Traceuse Training

2008-09-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Theres a big gap between my last post and this one, and a lot of things have happened between that time, but two non main parkour related things have happened.

(1) I have moved from Canterbury to Crawley
(2) I have finished Uni and graduate in November

Me and Jase also have an amazing area to train that he owns.

Training this summer...lets round this up

(1) I can muscle up very easily now, i have been working on other techniques and en force because the only place I cannot muscle up on is ledges, and its very frustrating but I think I have worked out an alteration to my technique that will allow this, but I havent tried it out on the paticular ledge that has been frustrating me yet.

(2) Ive started gymnastics up once a week..we will see how that progresses

(3) Ive learnt a few new and weird techniques, ive also been working on my dynamic movement and striding

(4) Im going to release a new video this November, this is my 5 year training point....

(5) Im editing a worldwide traceuse video to be released in November/December and I am looking forward to seeing some spectacular movements from traceuses all over the world.

Current targets:

Muscle up-to sit-to pushback and round 180 in one movement
En Force
Frog flickups on scaffold
Develop stronger, faster more dynamic movements

Accomplishments:

Stronger and more dynamic but still needs much more improvement
Muscle up improvements
Strength improvements
Sit-backs to swings
Improve distance of jumps

2008-03-27T05:44:00.000-07:00

Oweeee my leggys hurt. I dont have time to post a long message but yeah, lots of uni work, went to gran canaria. Training been a bit lame last month or so, aching like a beast from doing fairly little yesterday before gym. Ouchie.

2007-09-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

Well, Going back to UNI now, Into my third year.

I have made some progress with everything in parkour and also tricking, although I have been ill recently.

Tricking:

Relearnt to wallspin
Learnt to backtuck on harder floor
Backwards dismount, and backwards dismount 180 on bar
Gainer dismount on bar (only onto mats though)

Parkour:
Cancer tree lache
Can walk Pipe confidently now
Craned maze cat pass precision
Constantly improving muscle ups
General movement improving
Cast straight into lache
MUCH larger laches

I went out the other day with Jason and sam, and just practised simple missions and moving, that tested me. Things like trying to get round a tree when its quite high up, so there isnt room to fail it puts pressure on for me to succeed. We also did a mission of thief vaulting with our eyes closed down a rail, really helped my spacial awareness. So I am hoping to train more in this way with jason and sam. Ive had flu but I am starting to get over it and then back to training. We have just moved house, and are going to be busy packing and moving for that aswell! But I hope this will be over in a few days.
Although most elements of my movement has improved...ive noticed a major major major flaw in my landings...ive started (or maybe always have) landing with one foot infront of the other, and considering i only just saved myself from a pretty harsh bail into the road.....it needs correcting, this may also be the problem that is making me crane my cat pass precisions.

Anyways, at work, tired, thats all for now.

2007-08-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

Had a BUSY bee couple of weeks, went down to devon for a week to do a first aid course for a few days, learnt some things about attending to casualties that I believe will come in handy.

Then went to the peak district for 4 days, for the traceur gathering. After the first couple of days I was really feeling it in my quads, having not trained much impact for a while. Shortly after I jarred both my ankles, so i made a wise decision not to push it further. Was a great trip, socially perhaps more than the gorgeous place to train, its not often you have that many traceurs together socialising and training. I could write a huge write up on it, but then...those of you who went know and those of you that didnt..must be filled with regret :P. Oh and just to add....guys have no sense of direction, or just dont care about walking through bogs rather than round. :P

Just come back from parkour workshops today...damnn. Tired. But although hard work was a lot of fun, over 4 days of teaching the overall atmosphere was great and the kids were really responsive. I just hope they listen to being taught about balance, landings and touch cause they really needed to work on those areas. Some really nice kids in there though, with lots of potential.

