Kieran In Motion

2010-06-17T11:41:00.001+01:00

"Fighting is an incredibly honest form of expression. There's no real equivocation in an elbow to the jaw, no pussyfooting about the gray shadings of meaning inherent in civilized and power-shielded discourse. It's a potent tie to our immediate and ever-present animal."

Eugene S. Robinson

http://www.eugenesrobinson.com/

2010-06-15T21:59:00.000+01:00

I have decided to change my workout plan slightly. I've not specified any goals yet, I will do that when I get bored to keep me motivated.

Monday

Pull ups
Overhead tricep extension (or dips if feeling strong)
Shrugs

Roadwork - 45 mins minimum

Wednesday

Chest fly
Single arm row
Twist crunch (dumbbell)

Roadwork - 45 mins minimum

Friday

Jumping squats
Dumbbell lunges
Turkish get-up

Roadwork - 45 mins minimum

Each exercise will generally be done in sets of 5, containing 5 reps each with 2 minutes rest between each set and 2 minutes rest between each exercise. This means each day is around an hour of exercise in total including roadwork. Roadwork is running at a slow jog, usually for minimum of 45 mins but generally no longer than 90 mins.

I will be doing all of these with the equipment available to me at home - two 10kg dumbells, two 6kg handweights and a belt which I use to hand weights from my waist. Each week I will try to post with an update as to what I can lift with each exercise. If I miss a blog update, I'm also keeping a paper diary so will update from that.

I'm doing this in order to get stronger, basically. My weakness has always been strength. Once I've reached a level of strength I am happy with in terms of exercises here, I will start doing sprint intervals and hill sprints instead of roadwork. I will also start to work on speed and co-ordination (still researching this). While I'm not training regularly in MMA or Muay Thai and not training for fighting, I might as well get better at something!

2010-06-13T02:11:00.002+01:00

This is a list of dudes whose striking techniques I plan on dissecting in order to make myself a better fighter. I'll be making a grappling one soon too.

Low Kicks: Pat Barry; Jose Aldo

Body Kicks: Mauricio "Shogun" Rua

Head Kicks: Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic

Knees (head & body): Yasuhiro Kido (not MMA, but applicable)

Boxing: BJ Penn

I'll add to this list in future posts when it isn't 2am!

Kieran

2010-04-28T13:27:00.000+01:00

Forgot to mention in earlier post...

I've introduced a new structure to adult classes at Arbroath Thai Boxing. A number of students were not happy with the balance given in classes between hard graft and technique work. My structure gives a good warm up which makes the students work hard while also warming up all the major muscle groups. I introduced tabata after the cardio and before the stretching. This went down well with people enjoying being pushed and getting a good sweat on.

Padwork seen students rotating partners and taking turns on the pads for teacher lead drills. We worked on throwing the left kick and how to throw it from different angles, covering your intentions etc. To end the session we warmed down with footwork drills and demonstrated yaang saam khum.

Hopefully we can stick to this and make the class interesting but structured in a useful way for working within a one hour time constraint.

workout routine

2010-04-28T13:12:00.000+01:00

I plan on fighting again, hopefully MMA in the summer. With this in mind I've decided to start working out properly again.

I'm using weights for just now as well as bodyweight but for the first few weeks I'm only using weights. This is because it's much more fun to try new things and I've never really worked out with weight before. Plus, the only goal I have just now is to get stronger, especially in my back and triceps

Monday

Concentration curl - 10 reps/3 sets
Overhead tricep extension - 10/3
Chest flie - 10/3
Front raise - 10/3

Wednesday

Shrug - 12/3
Single arm row - 12/3(each arm obviously)

Twist crunch (dumbbell) - 12/3

I was going to do pull ups as well but because I've not really done anything for a while I was sore after Monday and thought I'd ease into it. Friday is lower body, so its looking like this:

Friday

Jumping squats (up stairs) - my stairs x3
Dumbbell lunges 12/3
Hill sprints (make it up as I go along!)

2009-10-25T15:57:00.000Z

Anyone able to explain how Machida won a round last night? I scored it myself based on effective grappling, striking and octagon control, as per the UFC criteria. Shogun controlled the pace of the fight, aside from two forward attacks that Machida made in the final two rounds. Even then, Shogun countered effectively, thus nullifying the advantage machida had in initiating the attack. Shogun landed more shots, heavier shots and they were visibly taking a toll on Machida's movement, reactions and ability to counter. Effective striking - Shogun.

Machida mostly moved backwards into the cage, so he didn't display Octagon control at all, he rarely does and that is his whole gameplan. Octagon control - Shogun.

Shogun shot in and clinched a number of times but was unable to put Machida down and barely even unbalanced him. Saying that though, Shogun left almost every clinch of his own accord, not because Machida forced him to and Shogun left every clinch with a number of effective blows. Machida clinched a few times at the start and landed a lot of solid knees from that position, but they did not seem to alter Shogun's intentions at all so surely they can't be scored as effective grappling or striking if they didn't appear effective?

Overall I had it scored as 50-45 to Shogun. Machida lost every single round. Goldia and Rogan both scored the first two rounds to Shogun, the third to Machida and the 4th to Shogun, giving at the very least a split decision to Shogun if you take their word for the scoring.

Saying that, Cecil Peoples was on the judging panel so I guess he just rolled dice each round to score it.

2009-09-20T23:18:00.001+01:00

My second Muay Thai fight took place last night in Grangemouth. I was 7th on the 13 fight card. I was fighting a lad called Craig Allan from Base Muay Thai, the camp who were promoting this card.

