said I could share it …not kidding – they have the true spirit of parkour. I have word it’ll be valid through this month and probably also September (2009).

The 10% discount code: TFfam10

Variations include in the video are:

Standard pushup
Wide pushup
Diamonds pushup
Elevated planche pushup
Handstand pushup
Wall planche pushup
Incline pushup
T pushup
Hindu pushup
Divebomber pushup
Spiderman pushup
Elbow pushup
Staggered pushup / Aligator pushup
Pseudo planche pushup
Assisted planche pushup
Typewriter pushup
One armed pushup
Towel pushup
Grasshopper pushup
Gym ball pushup
Standard pushup (deep)
Wide pushup (deep)
One armed pushup (assisted)
Weighted partner pushup
Partner pushup
Clapping pushup
Standard elevated pushup (deep)
Wide elevated pushup (deep)

Awesome.

Found these in a post a while back on Ross Training blog. He points out:

There is no questioning the impressiveness of these jumpers. With or without the raised jumping surface,  these guys have some serious hops. Yet oddly enough (or not), I don’t see any of the latest Nike air shoes. All that I see are bare feet flying through the air.

Nor do you see any of the other stuff Ross Training mentions like supplements, post-workout shakes, or periodization models. Instead to jump like this he suggests we get back to simple and specific training. Read the post here: http://rosstraining.com/blog/2009/05/28/simplicity-and-specificity/

Awesome video from Andy of what we got up to:

A different edit of the footage from Sam showing more of our training:

Good times. Cheers to everyone I met. There were so many amazing movements and hilarious hours driving we didn’t record, but were experiences I’m glad I was part of. I’ve learnt a lot about areas I need to work on.

So now I need to get back into writing this blog. I come up with these plans for things I’m going to do, how I’m going to do something worthwhile with my life. While I’m laying in bed at night I envision myself as the person I want to be. Grandiose fantasys. Then, when I get up in the morning and face the sunshine and the real world, I’m too scared. I can’t make things happen. I have a discouraging habit of quitting things – like my study this year, my study last year, a course a few years ago, my last year of college, and besides studying there’s many other smaller things I never finish – so… I’m keeping Concrete Solace going.

The Man that Lived with Lions – an interesting post giving a brief overview of “The Father of Lions” George Adamson.

Take Flight has opened its website. Their mission: “To provide our customers with the highest quality athletic apparel for training and casual wear, while providing them the inspiration to discover their own potential through movement.”

From looking through their selection, I love the feel of their sprayed and worn looking ‘urban’ designs. And it’s good to have parkour gear not linked to a specific country or team. Why would I wear, for example, an APK or Tribe logo if I don’t live in America, or why would I want logos from a performance team on my shirt if I don’t even know them.

I like this:

According to Mister Parkour,

“In addition to the initial product launch Take Flight will be adding one new shirt a week to the line for the next three weeks, with plans to add pants, training wear, and new designs in the following weeks and months.”

One thing I want to ask for is trackpants with zips on the pockets. I’m the dude who’s lost his wallet a number of times because it’s slipped away while I was sitting on a bus or on a park bench. Always a pain to replace everything that was in there. While it’s advisable to take large things like a wallet or cellphone out of your pocket while training, as it bounces around and would hurt you or get itself broken if it got in the way of a roll or another movement, a lot of times I’ve lost little things like packets of gum or spare change. I’m thinking about finding a tailor to add zips to all my pants.

If I can get funds sorted then I’m liking that t-shirt.

Check out www.takeflightapparel.com

I want to post conditioning ideas as I run across cool videos or instructions.