trainings

went to the gym on wednesday and did some light exercises as I was a little tired.

bench press: 1x8 (40kg), 1x8 (50kg), 3x8 (60kg)

wrist: 3x10 (15kg)

shoulder press: 3x8 (40kg)

snatch: 1x8 (35kg), 2x8 (40kg)

leg press: single leg 3x8 (full rack)

calf raises: 3x30 (both legs), 3x30 (single leg)

went for diy on thursday and my cupie feels much much better already, I'm slowly getting used to the feel of the stunt and can even fight to keep up some of the cupies. ochi says that I'm not stepping forward to use my entire core to support the weight which means I'm just using my shoulder strength to take the weight, shall work on that later during diy. injured my left knee when huishan landed on it, its much better already thankfully.

did nearly 70 toss throws on saturday at the start of training which resulted in my thighs hurting for the rest of the session and even today. didnt know that we had to do so many initially so I really used most of my strength on the first set of 15, had to grit my way through the rest of the sets. it was fun doing shoulder stands once again for pyramids, its really becoming my comfort zone, but I'm not too sure if I'll get to be shoulder stand for long anyway, think I'm a bit too tall. quite confident of my toss to shoulder stands already.

got back my feeling for btosses, really hope that I dont lose it once again. I just have to remind myself not to wait for the flyer's weight to start sinking in before throwing, the trick is just to follow the timing and move up. did a few btosses with xuewei, she really trusts the bases a lot to catch her, and despite not btossing for nearly 2 years, she's still pretty good at it. huishan was trying her layout and got the first half of the stunt, the landing is a bit awkward which resulted in bruises and scratches, acks.

zhiliang challenged me to get my toss to extension by july during thursday's diy session so I started trying just that during saturday's pstunting with biyi. really happy that I managed to throw to a comfortable extension (without pressing up) towards the last few throws. tried toss to hands pop down toss to hands a few times too. thanks biyi once again for your patience and willingness to keep trying until we can hit stunts.

may!

it has only been a month since I started this blog but I realised that I've made some improvements reading some of the earlier entries. my ankles are feeling much better now, at least I don't wake up in the morning with both my ankles feeling tight. my right knee is still sore though, feels like my knee cap is a little loose, perhaps I need to do more strengthening exercises so that it doesn't get worn out so quickly.

went for 2 diy sessions on sunday and yesterday and was just spending time getting my toss and cupie+stabilising my lib. apparently my right shoulder droops subconsciously a bit in anticipation of a cupie/lib, and the resulting pop is a bit too uncontrolled. popping into stunts feels much more controlled without the unnecessary anticipation.

my right hand is already visibly larger than my left, will be gymming on non training days with much more emphasis placed on my left side. stunting should be much easier with more balanced left right strength.

another sprained finger

managed to stabilise our assisted full up by quite a lot yesterday, its slowly feeling more smooth and its relaxing to hit this stunt already. catching the flyer's turn early really is the key to getting this stunt right, even the 540 we tried subsequently didn't feel too much different. tried a heel stretch retake to another heel stretch and surprisingly manage to hit it within 2 tries, I'm really starting to like group stunts even more, the variety of stunts that are possible is quite mind-boggling.

still trying to get the right feel for my btoss with gary, hopefully I'll remember to stop sinking down and just move faster. huishan really seems to take a long time to fall when when we manage to hit the basket right. sprained my right middle finger during one of the btoss backtucks after ramming my entire hand into gary, acks shall just keep pulling it till it feels okay again.

my popping in for cupie feels more natural already but somehow I still can't seem to hold the stunt up, not too sure if its my inability to fight or my delay in catching the flyer's cg, but it feels like the stunt is beyond saving by the time I try to stabilise, hmmm. tried lo hi tick tock another time and it feels much better with a more stable lib. changed my lowering and it is already a non-issue, just need to be able to catch the shoe more quickly I reckon.

need to recover from my flu and cough soon, really limits my strength and stamina.

back tuck

had a short session doing btoss ytd, and was really glad doing the bare basics once again. we did straight tosses for almost 2 hours, and I tried both types of grips for the basket after being very used to grabbing my left wrist with my right hand. it's been some time doing backloading for btoss too and I can really feel myself using strength during the toss unlike last time when its mostly just loading the flyer into the basket. my left little finger feels very sprained though after getting kicked during one bad landing, its swelling a little today even after i iced ytd.

tried a few standing backtucks after that, sont said that I should keep both feet flat on the ground during the initial jump as he observed that I was jumping on tipped toes resulting in my landing slightly in front of my initial starting point. my jump seems slightly higher now though it doesn't feel that way, guess I have to get used to this new feeling haha. its back to the crash mats again to learn when to prepare for my landing as I'm overtucking pretty consistently now.

left liberty

had a short play session on good friday after helping evan with her video assignment, still wasn't feeling too good as my left feet and my neck were still hurting a lot from the round off back tuck crash haha, but still tried a few p stunts anyway.

amanda was super gian with left lib cause she wanted to get it right quickly so she can try a tick tock, wanted to practice too as i've started to realise that my right hand is getting way more stronger than my left hand too. very often when I'm stunting nowadays, I'll unconsciously start to shift a lot of weight to my right side. its a good thing that my right is getting stronger, but neglecting my left isn't too good. xp asked me to try a left lib a few days ago and I couldn't even hold the stunt up, felt much better getting it a few times on friday.

attempted a few toss to ex with xt and amanda but somehow I can't seem to be able to catch the flyers' shoes at all. most of the time, the shoes are very far in front and the flyer's waist is already in the plane behind my head, seems like I'm pulling the flyer back in the toss even when I'm making a conscious effort not to do so at all (sometimes even throwing forward). will just keep working on my explosiveness, and get use to catching the shoes higher in the air.

left play session early to rush off to jurong east chiropractor cause he said that he was closing at 3pm, started raining heavily when I reached jurong east mrt, thank goodness he waited for me. apparently so many places in my body was injured that he ended up spending like 30 mins fixing everything. thank goodness I managed to get a 2 day rest during the weekend, everything feels way better today.

round off back tuck

went to do a bit of gymnastics yesterday and since there was the softer blue mats, I decided to try to learn how to do a backhand spring and a round off back tuck. have always wanted to improve on my gymnastics since a few months ago but my ankles were not feeling very good. they were still feeling a little sore yesterday but much better already so I decided to try anyway.

tried backhand springs with the roll mats first to learn how to "open" my body by pushing my pelvis out, I really have to start stretching my back more and get used to that feeling. the feeling is really different when I did subsequently on the crash mats, have to keep doing and work on the takeoff angle which is one of the most important things to look out for.

it really took a lot of courage to try round off back tuck because trying to link a round off and a back tuck together feels totally different. landed on my shoulder and head on my very first attempt and was quite stunned by the impact. my neck feels quite sore now, I'll get it fixed at the jurong east chiropractor during the long weekend, together with all my other injuries from training for routine.

yb corrected my round off cause apparently I was running too heavily and deliberately, and I was taking off with my legs cross which will lead to me twisting awkwardly after landing. will try to change my run slowly, its back to basics again before I try anything more advanced.

have to pull myself up from front hand springs using my hips more and try to land with my body straight, the angle I'm pushing off with my hands also doesn't seem to be very consistent yet. lots of work ahead evidently, but it really feels much better doing gymnastics after losing some weight.