To cut to the chase, I lost again. saying that, it didn't feel like I lost. At the end of the 1st round I took an accidental groin shot and was unable to continue. A draw you say? Nay, for this is Muay Thai; where real men only need apply (that's sarcasm btw). I was counted out and a loss was recorded against me: TKO. Technical Knock Out.

Do I think it is fair? Well, thems the rules and I knew that unless it was repeated fouls or a purposeful foul that I would have to continue or get counted out. Do I think that is right? Not at all, I have always despised the "macho" thread running through Muay Thai and the idea that unless your cup breaks from the contact of the illegal strike then you must contine. I think it is unnecessarily masochistic to expect a fighter to recover from a full force kick in the nuts in ten seconds. I certainly didn't recover after ten minues, never mind ten seconds! The most annoying thing is not losing the fight or even being kicked in the nuts, it is the way that my opponent showed very little respect in a sport that is supposed to be synonymous with the word. As I was on my hands and knees on the canvas due to the excruciating pain of having one of my testicles crushed and pushed into my stomach, he was jumping up and down celebrating his victory. Yes celebrating. It makes me sick that he would celebrate a victory achieved in such manner. I would be ashamed to have won by hitting someone so hard in their testicles that they could not continue. I certainly wouldn't count it as a win if it had happened just over a minute into the first round where neither of us had any real advantage over the other. I can only hope that he was happy to have won because he felt he was close to losing. That is really the only excuse I would accept.

During the rather short period I got to display myself, I was doing everything that I wanted to and scoring well. Watching the fight back I think it looks like he got the better of the clinch but only because he threw knees as I punched him - knees in the clinch look better and judges will score them higher because the fighter is showing a wider range of techniques and skills, despite effect. His knees were completely innefective and I didn't even realise he was kneeing me until I watched the video afterwards. His main strength was his hands and his left has given me a black eye. My main strength is also my hands, meaning we traded black eyes essentially.

I am happy with my performance and I have a feeling that he was already beaten and it was only a matter of time before I knocked him out. I was completely calm and exectuted almost everything I wanted to - I was relaxed enough to block his kicks, I landed a few of my own and even my weakest element, push kicks, were used and landed to the effect I wished. I only wish I could have kneed him as I had intended. His ribs would have broken for sure because I am quite happy to stand up and say my knees are very powerful and a few exchanges would have seen his breathing become very laboured due to the damage his body had taken. I planned to use my knees in the second round and onwards and to attack his thigh and chest mainly, using my hands to set them up and also possibly playing possum and a slight counterattacking game.

I'm not annoyed at my performance like last time and I am not at all disappointed. I am taking this as a no contest despite what was officially recorded. My balls are quite tender and Lynn pointed out I have been walking like John Wayne! Nothing else is really that sore and I could probably fight next week if I chose to.

Back to training on Tuesday and I'll be busy doing my first two Uni assessments for the next two weeks!

Kieran

2009-09-06T14:33:00.000+01:00

In two weeks I will have fought my second muay thai fight. My training is going quite well and my reactions and speed are much better than last time. My main strengths are looking to be match winners and I have developed a new weapon for this fight which I am looking forward to testing. In addition, my weaknesses are getting stronger which is bad news for my opponent.

I always seem to have some sort of injury though. This seems to be common with fighters who are training seriously and fighting at the top level. I can only assume that I have not prepared for my serious training well and my body simply isn't used to training this hard. My diet is ok and I am getting enough rest so it must just be hard acclimatising. I'm certain I will be 100% fit to fight but it is still annoying to continually have niggling injuries.

Mike - We are still in the Cafe Project for Muay Thai from half 7 to half 8 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I grapple with an informal group on Wedensday 4-6 and Saturday mornings 9-11 in the Sports Centre at the High School although it is justan invitation only thing at the moment I think. I really want to try out ammy MMA as well, I would need to get my ground a bit tighter though! Lynn and I plan to move to Dundee when she gets a job, however I start university in Dundee on the 14th and expect to be there a lot in any case. Still wanna meet up and roll with you.

Until after my fight, good day to you all. x

2009-08-17T23:26:00.000+01:00

Today I started my second week of fight training. last weeek was much tougher than I anticipated because I was so out of shape. Now, I am not going to tell you I am fat because that would be a bare faced lie but I did have the beginnings of a wee pot belly and I was certainly heavier. I weighed myself before starting training and I was shocked to discover I was about 90kg. That's around 14st or 198lb. Since I am fighting at 79kg, you can understand that I was amazed.

I am now around 82kg since I cut out a lot of crap in my diet and started traiining properly. let me tell you that crash loosing around 8kg is not nice! Every session last week felt like double what it was. At the end of an hour long class I felt like I had just completed two hours of hard sparring. My body was also starting to feel it as my left bicep and left shoulder started to give in. I rested well over the weekend and we eased off a little in sparring tonight so that my shoulder had an extra day but I think my body is adjusting to the harder training now.

I will not give away too much on what I am working on in my training sessions but I've only had one really bad session where I was in a foul mood afterwards because I felt I performed terribly, the rest have been fairly positive.

In training for my last fight I was focusing more on getting my body annd mind ready to fight, in that mental state where you can fight and not be self concious, as I found myself to be previously. That type of attitude is gone and I sorely want this one to end with my arms raised. My mental state has changed the way I approach training and in recognising this, my trainers have changed the training. last fight I only really went into that ring with my right hand, my right kick and rudimentary movement. This time however, I am training all my weapons and all angles. My knees are feeling really good from close, mid and long range. My hands are tighter and I am wasting less shots. My defence is feeling a bit tighter and can only improve as we get more sparring in. My kicks still need some work but they are perfectly functional. The fact that I am concerned more with correcting technique for the judges rather than power (of which there is plenty) in itself displays a marked improvement to the training for my last fight. I am satisfied with my progress and feel I am going to come into this fight a much better prepared fighter than last time. I am certain I will have no nerves this time and will win because I will be better prepared and in a better mental state than my opponent.

