The cake is a lie...

I am long out of the gaming industry, but E3 still retains some of its potency for me.  I lived in Los Angeles for many years and attended the event a few times.  I was wholly unprepared for the spectacle the first time - the frontal assault of color and sound is overwhelming.  I prefer to digest the media in a steady drip from the comfort (and relative silence) of my own home, but every year I get a pang of desire to be in the middle of it all once again.

I don't play many games any more but I will absolutely be firing up the console for this:

If you are unfamiliar with the original, educate yourselves.

Some new goals

I have recently returned from a great trip across the country.  I joined several of the NCParkour guys in Ohio for American Rendezvous, featuring Parkour Generations and Majestic Force.  It was great to see the Europeans in action - their approach to training and their discipline is inspirational.  Many thanks to Parkour Horizons for putting on the event and huge appreciations to all of the Parkour Generations and Majestic Force guys & girls for making the long trek from Europe - we American traceurs greatly appreciate it!

 Then I was off to San Francisco and Big Sur where I joined some of the Exuberant Animal crew for a leadership workshop at the storied Esalen Institute.  I had a great time seeing Frank, Josh, and Charlie and meeting lots of other interesting people.

 The entire week was thought provoking and many of the concepts we batted around will probably make an appearance in future blog posts, but a particularly interesting revelation I had is that I need to rework my fitness goals for the year to focus on bodyweight exercises.

 This came out of many conversations with Josh and Charlie about the dangers of loading weight on an unsound structure - like someone with poor posture.  Better for that person to correct his/her alignment and then master some bodyweight skills before loading his/her frame with additional weight.  And there are plenty of challenges to keep me fully occupied!  The three of us set some goals for the rest of the year - we split them up into 4 categories; push, pull, squat, and gait.  Each category has 3 sub categories; strength, power, and endurance (or the 3 energy pathways for gait).  Here they are, in no particular order:

Pull

Strength: One arm wallclimb & one arm chinup

Power: “good” dyno (i have one in mind which I will measure soon)

Endurance: 50 kipping pullups

Push

Strength: 5 perfect 1 arm pushups (each arm)

Power: 30ft. shotput (20 pound stone)

Endurance: 100 pushups (in a row)

Squat

Strength: 10 perfect pistols (each leg - no knee dive)

Power: 50 inch box jump

Endurance: 500 air squats

Gait

Phosphagen: sub 5 sec. 40 yard dash

Glycolysis:  Sub 55 sec. 400 m.

Aerobic: Sub 18min. 5k (barefoot for extra credit)

Some additional goals I have are to master Russian Leans, and to hold a front lever for at least 3 seconds.

I’ll post some regular updates on my progress - wish me luck!

Ape shirts

Greetings from Ohio!

I'm writing this from a Motel 6 in Columbus. In a few hours I start training with Parkour Generations and Majestic Force.

I picked up this note when I arrived:

"Hi Colin, my name is Matt Ingleby and I started an online t-shirt company in Chicago named RIPT Apparel (http://riptapparel.com). We sell one unique t shirt design for 24 hours every day for $10 each. I'm contacting you because I love your site and I think that your readers will like tomorrow's design. It's titled "Ape" by artist Nick Beaulieu. It's a cool t shirt of a you guessed it, an Ape. It has a cool urban street art feel to it."

It's a very cool design and it's only available for the day, so check it out! The link is http://riptapparel.com