Finding balance.

Phew it's been awhile. So some updates.
I moved somewhere else that was equally as far away and my wife got another job so she often takes the car so I still bike to work, a 24 mile round trip. Some days I get the car so that's nice.I got a kettlebell recently, and have finally started running again on a regular basis.

Some things I've learned in the last 5 months or so:

Endurance, both cardiovascular and muscular are important to anyone who wants to do parkour outside of a gym, which I wish was everybody. Once you learn a basic skill, drill it to the point where you could do it 20-30 times consecutively without dying. I've often focused only on short fast routes contained within whatever space I find myself in but when i go out in seemingly endless nature, the limits of a route are determined by my ability to keep going.

There is such a thing as being strong enough, and I haven't yet reached that point yet. This fits in with the endurance idea, there is an end goal, maintenance level of strength that need not be surpassed because my technical challenges will not require it. A surplus of strength is good but I've become obsessed which has put me off balance.

Stretching is way more important than I thought. especially for what I do with tricking, tumbling, and stupid cycling. I ride a bike quite a lot and it has seriously messed up my hip flexors to the point where I've realized I have to spend a ridiculous amount of time getting them back to  a healthy length. I've been reading kit lauglin's work along with other people's stretching routines. I'm starting to see it as a more of a lifestyle requirement than merely a thing you do for rehab. We should strive to be cat like with out flexibility and strength.

Kettlebells are incredibly fun. Parkour alone leaves out a lot of object manipulation which can be addictive. This is why I've always loved hacky sack and juggling. It's nice to do strength training in an ever changing way. There are many techniques to progressively load the body with the kettlebell just as there is with pure bodyweight training.

Everything is a skill and should be practiced as such. I have a pretty routine day so I get my training on a regular basis. That said, I still practice everything somewhat equally, so I  will try and stretch just as often as I run, tumble, or strength train but it is spread out throughout the day. This tends to make life less stressful and rote. I don't wait to train something if I feel like doing it now. This makes it hard to measure my volume, but I'm getting quite instinctive about it so I can tell if I'm neglecting handstand work or climbing, just by feel.

I need to write more. I have ideas all the time for writing but my busy work schedule and training time put a damper on my ambitions. I've learned so much more in the last few months that I need to share. More is coming.