I said last time KO in the 3rd but my coach thinks that if I stick to the plan and don't lose my head as I did last time then I could probably get a KO or TKO quicker than that. I certainly hope so. I want to make this opponent pay for my failure to win last time.

I am hungry.

2009-08-10T13:42:00.000+01:00

I have been posting on this blog for over three years now and this is my 100th post. So what have I done and what have I achieved?

Firstly, the main purpose of this blog was to encourage me to train more and to train consistently in whatever I was doing. At the time of starting this blog I was only training parkour. My first ever post has a good description of parkour if you want to read it.

The main thing I have gained from doing and studying parkour is that what I wanted from parkour was something to give my life purpose. I wanted to feel alive and get caught up in a moment rather than always be extremely aware of the long term.

Physically I discovered that without practice I have strong legs and decent balance and with training I have very strong legs and great balance. I also found out I needed to work on my upper body. I knew it was my weak point but I didn't realise how weak that point was!

After discovering the motto of "etre fort pour etre utile" I found that this hit a nerve with me and the quest to be strong to be useful will now stay with me for life, thanks to parkour and Erwan LeCorre.

Once this motto was a part of my self identity, I decided to take up boxing in order to supplement my parkour training but ended up accidentally taking up Muay Thai, and I have never looked back. Muay Thai took up much more time than parkour and eventually completely replaced it. I was immersed in studying and practicing Muay Thai. My main goals were to gain self confidence and keep fit. I never imagined I would fight.

Three years on from the start of my blog and my life is in a completely different place that I would have expected it to be. I gave up a decent paying job with good prospects and good security to return to studying and have now really discovered who I am. I will be attending Dundee University to start a three year MA Psychology (hons) in September and I plan on using psychology as a career in itself, either councelling or therapy of some sort so that I can continue to help people, but in a more effective way.

That theme of helping people continues in Muay Thai. I am fighting for the second time on September 19th so that I can help train other people for fights and so that I can tewach effectively and with the respect of my students. I do plan on becoming a Muay Thai instructor, which is actually within my grasp this year if I put my mind to it. My coach had nothing but good things to say about my future plans and even my planned foray into MMA competition even though he does not like grappling and ground fighting. It was he who has encouraged me to teach and to become and instructor, even going as far as saying that if time permits I should open up a club of my own in Dundee!

Although it is fractured and split over 100 posts and three years, you can look back over this blog and see me change. It is more apparent than ever that I am now a completely different person than I was when I started. I am no longer scared of physical confrontation and my instincts are changing from flight to fight. My diet is getting better and I'm starting to cut out all junk food and have found that I mostly don't like it at all, apples are way better than snickers! Lynn and I are about to celebrate our first year together as a married couple and we have a bright future ahead. I've even started to get a handle on my money and anyone who knows me will know that money doesn't just burn a hole in my pocket, it burns my pants right off!

In the future:

I would like to fight maybe 3 Muay Thai fights in total and a few MMA bouts.

I would like to have two children.

I would like to be a psychology doctor.

I would like to have a clean, whole food diet.

I would like to save 10% of each monthly income.

I would like to visit France, Germany, Iceland, Denmark, Russia, Brazil, Thailand, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

I would like to call one of the above "home"

These are my new plans for the future. The blog title "kieran in motion" remains because I would like my life to be constantly in motion and embrace change as the necessary force it is. I do not want to be come stagnant. I want to remain in motion.

Kieran

2009-07-25T00:00:00.000+01:00

Wow, totally forgot to post on the 20th! I have been matched for the September fight but I got the wrong date. It will be Septermber 19th.

My (mostly) bodyweight training is going quite well considering I've only been doing it for two weeks now.

Week 1 - 06/07/09 to 12/07/09

Monday - Jump Squats up stairs x 3. Three sets of 15 stairs in the entry to my flat. Only rest between exercised was the tie it took to walk back down the stairs, about 45 seconds maybe.

Calf raises with 10kg weight on shoulder - I could say it was a sandbag but I'll be honest and say it was cat litter!

Bulgarian split squats with 6kg hand weights, 5x5 on each leg.

I woke up on the Tuesday with a twisted knee, probably because I didn't warm up for what was quite a tough workout for me so I didn't do anything else this week because walking hurt!

Week 2 - 13/07/09 to 19/07/09

Monday

Pull ups, 5x5 - Used progressive weight addition, first set w' no weight, 2nd with 3kg, 3rd with 6kg, 4th with 3kg and 5th with no extra weight. This is the formula I follow wherever I mention progressive weight addition, the weights will be different though.

Towel Fly, 5x5 - This is where you start in a press up position with two towels in your hands, slide your arms out as far as they go then you use your shoulders etc to pull yourself back into a press up position. Can be done with dumbells too.

Dips, 5x5 - progressive weight addition with 3kg and 6kg

Raised feet pressups, 25 - just to finish with something that would push me, test me and hurt me in equal measure!

Tuesday was Thai boxing where I didn't have a really hard session but instead worked on footwork and angles in combination to 1-2 and 1-2-3 combinations involving punches, knees and kicks on the freestyle pads. Worked the heavy bag with same things but at full pace. Technically a rest day!

