Apr 30
Trailer for a new web series based in Montreal. Looks like it will be fun to watch once it comes out.
Blog is still going to be quiet for a bit as I’m working on a new site. Busy with figuring out colors, banner designs, and other little tweaks to the base theme. Undecided as of now if I’ll transfer all my activity over there or leave Primal Ninja running as a more “personal/random” style of blog. Might change it into more of a microblogging style of posting.
Apr 16
I’m in the process of doing some rebranding work with the intention of fine tuning the focus of the blog and preparing for future projects. The blog will remain pretty quiet while I work on that stuff, perhaps aside from a post or two I have saved up already. Stay tuned.
Apr 4
I was following along with the Paleo FX 2012 presentations on Twitter and caught Robb Wolf recommending The Talent Code as a must read for coaches. I immediately grabbed a digital copy (frictionless book purchases, possibly the worst thing for my wallet ever). Normally it would take me closer to two weeks to work through a new book, instead I finished it in just a couple days (which is why I didn’t do the usual WNR post last week). It is rare to find non-fiction books that are both readable and contain such excellent (and fascinating) content. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to understand skill acquisition better.
The Talent Code is ultimately about two things, the state of deep practice and myelin. Earlier I had linked to a post about deliberate practice, which is a very similar (if not the same concept) as deep practice. The definition from that article is somewhat vague and broad, but it works: “Deliberate [or deep] practice is a highly structured activity engaged in with the specific goal of improving performance.” The big takeaways from the book I got were that deep practice differs from normal practice in three main ways: 1) deep practice requires you to work on skills at the edges of your ability; 2) attending to and fixing errors as they appear is critical; 3) quality of practice is far more important than quantity. Incidentally, I talked previously about the importance of the first point in my last training game post.
Myelin is the star of The Talent Code. I knew a decent amount about myelin, having taken courses in anatomy and physiology during college, but from those courses I got the sense that myelin wasn’t all that important or interesting. How wrong that turned out to be…Myelin is responsible for insulating the pathways between neurons and improves nerve conduction velocity (the speed at which impulses travel between neurons); I knew that already, but what I didn’t know was that myelin actually thickened in response to certain stimuli (directed practice for one), and more importantly that this thickening of myelin corresponded directly with improved skill. Of course growing myelin cannot be felt directly, but it is possible to feel the focused and attentive state indicative of the deep practice which has a greater impact on building more myelin than normal practice.
The concepts of deep practice and myelin both suggest that the adage “perfect practice makes perfect” isn’t quite right. Ready, fire, aim (RFA) is a better way to approach practice with these concepts in mind. RFA is simple: get into the right mindset (super important); try something (a skill in this case); determine what went well and what didn’t; then repeat the process again, and again, and again. The book looks at all of this in way greater detail than I have covered here. As a coach I feel that The Talent Code is an immensely useful resource (the last section looks specifically at coaching). Ever since finishing it I’ve been examining my own practice habits and tweaking things based upon ideas in the book. So far so good, though it’s definitely not an easy process. Now I’m even thinking I should apply this to a current major project: learning French. If this blog suddenly shows up in French then you’ll know for sure it worked. 
Apr 2
Got caught up reading The Talent Code (post about that soon) last week, so there was no WNR post. I have a decent build up of links and videos because of that.
Excellent post from Primal Movers on movement quality vs quantitative goals. Bulletproof Executive links a video about what your body does when digesting ramen and Gatorade. Another Poloquin blog link, this time about training twice a day; something I intend to experiment with soon with my own Parkour and Floreio training.
I haven’t posted much about martial arts on here yet, but here is an good article of tips for female grapplers. GirlParkour highlighted fundraising for a tour by Parkour Girls Across (Europe).
Videos:
The videos from the ParkourTour have slowly been coming out. Check out episode 1 and episode 2 so far. I really really want to visit Madrid now after seeing those. Related to Ampisound is this video referencing Professor Longhair, Big Chief.
86-year old parallel bar gymnastics routine, super impressive:
Ryan Doyle in Switzerland:
Some training with Parkour Generations filmed by Julie Angel:
More from Team Farang:
Mar 12
Doubling up this week on the links. Had not much come in by last Monday but found quite a bit a couple days later.
Let’s start with nutrition related links. Stephan Guyenet has a (rather short) article about palatability and calorie intake. Stephan’s article ties in nicely with a post of on the same topic that got a lot of attention at Free the Animal. Stumptuous has an article up about excessive water intake during endurance sports. Finally: another good tip from Poloquin’s blog.
Two links from BetterMovement.org, the first is about hacking your jumping — the first trick is something worth trying for anyone dealing with valgus knee problems during jumping. The second is an article about fatigue’s effects on coordination. I’ve definitely thought about this before with relation to the long-form Parkour runs we do.
A good article on plyometric training and Parkour from Parkour Generations. For something completely different: enriched and novel environments build better brains.