Ive been working on my muscle ups still, and im so close to double arms it hurts!! Although ive done them occasionally when im really energetic its bugging me that they are taking soooooooo loooonnnggggg. But then again, it took ages for my climbups to change, then one day they just clicked, so hopefully it will just fall into place with hard work. I learnt to cat pass rail precision! Though not a great progression in strength or anything relevant to it, ive been scared of going for them, learnt it from bike rail to bike rail...was quite substantial so made me happy. So trainings = good, lot of running about and conditioning these last few days, so im feeling very good and up for anything.

Soul survivor next week, cant wait to meet people and just talk, I dont currently have faith in anything but i guess if i dont look its not just going to float to me.

Thats it for now.

xx

2007-07-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

Last couple weeks had ups and downs,

I sprained my ankle, not badly but its on my weaker leg (the one ive had bad tendonitis in previously and sprained it badly a couple of years ago) so its a bit frustrating because its going to take a lot of rehab to make it as strong as it really needs to be, so no cat pres or arm jumps for a while which isnt really a problem cause it doesnt stop me conditioning but still my cat pre confidence had improved greatly i just hope i dont regress.

Been working on balance and quadropedal walking on rails at moderate height, its rather scary having nothing to fall back if you fall except your reactions and animal instincts and my main problem is not trusting myself.

Jin came down for a week to stay with me and Jason, yays, found my energy levels were pretty low that week for some reason, not sure why, but did a little each day, my muscle ups are really at a turning point and jin helped me realise the point in my swing where i need to pull to help my momentum. Last night I did a double arm in the gym, so im kind of scared to go outside and try cause im so close i just want to be able to do it!! I cant make myself walk the cancer tree yet, although quadropedal half of it, its just so damn scary, damn you matt and phil, why did you have to fall off it! Been working on my laches again cause my confidence went down the drain a little after a couple of bails, luckily they didnt take too long to get the technique back for and im back to the point where im focusing on distance and touch rather than having to work up my confidence to do it. Unfortunatly i managed to smash my elbow on some bolts sticking out the scaffolding, although funny that some chav girls decided that *they wouldnt want to get in a fight* with me, i was in a lot of pain, i think i bruised around the tendon and although fine on upward phases, lowering myself down from anything has been a nightmare until today really.

Last night at gym i finally made myself back somi without support on the floor, although....they started off nice and high and then progressively started to get lower and go further back so they definatly need more work before ill happily do them onto grass.

got my 2nd year uni results today, just scraped a 2:2 ! (50) so no retakes and im into my final year yay!!
Im away in devon for a few days to do a first aid course and then its the traceur gathering! woo

take care all
liv xx

2007-06-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

Okay im not great with writeups so this is going to be as short as i can make it.

Me and hollie headed out to lisses on thursday 7th june, via eurostar. With surprisingly few problems on the RER (french underground)we got to our destination...only to find we had picked the wrong station of the two to choose from. So another bus journey on and we finally ended up in the right part of evry to meet up with silex, thomas and dimmunk. Who then took us onto lisses, me and hollie were both tired from travelling, so this night did very little in the way of training. Spending a lot of time trying to climb a paticular tree (argghh!) and then some balance, but mostly just chilling.

The next day we got up late, having both slept terribly due to banging on the walls of the f1, people talking loudly on their mobiles and noises up and down the corridoor. However, the day was a good one, with missions around the lisses rocks and trees (a lot of precise footwork and squirrel jumps) ending with a conditioning session with goudot, where I found out my forearm started to fail me. After conditioning for this day (and unfortunatly hitting my knee and being bitten by mozzys) me and hollie made our way back to the hotel.

I hardly slept this night due to an allergic reaction to the mozzy bites, so the next morning with a swollen ankle and knee headed into evry to train and meet up with silex and the others. I trained lightly, a few small precisions and balance work, with a few missions, mostly technical training. Before heading to Jonathon "bruce lee's" BBQ. It was a chilled atmosphere, although being very obviously english and not understanding more than a few fragments of the language. Luckily, silex, dimmunk and guardian who we met are from quebec, and so are bilingual.