Wednesday

Assisted leg raises, 2x10 - this was leg raises using a skipping rope looped around my legs so that I could ensure it was slow enough to work my core properly.

Dorsal raises, 5x5

Mountain climbers, 4x30 seconds

Single leg plank, 30 seconds

Thursday: I was working so didn't go to Thai boxing.

Friday: Was scheduled to do lower body but knee was still a bit tweaky so I didn't want to risk it.

Saturday

I was grappling from 9-11. Worked on guard and half guard. Drilled guard passing. had a good war with Neil. Finally got a sub! Triangled Neil twice although one was a tap due to exhaustion on his half!

Sunday

I was grappling and doing padwork with Alan and Graham in the morning. had a rally good workout and sweated a bucket.

This week has been patchy since I was working a lot of late shifts and was simply too tired to train.

20/07/09 to 24/07/09

Monday

Weighted split squats, 5x5 with 6kg hand weihts fashioned onto my shoulders like a barbell

Stair squat jumps x3

weighted calf raises, 12x3 - same as split squat weight arrangement.

Tuesday I didn't work and took as a rest day. trained muay thai at night and had a blast smashing the pads and my shins doing drills involving checking kicks with a new fighter with us called Ross.

Wednesday I was working late.

Thursday I was working late also. I had planned on doing upper body but have not done this.

Today I had business to attend to and had this scheduled as a rest day. Went to Dundee and bought supplements for my training. Reflex One Stop is getting a try out this time - all in one vitamins, minerals, protein, carbs, creatine and glutamine!

I completed each rep of every exercise slowly to recruit more muscle fibres. The concentric contraction (pulling myself up in pull up for example) was 2 seconds and the eccentric contraction was 3 or 4 seconds depending on exercise and my own judge of time since I used a rough measure of time (elephants). I used 1 min rest between sets and 5 mins rest between exercises in most cases. Apparently you can gain upto 755 of your strength this way abnd thus work yourself harder than you normally would be able to. This would equal greater gains in the same time.

Tomorrow I will be doing a demonstation of Thai Boxing with my camp at the Seafrong Spectacular. We will also be fundraising so I hope it is a nice day. Going to a Buddy Holly tribute in the evening, should be good!

I will be following the above type of schedule for my fight but also adding Thai training Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Sat evenings fo two hours also. I will be swapping some exercises for others in order to make it more fun and also to recruit different secondary muscle groups. I hope this will result in me being stronger and in better shape for this opponent. I'm predicting a stoppage in the 3rd - you heard it here first!

Finally, it has come to my attention that more people than my wife regularly read this, so if you are one of these people then thank you very much for following my blog, sometimes my writing is so terrible I hope nobody else reads it! My 100th post will be a summary of what I have achieved since I started this blog and what I want to achieve in the next academic year.

Kieran

2009-07-06T14:58:00.000+01:00

This is my 98th post in this blog. My 100th post will be to explain what I have been doing recently in order to get stronger. I'm firstly trying a bunch of routines three times a week using minimal equipment and I'll do this for four weeks.

I go on holiday to Tiree for the first week in August, during which I want to be running on the beach regulalrly and kayaking in the sea! Lynn and I are also going to do a lot of walking and photography of the local wildlife and scenery.

When I come back I will either be buying weights or joining a gym for a month to try out another routine, which will be followed three days a week for another four weeks UNLESS the bodyweight and minimal equipment routine makes a large difference to my size and strength. If I am to be fighting on September 18th then I would rather not go to the gym unless I have to as travelling there and back (either to the garage we will keep our equipment in or to the gym) adds on too much time since I will be working as well as training muay thai almost every night. If using minimal equipment and bodyweight exercises is not giving me the results I need then I'll try out the gym plan even though it will be more expensive in both money and time.

I've been sorting out my nutrition too and the food plan and shopping Lynn and I have been following has been going for a year now. I'm still eating some processed and junk foods (white bread, ice cream etc) but most of the stuff we eat is made in the house from scratch. I've not mentioned it on this blog much but my personal finances are being managed better. I plan on keeping an accounts book and logging receipts and expenditure in it so I can keep track of my money better. I also need to start internet banking.

I bought a notebook to use as a work and training diary so my next two posts will be updated straight from there at two week intervals. The plan being that I will look and feel great at the end of these next 4 weeks. I'm working legs, core and upper body on different days and also grappling at least once a week and muay thai at least once a week, should be two - no need for running or sprint intervals yet. The full plan will be uploaded on 20th July, the start of my third week. Since I am keeping a training diary I will be able to upload to this blog the honest excercise, reps and effort I've been putting in.

Hope everyone is enjoying the sun and summer - I'm not, but that's another story!

Kieran

2009-07-05T14:29:00.000+01:00

Started up a Flikr account. I'm over at flikr.com/photos/keerin

I really enjoyed photography when I was doing media studies at college, after I left school and continued onto Dundee College to study photography. Circumstances dictated that I had to leave and on top of that, the SLR that I owned at the the time had a severely scratched lens. Being poor and stupid I threw it out, not thinking to keep the camera body, get my lens polished or even just buy a new lens (all possibilities now that I thiink back). I really enjoyed photography, despite the fact I wasn't very good at it. I really enjoyed the darkroom and processing of films and photos and I enjoyed taking pictures without the aid of a digital viewscreen for immediate consideration.

Anyway, a friend was selling a number of old Soviet cameras and I purchased them (personal note - pay Graeme!). Also, my wife bought me an old Praktica from the charity shop where she volunteers. I now have a healthy collection of vintage cameras and lenses. These are:

Praktica B200
Fed 5
Zenit 12XP
Zenit 19

The Praktica is a German camera and came in a nice wee leather shoulder bag with seperate compartments for the camera and lens, another lens and a hotshoe flash, all included. I'll edit this post more when I have time to check the sizes and specs of them.

