Exercise

by | Jan 31, 2008 | Life

It is something most of us claim we don’t do enough of, or we try to reason out way out of, as irritating as it is to spend precious minutes of your time doing something seemingly pointless and in some cases repetitive, the benefits are there they just take some time to surface.

I have undergone many attempts at various activities, the first of which was Karate,which I started at about 5 years of age, after a decade of that I had achieved blackbelt and due to some unfortunate circumstances I chose to leave the dojo, at that point I had a reasonable break from all things sport, and stacked on many extra kilos.

After moving to QLD, I became mates with a neighbor by the name of Matty, as coincidence would have it, Matty is an avid (and exceptionally good) soccer player, although under protest at first, his enthusiasm rubbed off and I started to play, i never joined a team but still managed to play for at least a few hours against someone, somewhere each week (this is when I busted myself from about 114kg to my current 95kg).

Since then, I tried to pick up swimming, jogging etc, but none of it really captured my attention until i saw a video of Parkour immediately I knew this was not a mere “Sport” it was a discipline with elegance and finesse, I began to read up on it, watched many videos, and started training, I fast learned not to run before I could walk as I had an altercation with a wall, i hit my shin so hard i tore the muscle on both sides of my ankle, and my foot went black with bruising etc, now, i know that was not good, my mistake there was training tired, I was not doing anything stupid, I was just doing it far too long.

After this, I was not able to run for about 11 weeks, which was frustrating to say the least, I was effectively back to square one which is where I have started, doing it by the book, in the footsteps of David Belle and Sébastien Foucan, training properly, not rushing things, focusing on the finer points (precision/rolls/landings) taking every logical precaution. If you want to know what it looks like when done correctly…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Db461dcQSU&rel=1]

I plan to practice Parkour and freerunning for many years, to help with that, I am planning to go back to Karate this year as well, to build up my core strength and stamina.

Do yourself a favour, whatever your passion is get into it, exercise not only gets you fit, it releases endorphins into your body to make you happier, especially if your occupation is not a particularly active one, get into it, you will sleep better because you have earned the right to be tired, have a great week.

|G|Luke|