The next day, we were headed to Fontain blue. But it wasnt till early afternoon, so me and hollie headed towards lisses forest, but upon getting there felt it was too hot to train. So headed back...when we got back to lisses and met up with guardian he promptly told us it wasnt a good time to be in lisses due to gang fights and an escaped convict (i had wondered about the large numbers of armed police and the helicopter). So yeah, probably wouldnt have gone wandering in the forest if we had known this beforehand. Fontain blue was very cool, although i had to be careful on my swollen ankle, my knee had more flexibility and other than my killing forearms I felt good. The climbing was challenging, but fun. I also did a few different precisions at height on the rocks, physically small but it took mental strength to believe in myself. After going back home we headed to KFC...yes I know the shame! But to be fair there was nowhere else to go to eat.

On the final day of training, i actually slept well, and my ankle had gone down substantially, me, hollie and guardian popped into evry for a spot of retail therapy. (I also discovered i quite like sushi) then later in the day, trained in lisses, mostly little missions. However, we got caught in a rain storm whilst doing parkour specific conditioning, although we made sure we finished (drenched to the bone) then did some quadropedie and balance in the rain, then moving into the dry and lightly conditioning before heading back to the hotel and sleep.

Trip to lisses...

From this years trip to lisses, my only thought can be to condition more, and on thomas' words that i need more dymnacism in my jump. So i will be practising my one/two and three step runup aswell as footwork in all areas. I had a really good time and I thank the canadian and french traceurs (especially thomas) for their hospitality with this useless englishwoman.

2007-05-12T04:50:00.000-07:00

Booking mine and hollies tickets to lisses today, planning to go twice this summer. Once in June and again in july with the guys. :D Yays! Hope the weather is good. Im yet again procrastinating from revision....

At gym..(which is really the only time im getting to train properly at the moment with my exams) im trying to make three sessions a week. Last week I trained with Jason at the BHS area, practising underbar variations. Climbups, wallhops and little movements. Was a good little session, apart from the fact I was wearing jeans and had to go buy some jogging bottoms to have any movement lol.

Wednesday at gym was good for my tricking, my front somis are now onto gymnova (soft floor) and high, but they need to be more consistently high before I take them to grass without feeling too much impact on my shins.

Learnt to backtuck onto mats FINALLY, after having a mental block for a stupid amount of time although I am twisting slightly, also tried backflip but i wasnt so successful..didnt land on my head but still appalling.

Muscleups were good on wednesday, even at the end of session after conditioning and pullups I could still go both arms, yesterday though they were appalling and ive strained my shoulder a little.

Yamakazi seminar sunday yays, cant wait to see stephane and williams again, I love the way they move. Especially williams, but thats probably because I can relate his build a bit more to my own. Meeting the rest of the yamakazi, goudot and thomas will be wicked but I know im going to get physically owned from conditioning lol!

Exam on monday and tuesday...what the hell is wrong with me? ??? What is so hard about picking up a book and reading it? Im so crap with the reading and absorbing thing. Damn short attention span.

2007-05-07T06:33:00.000-07:00

Apologies about the sparse posts, I find it hard to sit down and write ANYTHING, let alone about myself. But at this moment in time im procrastinating (revision) so will write up a little of whats going on. At the moment i cant train as much as i want due to exams..ive got some targets both for parkour and improving my spacial awareness, strength and gymnastic ability (cause to be fair, it sucks)

Main improvements in last couple months:
Parkour:

I can climbup with both elbows above the wall simultaneously
Two armed muscle up

Gymnastics:
Clean front walkover
Front somi without mats
Backbend to kickover (soo soo close to back walkover)
Handstand to catpass through
Major handstand improvements

My general strength declined a little bit, since I caught glandular fever over easter, been feeling wiped out a little bit too easily. Midday naps are the business if i have time at the moment. But because of the break in my training, general conditioning isnt as good for the moment.