The Fed 5 is Ukranian and was made in the '70's. It is a Leica copy so I can buy new lenses for it as long as I get Leica lenses. It comes in a lovely brown case. This is probably my favourite camera because it feels lovely in your hands and the mechanics sound so smooth. Winding it on and releasing the shutter is actually a pleasure to feel and hear. It may not be satisfying to people who prefer the huge CLUNK, but it is to me.

The Zenit 12XP and 19 both came with a variety of lenses and were both fitted with their standard 58mm lenses. I have a 28mm wide angle lens, 2.5/120mm lens, 4/120mm lens, Macro lens and also an 80-200mm zoom lens. I was trying out all these lenses the other day on an excursion along the cliffs in Arbroath so hopefully they come out alright. I've only used the Zenit 12XP so far because the Zenit 19 is a total beast of a camera and also only works with two watch batteries, which I don't have right now.

My future plans for photography is to get the chemicals and spiral tank to develop my own black and white negatives and eventually get an enlarger and the approprate equipment to be able to process my own pictures. I can always "black out" a room to use as a dark room and we have a cupboard that can be gutted (minus Lynn's sweing equipment) and used for this purpose if need be. It costs £7.99 to get a roll of B&W film developed in Arbroath and takes 2 weeks! I want to speak to the college and try to convince them to open the labs they have to the public (I.E. - me!) so that i can use there rooms for B&W photography. I prefer this over colour, but then again if you look at my Flikr you will see the lovely colours that the Fed 5 produces that have started to sway me to colour, if only with the Fed....

Kieran

Thoughts from first grappling session

2009-06-28T18:09:00.000+01:00

I have been thinking about my grappling yesterday. I think that the reason ground fighting is so exciting is because it is like learning to walk again. We have only a very basic knowledge of how to move on the ground and most of this knowledge is either crawling or attempting to stand up. In a fight, crawling is giving your back and will not help at all and standing up simply isn't an option at times. It is interesting to learn how to move on the ground when you are on your back, or on your knees because we do not have the experience of this. Since this blog started off as an exploration of movement (hence the name kieran in motion) I find it quite ironic that things have moved full circle.

Anyway, when I was rolling yesterday I found I was able to sweep my more experienced partners more often than I or they expected or anticipated but when I got myself into a more dominant position I lost it very quickly. My partners were often not getting the submission on me that they intended because I had good defennce anticipation but they tapped me out with submissions that I gave them through leaving openings while defending something else. This shows me that I have a decent level of defence to start with but that I need to remember that nobody else but me is thinking of things in sigle movements. I will sweep from in guard to full mount then immediately be put on my back again, for example and this happens because I am thinking in my head "right, now I am in mount" and trying to switch to "mount" mode in my head whereas the other guys are thinking "I can sweep to mount and then flatten him out and pressure him into a keylock and if that doesn't work I will move up and try forr the armbar" etc etc.

Secondly, I am completely forgetting about my own position when I go for submissions. A perfect example is when going for a triangle I will put all of my attention into breaking his grip or straightening his arm (etc) that I forget to keep my legs tight and he pulls out or passes my legs. I know what I am supposed to do if I ge stacked when going for a triangle but I focus too much on one aspect and neglect positional safety. This ties in with my previous point. I am thinking about the arm and only the arm wheras my partner is thinking that he can pass my legs then get into side control then pass to mount. I need to think more strategically in terms of positional hierarchy and body mechanics.

Finally, my legs and arms are not working in concert all too often. This ties in with everything I have just said. I am not used to using my arms and legs to control someone when I am on my back or on top of someone and so I have no working knowledge of doing so. I know in my head what I should be doing but concentrate too hard on one aspect that I forget what I am doing with the rest of my body. Then becaise he is thinking three moves ahead and I am only thinking 1 second ahead if my move fails he can then implement his gameplan.

I have three goals for the next time I roll which should be either Thursday or Saturday:

Whatever position I am in, I will try to use both my legs and arms to move to a better position, whether that position is mount to half guard or the end of a submission.
Once in a dominant position, or even an advantageous neutral position I want to be able to control and maintain this position for at least fifteen seconds. Bonus points if I get this on the biggest and strongest of the guys!
I want to tap out my partners with one of the submissions I know I can do easily: guillotine, neck crank, arm triangle, climbing arm bar, triangle. I addition, I should get used to firing off these submission attempts in rapid succession, most probably in this rough order. This will increase my chances of either getting the tap or getting swept! I want to work them in this order because then if one fails I can go for the next one and I have a plan. I know the neck crack can be used as a transition and the arm triangle can be rolled into rear mount so I can use these as part of my game plan: if neck crank isn't toight enough but he is trapped I can sweep him using it because he has no arm to base out with on one side, for example.

I will try to achieve these three aims and report back later on how I got on.

2009-06-27T12:32:00.000+01:00

Last week Allan came to our muay thai class. He and Colin have known each other for a while so he decided to add in muay thai to his kickboxing and boxing experience. As we got talking, it turns out that Allan has beebn grappling for years too and has competed across Europe in grappling tournaments. He rolls with a few guys in the squash courts at the leisure centre, the same as Graham and I.

I joined them today for a 2 hour session and learned a lot. There was only 4 of us but that meant we always had someone to partner up with. We are all different sizes and shapes which can only be a good thing.

I'm going to be training with them on Wednesday too hopefully. If I can progress we enough then hopefully early next year I can have an ammy mma fight and take it from there.

