Week 56
There's something about playing on a jungle gym that never gets old. Climbing, swinging, jumping around. I love getting lost in that flow of movement just going up and over, down, and moving all around the bars. My hands are a little raw after all that bar work, but lucky for me I have these super sexy calluses so my hands don't get too torn up.
Before we played on the bars last night, we did some different complexes as a warm up. Some of them were a lot harder for me than others. I liked the deck squat to push-up but the flying bird dog something or other was hard to wrap my head around. You start in a parkour squat then jump out to a rough plank balancing on opposite arm/opposite leg. Another challenge I had was the frog-plank-frog. I know, I'm great at naming things. So for this one, you start in a frog plank then shoot your legs back so you're in a push-up position. Then you turn to lift your left arm, twist to right arm, and back to push-up position. Then here's where I got/get stuck. Go straight from a push-up position back into the frog plank. I had no problem going from frog to push-up, but I don't quite have the strength/control to get my legs up and lower them down into a frog plank. Something for me to work on. I decided putting together a poor quality demo for you would be way more fun than my homework so here you go, straight from my living room:
After our funky warm up, we started working on the bars. We did vaults and various challenges like get over x bar without touching it or get through a certain space without touching the ground. It was fun and I tried lots of new things on the bars so I was feeling good. I think my favorite was a run I did where I vaulted over a low rail, jumped up & caught a high bar against the wall, then pushed off the wall and turned 90 degrees in the air to catch a bar to my left and swing through. So much fun. I was doing really well/getting some good flow until we had to "perform" a course we came up with for the rest of the class.
You'd think I would be good at performing after all those years in competitive cheer, acting, etc. but nope, I choke when people watch me do parkour. Not if I'm just training and everyone is doing their own thing, but if everyone is standing still and staring at me, it doesn't go well. I decided to go first (maybe subconsciously I wanted to get it over with) and it was kind of like someone blindfolded me and hit me over the head before I went. Okay fine, I'm exaggerating. But it was not good. I messed up an under-bar and managed to slam my butt into a bar before continuing on only to trip over the next bar I attempted to vault over and it kind of just continued going downhill. The good news is everyone after me must have felt great because really, they couldn't have done worse.
After my embarrassment, I got back to playing on the bars and of course I was fine as soon as the spotlight was gone. Classic. I think I was a bit frustrated with myself after that because when I started doing wall runs later on, I kept telling myself it wasn't good enough even though everyone around me said they looked great. I went a little too hard and I started getting "cat scratches" on my wrists. Basically, big scratchy bruises where I rotate my hands to climb up from a cat. No bueno.
Despite the tender hands, bruised wrists, and maybe a bit of a bruised ego after that "performance" (not really, I don't care), I had a good night of training and I felt great about the new moves I did on the bars. I'm also excited to have a new challenge to work on, the "frog-plank-frog."
There's something about playing on a jungle gym that never gets old. Climbing, swinging, jumping around. I love getting lost in that flow of movement just going up and over, down, and moving all around the bars. My hands are a little raw after all that bar work, but lucky for me I have these super sexy calluses so my hands don't get too torn up.
Before we played on the bars last night, we did some different complexes as a warm up. Some of them were a lot harder for me than others. I liked the deck squat to push-up but the flying bird dog something or other was hard to wrap my head around. You start in a parkour squat then jump out to a rough plank balancing on opposite arm/opposite leg. Another challenge I had was the frog-plank-frog. I know, I'm great at naming things. So for this one, you start in a frog plank then shoot your legs back so you're in a push-up position. Then you turn to lift your left arm, twist to right arm, and back to push-up position. Then here's where I got/get stuck. Go straight from a push-up position back into the frog plank. I had no problem going from frog to push-up, but I don't quite have the strength/control to get my legs up and lower them down into a frog plank. Something for me to work on. I decided putting together a poor quality demo for you would be way more fun than my homework so here you go, straight from my living room:
After our funky warm up, we started working on the bars. We did vaults and various challenges like get over x bar without touching it or get through a certain space without touching the ground. It was fun and I tried lots of new things on the bars so I was feeling good. I think my favorite was a run I did where I vaulted over a low rail, jumped up & caught a high bar against the wall, then pushed off the wall and turned 90 degrees in the air to catch a bar to my left and swing through. So much fun. I was doing really well/getting some good flow until we had to "perform" a course we came up with for the rest of the class.
You'd think I would be good at performing after all those years in competitive cheer, acting, etc. but nope, I choke when people watch me do parkour. Not if I'm just training and everyone is doing their own thing, but if everyone is standing still and staring at me, it doesn't go well. I decided to go first (maybe subconsciously I wanted to get it over with) and it was kind of like someone blindfolded me and hit me over the head before I went. Okay fine, I'm exaggerating. But it was not good. I messed up an under-bar and managed to slam my butt into a bar before continuing on only to trip over the next bar I attempted to vault over and it kind of just continued going downhill. The good news is everyone after me must have felt great because really, they couldn't have done worse.
After my embarrassment, I got back to playing on the bars and of course I was fine as soon as the spotlight was gone. Classic. I think I was a bit frustrated with myself after that because when I started doing wall runs later on, I kept telling myself it wasn't good enough even though everyone around me said they looked great. I went a little too hard and I started getting "cat scratches" on my wrists. Basically, big scratchy bruises where I rotate my hands to climb up from a cat. No bueno.
Despite the tender hands, bruised wrists, and maybe a bit of a bruised ego after that "performance" (not really, I don't care), I had a good night of training and I felt great about the new moves I did on the bars. I'm also excited to have a new challenge to work on, the "frog-plank-frog."
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