Got 4 uni exams this month:
Psychology
Motor analysis
Sociology
Physiology

and they are NOT fun. :(

Jasons going to work with his dad for a month, which means ill be taking the junior parkour class up at the body and mind centre, big group of 12-14 year olds...ill either be walking around with a big smile or patches of hair missing.

Major technical concerns at the moment with diving catpass and cat pass precisions, got a bad technique for my pres at the moment...im craning everyything. Diving catpass over rails/walls, still a little unsure of with fluid. Although it has greatly improved.

take care my lovelies. xx

2007-01-04T06:34:00.000-08:00

Today I am ACHEY! Not as much as I thought I would be though, on wednesday evening I had a session at the gym, it was a combination of parkour and gymnastic training, because the evening is now split into two sessions. So first lets have a overview of my tricking...appalling lol. I could not kickover for shiz, however my front walkovers and handstands are improving dramatically. The one front somi (running) that I tried all session onto mat, I landed in a sitting position, legs bent 90 degree which is awesome, think ive finally cracked the problem with those so I think next session its onto floor (ahhh) having a bit of mental block at the moment. Bit stressed at home aswell really. As for parkour, that session my standing jump was guud, and I can almost muscle up both arms at once, I think another week and I am going to have it...yays!! My running cat pass was terrible...and ive lost some ambidexterity in my take off (eeek) so more work is needed...as usual. Standing jump confidence is improving so in general its good.

On the tuesday before I went out on my own to train for a few hours, didnt have all that much confidence in my training, but did loads of small things cleanly, running cat passes, climbups, standing jumps up. Then I went to my gym and did a load of cardio work and some weights machine, stretching and conditioning.

At the moment my current bodyweight exercises reps are like this (to failure)

Press up (arms by side) : 30
Pull-ups: 10
Sit-up (from a bench thats slanted) :40
(to failure on floor around 80-90)

(Next two weeks)

Targets:
Press up (arms by side): 35
Pull-up: 15
Sit up on bench: 60

2006-10-31T03:27:00.000-08:00

Had a weekend of mixed feelings about my training.

On the wednesday at the gym session I did some gymnastic and tricking movements that I am pretty happy with, i can nearly bridge to kickover on the floor and i learnt to easily wallspin a flat brick wall. My fluid takeoff was good, i was getting a lot of distance with it. On the saturday I went to train in redhill, I was feeling quite tired and out of it at the beginning of the day but after stretching out and jogging for a while i became more focused. Soo many achievements in the morning at a place near a post office, I did an armjump thats possibly quite near my physical limit at the moment, the landing wasnt fantastic as i slipped fairly far down the wall but it was high impact and scary because its pretty high up. I did precisions at small height (7-8 foot up) they were small but it took a bit of confidence to do them. I did a standing arm jump that although isnt big, has a substantial height difference, every attempt before this I had grabbed with the tips of my fingers and slipped down. But this time I managed to land it fairly easily and climb up. The last achievement at this area was a 180 armjump, where the takeoff wall is a lot smaller than the one you are trying to land on. After a few attempts of just scraping the top of the wall, i landed it pretty nicely and climbed up fast. Although the grip is overgrip so climbing up isnt a problem.

Next area came the problem..ive been practising my fluid takeoff for a while now, i actually learnt it last summer in lisses but its been hard to find it natural. While training with members of sin (Joe, Guy, Teg and Jason) i was sizing up a substantial cat pass precision, and ran upto it to try and land on a rail just below the cat pass pre wall, Im not sure exactly what happened but the takeoff wall is rounded at the edges, and my right hand slipped over the top. I managed to save myself to some extent and landed on my side rather than my head, i was shocked quite badly by it. Ive bailed badly quite a few times before, but my confidence had been running so high that day i really took it hard. Although physically i felt pretty whacked by it, bruised my knee and arm and really badly on my back and hip. That was pretty much the end of my training session that day.