2009-06-24T16:18:00.000+01:00

I will no longer be fighting in August as I was not matched by the promoter. Rather, a seperate promotion is putting on a show on September 18th that I am putting my name forward for. Hopefully I can be matched for this one.

Also, I have found someone in Arbroath who regularly gets together with others and does submission wrestling so I will be training with these guys too hopefully. I hope to have an MMA fight either at the end of the year or next year depending on how fast I can learn and progress with grappling and groundfighting.

2009-06-11T22:31:00.002+01:00

So I have put my name forward for a fught on August 29. I was training last time to compete. Just to get in the ring was my goal. This time I want to win. More info to come.

BJJ roadmap

2009-06-07T22:41:00.001+01:00

I have been visualising and daydreaming about ground fighting for a while now and recently bought a notebook so I can write down technique, ideas and plans that I think of or come across on the internet or book. When I get some actual tutelage I'll keep instruction and notes in there too. One thing I though would be useful while I can't get any physical practice is to formulate a plan of sorts for when I get in certain positions. I bought "Mastering Juijitsu" by Renzo Gracie and Erich Krauss on the advice of Mr Slideyfoot, a poster on the Sherdog forums who also runs a superb blog on his BJJ training as well as including book and DVD reviews. This is a great book and discusses strategy at great length. One thing they stress is that BJJ players will always have a plan based on positional hierarchy. I've also been reading Stephan Kesting's newsletters and his free e-book. One of the big things that he points out is creating maps in order to progress and have a solid plan you can focus on. The ones that he gives as a demonstration seeed lacking to me and I've discovered why. They do not have specific detail of how to get to each position.

In order to learn better and to understand positions better I've created a roadmap for my beginning steps into BJJ. I have outlined three sweeps or transitions and three attacks from the guard that I would like to work on. Once I have these comfortably in my head I will move on to other disadvantageous position before moving onto advantageous positions. I'll try get three of each from each position before the end of the year. here is the first one I will be workin on. I've missed out some things because I've picked things that I like the sound of, or have worked on before and would like to continue drilling. Obviously the missing positions will be added to in time to create a whole "game".

If you have any tips on these techniques or can give me a better plan of attack then let me know!

A mile in someone elses shoes...

2009-05-30T01:10:00.002+01:00

This old adage also holds true for yourself if you take your shoes off.

I've recently been walking barefoot in order to toughen my feet and train more naturally. I walked home from work tonight in my bare feet; around two miles. One thing I have noticed so far is that when I read about muscles being worked that hadn't been worked properly in years, it was all true. I thought I would be a bit better off since I walk about in barefoot in the house often and I have to go barefoot for Muay Thai. My Achilles has been supported well in shoes and is now aching from actually being used for a prolonged period of time. The blisters are unreal! I also burnt my foot walking on the tarmac earlier today when I went to college for some books... Another thing I have noticed is that most people don't actually comment on your bare feet.

Since it is a Friday night I thought I may get a lot of comments but I didn't. A car drove past really fast and the driver shouted out the window to put my shoes on (I was carrying them). Later on, woman asked what I was doing.

"Going home"

"But you have no shoes on!" as if I hadn't realised yet.
This continued for a minute or so until she warned me that I may step in dog poop, so I told her that I would be careful and we parted ways at that. Finally I had a discussion with a few older women coming home from a night out.

"Have you sore feet?" they asked me. I replied that I actually did, and showed them my swollen and bruised ankle and foot.

"I have sore feet too, but I am wearing heels" one informed me. They made sure I would be OK and that I didn't have far to go, which was nice of them.

It sounds like a really obvious thing to say but I really enjoy walking barefoot because I can feel with my feet! I forgot how it felt to feel different things with my feet and different surfaces give different sensations. I noticed a real difference in temperature between shade and light with my feet. Different types of pavement are making me walk differently; I will hop over parts so that I can walk on tarmac for example.

In addition to different types of pavement, kerbs are surprisingly varied with some feeling really gritty and other feeling really velvety. Walking on grass is obviously much nicer but unfortunately the threat of dog poop is all too real. A nice surprise was walking over rubber, where the pavement has been raised at a bus stop with a rubber ramp. I didn't have any type of memory of walking over this type of surface barefoot so it was nice to feel something I don't think I've felt before, which must be a rare experience for most adults in our "advanced" civilization.

I think I will give barefoot a rest for a few days to let my blisters calm down. I have noticed however, my swollen ankle hurts less when I can use the natural motion of my foot rather than the motion my shoes think I should make. I will wait a few weeks before I try any parkour in my bare feet so that my body can become fully accustomed to walking naturally again!

Kieran

2009-05-27T14:19:00.000+01:00

With the release of UFC Undisputed, weekly Bellator events and relentless promotion by the UFC, I can get my MMA fix pretty much anywhere and at any time. My bathroom floor always has at least one copy of Fighters Only ready for me to pick up at any point and there are another two or three magazines I could buy from the shop if I wanted. This MMA saturation has only made my desire to fight so much more, and I am now setting my sights on competing in MMA as well as Muay Thai.

I would like to try a few amateur rules MMA fights. These forbid all strikes to the head, both standing and grounded. They also do not allow heel hooks and knee bars. The rules system in Scotland (not sure if this is the same in England or America) is set up so that one can progress through the amateur, semi pro then onto pro fights in a gradual manner which provides a good learning environment, something I feel Scottish Muay Thai could benefit from tremendously actually.