Videos:
Parkour Generations performing in Bangkok:
Cool short movie:
A 2011 compilation video from Daniel Arroyo in Florida:
Bonus video — some insane breakdancing talent (the linked videos at the end are worth a watch too):
Mar 9
Less of a game, and more of a challenge this time. The upcoming (tomorrow!) state wide Parkour jam, NCJ17, has got me thinking about a discussion we had with Duncan Germain a couple weeks ago when he was in Chapel Hill (randomly, as always) for training. Much thanks to Duncan for the idea. I’m very close to fully recovered after taking a three month break from serious Parkour training to let an (unrelated) injury heal. Now that I can ramp training back up again I’m looking at figuring out what I need to work on, and this is where this challenge comes in. While I’m talking about this right in the context of Parkour training, the challenge can apply to other disciplines and life in general too.
The challenge is this: next time you are out training, have a look around your environment stuff that you aren’t capable of doing yet, but could be doable in a couple months (or longer) with dedicated training and decide you want to be able to do that. Once you’ve that obstacle, technique, or whatever else then set a realistic time frame to achieve it and figure out what steps you need to take to reach that goal. Sometimes it will be as simple as regular practice on the technique (working on palm spins for example) but many obstacles will require more indirect goal setting. Got all that? Then get started. If you do this regularly then you should find that you are making consistent progress and gradually pushing your limits in a way that is satisfying and also sustainable. Plus, it’s an excuse to explore new areas and look at more unconventional approaches to your current training grounds.
Personally I am starting on this tomorrow at the jam, and not yet sure what the first challenge will be. I have a few potential ideas, but I’ll just post up my finalized one once I have it (because public accountability is fun sometimes). This is going to be crazy weekend. The next WNR post will be a bit longer than usual, as I skipped last week due to a lack of interesting links (besides the Apex video). Still going to try to keep it as more of a weekly thing, as I’d rather not bombard everyone with tons of video links in a single post too often.
Mar 1
Ah hell, I was going to include this in the next Recon post, but it’s definitely worth it’s own post. APEX Movement in Colorado just released a big video. Some beautiful and highly creative movement, plus solid editing. One of the best Parkour videos I’ve seen in a while, but watch it and decide for yourself:
…I’m pretty sure I have watched it at least 10 times already since yesterday.
Update: Check out Colin’s post related to the video. Useful bit of perspective on it.
Feb 29
Such a cheeky cover
Thought this was going to be a rant post? Gotcha! Maybe some other time…
I don’t normally write or talk much about nutrition, but this will be brief and is worth sharing. Krista Scott-Dixon (who also works with Precision Nutrition) released a short (about 40 pages) free e-book a little while ago called Fuck Calories. It’s both short and free, so writing up a quick summary or review is hardly useful when you could download and finish it yourself in less than an hour. I can say that there is enough different small pieces of advice in there that just about everyone will find something useful to experiment with from it. A lot of the advice is echoed often in Paleo circles, especially the discussion of eating real foods, avoiding grains and legumes, and removing sugar among other things. But why am I writing more about it? Go download it yourself instead (if you hadn’t already clicked the first link).
The training games posts will continue next week. Some quick site news: I’ve added a Services page with some basic stuff I’m beginning to offer, in addition to the training I already do with Fifth Ape. I’m currently in the process of researching and developing some more interesting online options, but I’ll discuss those once I have a better idea of how they will look in finalized form.
Feb 27
Changing this up to regularly post on Mondays. Actually managed to equal out the number of links and videos…need to do some more digging this week.
The free Paleo Summit is going on right now, check it out. Just finished listening to Erwan’s presentation myself.
Notifications are evil. Reminds me of a good book I read a long while ago, The Shallows. More good content from Poloquin’s blog, simple tips for being healthier and fitter.
Stephan Guyenet has very interesting article on sugar and fat gain on his blog. I had another link to planned to Gnolls.org, but looks like that site is running into hosting problems right now.
Videos:
Some Capoeira flow:
The guy’s from Storror (two down or under construction websites in one post, I’m on a roll here) have a new video out:
Two more of those Sh*t people say videos, one is a follow-up the Sh*t Barefoot Runners say and of course someone came out with one for Traceurs too:
Feb 23
Learned this one from some of the guys from the NCSU Parkour group and ncparkour.com:
Training Game #4 – Plus One (I’ve also seen it called Add-on before)
This game requires at least two players. The game starts with one player doing one movement then the next person does that movement plus an improvised movement of their own. Players continue to cycle through, adding one movement on each time to the series. Usually this unofficially ends when players can no longer remember the entire sequence without stopping to think. Adding a set number of rounds per person is also an option. A more advanced variation is to add a rule that add-on moves only count if there is no pause or break between the old sequence and the new movement.
While on the subject of NCParkour, the next state wide jam is coming up on March 10th and will be in Chapel Hill again! The details are posted up on Facebook. As is typical with the format it will be starting up in the Forest Theater and moving on from there. I highly encourage anyone in the area to come check it out if they can.