On the sunday I went to london, achey from the previous day but mostly hurting from my bail. All of next gen were there and oh my god have they been training! Really really impressed by all of them. As for me, i could do very little. Attempted 180 cat to cat..couldnt commit...could have done imax precision..couldnt commit...running pre from bollard to wall...story pretty much goes the same. And seriously felt so lame because of it, i know its because i was training at 50% but i just dont like feeling incompetant. The only thing I can give myself credit for is one armed arm jump at imax walls which i landed. But then after that i bailed a wallspin on a TREE..which is so ridiculous because I can do them on flat...just really not impressed. I think its also having my confidence knocked that affected me, its so frustrating.

2006-10-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

This morning I feel like i have been run over by a truck. Lol. Oh well, went to london yesterday to do parkour and a bit of acro for curtis' band Deaco..they are awesome i was very impressed and i seriously think they could be making it bigtime.

Spent all day in martial arts outfit, learning routines..which were not required in the end. But I did do some major posing and eyework. Which apparently I wasnt great at because I was too happy! (my angry face obviously isnt very intimidating) the other girls were dancers from nathans (safe-t man) group, and were sick at picking up movements and routines. In the end I got on film a round off to one foot and then a feeble kick lol and a relatively large cat pass over a worktable. It was really good to see the evo boys and also kerbie again. Its a pity i live so far away from then because they are such wicked guys and I miss training with them.

I just realised ive never really put any of the media work ive done up here (for my own embaressment mostly) so I found a couple of bits online and have put them up.

owen, jin me and msj...haha! we all look a bit different a younger, and im not an midget they made me bend my knees to look smaller (wth?)was a short interview piece for bbc blast. During this time we did a few radio interviews and local news pieces. We also did a video for amateur video makers and jin and owen did a student video piece using parkour in bournemouth called voodoo ray, which is where they met jason.

Rogers television commercial...i have a very small part in this..lead 6 for the advert were danny, chase, liane, emily, cole and stephane. Myself, kerbie, luke, adam, zoe and curtis played the later six. Im the one with the vicky pollard in the last scene wearing green. I actually flew back from a skiing holiday to film in miltion keynes for this. It was well worth it, just to spend so much time with the guys and girls and get paid doing what I love.

My first piece of media work was for pianist maksim mvirca, it was filmed a long time ago now, when i was pretty damn new to everything, but you work with what you have i guess and it was a high profile piece was was shown on classical fm tv. The piece was called kolibre and is a variation of flight of the bumblebee. (and ohhh yeah im wearing my own not so sexy red trousers)

2006-09-19T04:54:00.000-07:00

Wee! Passed into my second year at uni...which is actually a modern day mirable (err amazing spelling...miracle) considering how ive got through almost every exam in my life by the skin of my teeth. THIS year im telling myself I am going to work hard.

Booked into physio in canterbury, who I am off to see in about an hour. Actually pretty scared to see what she has to say, since I cant really see it being positive. Been putting it off for a while cause of worry, but due to nagging from the lovely duo of Jason and Jin (Mua xx) ive got myself booked in.

My Climb ups have improved quite a lot, they are not too much of a problem anymore, just need to work on speed of vaulting up after. Since at the moment I hang like a wet fish for a few moments while trying to work out which leg I kick up. Will put up footage soon. Muscle up on bar isnt going as well, mostly because i keep forgetting the technique of putting my thumbs seperate from my fingers.

Went to a six hour gym session in sittingbourne the other day, was pretty depressing, cause I felt like I could do so much but also being aware it would probably do further damage. Im hoping I can go to hip hop class tonight, but its dependant upon what the physio has to say. Screw sitting on my arse for the next few months tho.

Jin and Matt cycled down the other day to see me and jason in canterbury...oh yeah and they cycled from CAMBRIDGE! mentalists! Despite the AMAZING londoner/chav accent they decided to use for the duration of the weekend...it was really nice to see them. Especially Jinny Poos, whos now flown the nest and is at uni in sheffield.