I would obviously need to work on my grappling and ground game a lot, but I was planning on making weekly trips to Aberdeen in order to train with my buddy David Banks at his gym - Team Jigoku. I will have to check with my coach to see if he is ok with me training stand up with him and ground with someone else and representing both camps when it comes to fight time: "representing Phraya Pichai Muay Thai Camp and Team Jigoku", that kinda thing. If Colin OK's this than I'll need to check with Team Jigoku's coach to see if he is OK with me coming along to their training sessions too!

If I had a few amateur fights and won some of them I would then be looking to fight in at least one semi-pro fight so that I can punch to the head mostly, but also just for the experience. I'm still wary of elbows so Pro MMA is out as well as 'A' class Muay Thai.

Graham has said he is happy to help with both aspects and David is more than willing to travel to Arbroath to help with my ground game. On top of that Mike and Dale in Dundee are there too, and I've yet to grapple with them so that would be fun.

I have a few more things to do before I'm finished college and can't do any of the above without finishing college work so I can definitely get into Uni next year! This year I would like to have one Muay Thai fight and one or possibly two MMA fights if time allows for it. That would make me a happy bunny. :)

2009-05-25T09:03:00.000+01:00

I'm getting over my anti-capitalist rage but only the venomous ranting part.

I'm going to start training barefoot so that it work my legs more when I'm running and conditioning. I can see hill sprints being really hard in barefoot but that has to mean they are working muscles which haven't been engaged before because of shoes.

I am starting off small outside and done 200 meters last night and I'm going to try 400 today.

2009-05-18T14:13:00.000+01:00

Since I started working as well as studying, I constantly feel tired, unmotivated and completely non-plussed about studying. This is at the same time as I have to hand in five essays in four weeks.

What a ridiculous system we live in. In order to submit quality work as well as give time for students to actually understand and absorb what they are learning, the student must live with as much spare money as your average Chinese citizen, and that is given in the form of a loan. I've been given a loan of just over £4,000 for this academic year. My rent alone is £2,300 a year. At the end of every month I am left with about £70, that's before I buy food by the way - which Lynn pays for about 90% of the time. In order to have any money to help pay for food and other household stuff, as well as *god forbid* spare money I have to work.

I am not against working at all. I get bored and lethargic if I am not doing some sort of work but working while studying leaves me with no energy to do either properly. How can we expect any respectable advance of knowledge when students are treated with as much respect as the supposed "underclass".

This is all rhetorical of course, masses of students are terrible for the economy so the government and other for-profit organisations are gonna be looking down upon funding colleges and universities so that people have to go into employment rather than further education.

It just really makes me angry when people like me who really are in search of knowledge in order to improve their own lives and the lives of others are disregarded for the sake of money and greed and gross selfishness. I'm finding it realy hard to enjoy life at the moment. I wish I could just read, write, exercise and enjoy time off with friends and family without having all the extra pressure and exhaustion that being a student now demands. Frank Furedi needs to be read and agreed with by everyone in government. Honestly, what a shit life this is. It makes me want to just give it all up, really. I'm sure that people reading this are going to think I'm a child with no concept of "the real world" but it is the opposite. I have seen this "real world" and I wish I hadn't as it is miserable.

2009-05-14T14:10:00.000+01:00

That's my exam out of the way and in another four weeks I should have finished all my coursework and be free for the summer!

That probably means more work but it also means I'm free to do more things I can't do without money! Travel to Aberdeen to train with David, travel to Glasgow to see all the GPK folk, travel to Dundee numerous times to see Dale and Mike for some grappling, practice with Vulsellum, Duncan Idaho and Welcome Home, Explorer... The list goes on.

Even my holidays are jam-packed!

2009-05-11T13:48:00.000+01:00

Who would have thought that standing for a long time would be so tiring?

Working at McDonalds isn't as bad as people like to make out. Customers are generally understanding if something is taking a while to cook, as they then know that they are getting fresh food. The staff are all pretty helpful and all good fun. The kitchen isn't that greasy really, and it gets deep cleaned every night anyway - I know because I was washing all the detachable parts of everything until about half one this morning!

The hardest part is standing at a till really, the limited movement really kills my legs. That's part of the McDonald way if it busy, people are put to one or two specific tasks in a Taylorist wet dream. We have one guy serving fried, the till people collect drinks and food from the stations, we will have three people serving drive-thru in the order of - take order, pay, get food whereas usually the first two would be combined.

I've only been able to do minimal studying for my final exam on Wednesday but I have a very good idea of what to do for all of them and I'm certain I will pass with at least the B that I need to get into Uni.

A subject I rarely talk about in his blog is reading, of which I do a lot. I'm usually reading one or two fiction and one or two non fiction books at any given time. The different books are for different situation - on the bus, lunch breaks, bored pick-me-ups etc. Just now I am reading 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' by Susanna Clarke, about t start 'Chindi' by Jack McDevitt as my fiction books. I'm also reading 'Liquid Fears' by Zygmunt Bauman, 'The McDonaldization of Society' by Gorge Ritzer (started before I worked there!), 'Where Have All The Intillectuals Gone?' by Frank Furedi and also 'Popular Culture' edited by Guins & Cruz, being a collection of essays on different aspects of popular culture. This book is great - I might have to buy it. It has essays (or pats of other works) by Marx, Adorno, Hebdige, Lipsitz, McRobbie, Benjamin, Debord, Hall and loads other. It's bloody good!

Kieran

2009-05-10T14:38:00.000+01:00

I wish Bellator wasn't broadcast on a Wednesday. I have to avoid most of the sites I visit to miss the results. Then I come on blogger and MMA by Numbers have the result "Reyes stunning KO over Payan" - even though no-one outside America (and even then, those who actually have ESPN Deportes!) can see it until Wednesday!

