healthy 6 weeks

I have taken the inspiration of this from Reece Chapman's blog. He and I have both decided we want to better our selves in the way we live our life.

So from Monday the 6th till November 10th i will be focusing on healthy living, eating and everything else in my life. I hope that by doing this my Parkour will improve as well as my attitude and mentality etc,a nd i hope i can take some of these things and carry them on for a longer period of time.

I plan to work out twice a week, one being directly parkour related based on repetitions. The other body weight and also weigthed exercises. I also plan to jog twice a week.

i will plan a time table and get back to Y'all

peace out

Training ideas

Recently i have been thinking alot about my training and about why people are better than me. the simple answer is the have practiced more, but what is practice? and how do people practice? and how can i make that better?

i have recently started thinking about this since I heard about Tariq's fall and witness the change that had on him mentally, but my ideas took complete form recently while I was visiting Cambridge to training with people from up there.
The inspiration that has made my ideas form comes from two people Tariq and Jin. Firstly Jin, i don't really understand why this affect me so much but it made me realise a problem that has been occurring in St. Albans at the moment and possibly else where. In St albans people say they are coming out to train, but they are coming out to jam. In my opinion many people come out and try new things etc, which does have to be a part of your training but it shouldn't be the only part. This i will come onto later and i will also talk about Tariq's contrabution to my ideas are because we are in a very simalar mind set at the moment.


Time to answer my questions.

Why are people better than others?

well this answer is obvious, normally it is because they have been training longer, but what does that actually meen? It means they have done more repetitions, more conditioning more everything.


like I said earlier, when people go out to train, all they do is try and make them selves do something different, they see this as progression which it is, but this sin't the best, the most efficiant way of training. Sure you may land something new each session or every other session, but if you go to do a new precision are you likely to land it perfectly first time? No. But why can for instance philip doyle land it so well, practice, he has practice precisions, over and over again, repetition.

So this is the key to training to be able to perform every time correctly, repetition. The more you practice something the more your body is acustomed to the feeling of flight, the posture, and angles needed to land precisions. One extra point before i move onto other ideas on training, when doing repetitions, if you are focusing on running precisions, do one over and over again, either leg, at first mentally decide then go with the length of run and jump of either. repeat up to a set number, when you reach it if you ahve it nice on both legs move onto a different running precision and drill that up to a set number on each leg and until its nice. After that move onto another aspect of training, different muscle groups and maybe a type i am going to explorer in a second, but the next time you pass these running precision, run at it take of on either leg and see if you stick it well, if so your training was good, if not you know you need to do it agai when you are fit. This is progression



Conditioning ideas.

In cambridge i watched Jin a great deal observing his conditioning techniques etc. While he was out he spent alot of time on circuites, which again is somthing we don't really do enough of, but it wasn;t jsut treversing, but precision and armjumps etc, this way you are working techniquley etc.

Another idea i noticed Jin doing i balancing, balance in different ways, for instance quadrapead, or with your hands between your legs, you can find some ideas from this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqaRJEPVPfk

but my point is, this type of training on rails works so many things, by putting your body in awkward positions, trains strength, balance, mucular endurance, co-ordination, flexability and many more.



To conclude, parkour training should be training, going out to prefect technique and gain strength, not only to do new things, yes that has to be a part of your training or tedium will start to affect you, but alot of your training, and alot more than most of you do know, should be conditioning and perfecting techniques and each and every compontect of fitness:-

• Power
• Co-ordination
• flexability
• Agilty
• Balance
• body Composition
• Reactions
• Muscular Endurance
• Cardiovascular Endurance
• Speed
• Strength

Each technique of training i have mentoioned aboeve trains each and every component of fitness, if applied correctly

thanks for reading i hope these things help, any messages on you progress and ideas on this post is more than welcome, i like every one else is learning and im welcome to ideas.

Tim

fear and preporation for a movement

we all get that fear when we are faced with a new movement, but what is this fear based on? It is the bodies natural defence system to avoid us hurting our selves. that part is obvious. The next thing i beleive needs to be answered is, why am i scared?
Is it because of height the movement is being performed at? if it the fact its a new movement? or maybe its the 'hype' people have put about the movement. One such movement that has hype is the cat pass armjump at imax which I recently was looking at and i was thinking why am i scared of it? It wasn't the height because i was doing it at the low end. It wasnt the fact I wasn't sure if i could make the distance, because i easily could, it was the hyp behind it, other people say its hard so i thoought the same, then i realised i could do it easily. I then did it but i was still scared and consecently landed it badly, but i know understand better how to overcome certain mental barries.

All i had to do was find out why im scared, then fix my fear.

There are many other ways of tackling fear. depending why you are scared. If you are scared of the drop, then practice simalar movements when height isn't an issue. another method that can be used for all types of fear is visulisation and also checking surfaces. If you can realistically visulise your self doing a movement, this is a skill that you gain through practice, if you can visulise it then you can do it. Checking surfaces removes fear because it reasures you won't slip etc which removes some of the potential risk and there for you will be less scared.

Even though these things work the only way to be able to overcome fear is confidence, how do you gain confidence? practice. put your self in situations that scare you slightly, things that are slightly out of your comfort zone, then make them comfortable, this is useful progression.


There are so many things that i could say about fear, and the preporation for movements, but everybody is different, but i can give you a simple method.

1. work out what you are scared of
2. access whether this fear has a valid basis
3. prove to your mind that your body can do it
4. find some where else to practice the movement
5. practice, practice and practice, set the movement to your memory
   
6. then let your body take over from your mind, push the fear to the back and let your body complete the movement.

i hope this helps people, certainly helped me focus on ideas.

Work

Through Parkour I have been lucky enough to have been able to work for a number of companies.

Coaching

I currently work for the St Albans county council couching three Parkour classes a week. I am also looking to be involved with Bedfordshire council. I have also worked for Gym Box, which is a gym company based all around London. Through these jobs I have gained the skills to get BPCA qualified, which I am looking to complete soon.

Performances

I have Performed for the Herts council for the public with other Herts Parkour representatives and team kinetics. I have also performed with Reece Chapman, which was a good experience. I have also Worked With Philip Kirk Photography.

About

I'm Tim Norburn I train parkour and have done since easter 2007, and before then i climbed for 5 or 6 years, and i use that training in my parkour.

This is my website and I will will use this to share information on projects i have been involved with, companies i have worked with, as well as my life experiences and everything else that comes to mine.

I am part of the Trace HQ family, which is a group of like minded tracuers, looking to promote parkour in a good and healthy way. I am also part of Herts parkour, coaching the communiy for the council, and through both of these means i will be getting BPCA qualified.

I have a few qualifications, a basic climbing qualifications and 3 first aid qualifications, most thourough one is with st johns ambulance, it was two days long, called the active persons course, this is for my BPCA qualification.