2006-08-15T04:31:00.000-07:00

some of you that know me personally will also know that ive had pretty bad knee pain recently that has put me out of action as far as any impact is concerned.

After resting up for a month there was absoloutly no improvement in the soreness of my knees, if anything they were worse and ached all the time.

I finally got my ass to the doctors, who recommended me onto the physio. Although at first some scary talks of arthritis,performing lachmans draw and examining my knee his conclusion was that the hypermobility of all my joints makes me unsuited to impact activities. My ligaments move around more than they should and my joints are more prone to damage than someone with less flexible joints.

I had my physio appointment today, she said that my knee is misaligned, my kneecap is rubbing in the wrong place causing me discomfort, my feet seem quite flat and my knees turn in slightly, fortunatly it can be corrected through simple repititious exercises. However what she didnt tell me was what had caused the problem, so I am still concerned that although I am doing exercises to combat it, it will be a fruitless exercise if i dont find the cause. Im going to a private physio tomorrow to get more information as to prevention in the first place.

2006-08-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

Even though ive been resting my knees and not doing anything impact in the last few weeks, my knees havent improved. If anything they have got worse, I thought it was jumpers knee but it feels like it might be worse so I have physio booked this week and X-rays on monday. Im really worried about it but I guess ill just have to wait and see what she says. Until its sorted im stuck with conditioning, which dont get me wrong is fine, but its nothing compared to training freely.

Ive uploaded a couple of clips from earlier this summer, I was going to gather footage for a Candidafaria showreel but it looks like that has gone on hold so no long videos for a while.

2006-07-16T15:11:00.000-07:00

We went to the Peak district this weekend...well I have decided camping is NOT my area of expertise. However, there were some really cool places to train, in paticular hundreds of big rocks to do precisions, arm jumps and SDC2P onto. My jumpers knee has been getting progressively worse so I have decided to take a month out of training, in the hopes of the damage done already isnt long term. However this time can be seen as a positive since I need to reflect on my training and also there are a couple of girls in Cambridge that need coaching.

Me doing a arm jump

The cool Crew

Jin doing a running arm jump

2006-06-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

"A running armjump today, not that big but the takeoff is a pain, you have to be precise. Sorry for the poor filming..set it up on my bag and it shifted.

2006-06-02T04:55:00.000-07:00

Tucked planche - Not my best its about 9 seconds, got to 11 last night, goal of 20 in the next 2 weeks.

2006-06-02T04:37:00.000-07:00

Bit random but just wanted to post this up, me and my guy Jason, also a traceur. Is a really great help when I train, inspires me with confidence, even though I do get quite horrible with him when I get frustrated with my fear. So just grateful hes standing by me as a boyfriend and traceur.

2006-06-01T03:40:00.000-07:00

I am trying really hard to revise today, but I am really easily distracted. This is my first released training video, its only a minute long but shows me my progression since Nov'03 and that makes me really happy. :)

2006-05-30T10:42:00.000-07:00

Recently got photos from my shoot for Candidafaria, not really Parkour related but quite cool anyways! Me and Zoe should be filming soon in the Candidafaria range, things are a bit hectic with exams and moving home at the moment though!

My handstands are improving, in "little baby steps." I can now feel the balance and have started to be able to hold it for a few seconds.

Working up my confidence at the moment to front somi outside, going through patches of progression and regression with them. Although once I do them outside I doubt I will keep them up, seriously hard work on the shins.

I can hold tucked planche for quite a while now, will go out and time in a minute. (ahaha only 7 seconds, feels much longer, needs to be worked on)

Fluid take off is improving, although the stagger step does throw my runup off.

My abs feel totally rinsed today, sessioned 3 times in the last four days, working on my level arm jumps, did one in reigate at height, was easier than I thought it would be, also attempted a larger one next to it, which I bailed but luckily hit feet first along with support from both Jase and Guy.