I'm sick of getting the big fights spoiled for me. Sherdog and MMA by Numbers are the worst. Surely it can't be that hard to just say "Bellator VI results" and leave it at that unless you click on 'read more' or something.

Bollocks.

2009-05-07T12:20:00.000+01:00

Instead of 200 words, I wrote 445 last night so I've only to write a minimum of 155 words to hit my target today, but I'm in the middle of a scene so I think that will be pretty easy. I'm on chapter 4 of an anticipated 10.

Bought Men's Health yesterday, it is pretty rubbish. There are a few helpful articles and some good reading but maybe not £3.75 worth. Saying that, £3.75 isn't a lot of money really.

Kieran

Novel word count

2009-05-05T19:32:00.001+01:00

I'm aiming for 20,000 words by the end of the summer. I've written today and currently have 5513 words or:

27.57%

I've just finished the third of ten chapters and extended the plans for the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th chapters with a rouch outline written for the 9th and 10th chapters.

I'm going to try write at least 200 words every day now that I know that I have a solid plan for nearly every chapter. That is a whole 1% of my target of 20,000 so it sounds achievable and also all those 1's add up. If I stick to at least 200 words every day then I will reach my target by Friday 17 July. So there's a speculative target for ya!

2009-05-05T11:13:00.001+01:00

There are so many things I want to do in such a short space of time it is unreal. Of course, I want to fight again. I've stated that many times in my blog and also to people in real life, especially Lynn and Graham, who hear it every other day. Like

I have also recently said, I have fallen back in love with parkour and I have specific goals to reach in relation to parkour before the summer is over which will require training and dedication. Add to this that I want to travel to Glasgow and Dundee a few times to do parkour with those guys. I also want to start studying for university next year so that I'm not coming into a new learning environment totally rusty from a summer of no psychology!

Finally, I want to continue writing both my novel and my short story. Both of these feature parkour in one way or another. My novel is based on a concept album worth of lyrics I wrote a few years ago which have come to nothing music wise. It is a sci-fi novel set on Mars around 10,000 years ago where an imaginary race of pre-humans are in the process of their industrial revolution and also the beginnings of a planet wide civil war. I'm about 10% through the first draft of this. The short story is a bit more down to Earth (lol) and is the story of a guy who has just split from his first serious girlfriend after they moved from school to university and how he deals with it.

I know exactly what is to happeen in both of these and i really enjoy getting stuck in and writing (both fiction and non-fiction). The problem is really just making time. For my novel I have character notes, location maps, plot twists etc all ready. For my short story I have written both the start and the end, but not the middle, where the meat of the story is...

I'm not great at sticking to timetables unless I rely on someone else for plans, like in my fight training but to get any of this stuff done I'll need to stick strictly to some sort of plan. I'm such a procrastinator too. I've got my final exam at college in eight days and I need to study for it (three questions, three different subjects, unseen question, three hours) today since I'm not working and I'm too tired to concentrate on it! Stupid McDonalds.

Oh well, best be getting onwards with studying research methods in the social sciences, the work of Piaget, Bruner and Vygotsky in cognitive development for psychology and also the impact of poverty upon culture for sociology. Fun day today...

Kieran

parkour video uploaded

2009-05-01T23:39:00.000+01:00

I've made a wee video of my training from the other day and put it on youtube.

I called it "repeat until failure" because that's what I was doing. I was sneaky in the editing so what is last actually came first and the rest is me trying different approaches, movements and things like that. It was quite fun overall. I only made the video to try my hand at video editing but the quality of the footage is a major hindrance. If you view it on a mobile phone screen it looks fine though! I'm going to train more and make a video at the end of summer displaying my progress and also the parkour spots in Arbroath.

Repeat Until Failure @ Youtube

2009-04-29T21:38:00.000+01:00

My friend and training partner Graham is figthing again on the 6th June so he is training 5 times a week now. The regular place we use for fight training is shut for a few weeks so Graham and Colin are training at the same place where the regular classes are. Colin put the heavy bags up last night and has said that since I am taking classes along with Denise I can use the heavy bag when they are there so that at least I get some practice.

I decided to work a lot on kicks and knees since my kicks are looking rubbish just now and my knees are my strongest weapons and I have been neglecting them recently.

I completed five two minute rounds using all techniques and at full power then I had a ten minute break for some water. Following this I had two rounds of shadowboxing then three rounds testing some coombinations of kicks and knees on the bag at maybe 30% power so that i could work on my movement and foot placement as well as technique of the attacks themselves. Finally I completed a round of the combo's I had just been trying but at full power.

With sweat pouring from me and my hands buzzing with adrenaline I left feeling tired but happy. After a full day of parkour, an hour on the bag is not to be sniffed at! bring on the sore shoulders tomorrow...

Kieran

New-found confidence and new training

2009-04-29T19:37:00.000+01:00

The first aspect I'd like to blog about today is helping someone learn parkour which is something I've never really done before. Earlier I decided to train some more parkour and called up Conner to come out and train with me. He is having some confidence issues with his parkour so I tried to help with his training. I showed him some things I done when I started, as he is coming back from a long break off parkour and feels like he is starting again. I told him that for vaults and things he should just forget about what 'type' of vault he was doing and just concentrate on passing the obstacle. Once he could pass it five times safely I explained that then he could focus on how he was approaching his vault and how he was landing, where his hands were going etc. This way he doesn't think "I'll lazy vault this" or "I'll speed vault that" but thinks "I have to pass this obstacle in this manner with this hand, moving from this side and land like this so that i can pass the next obstacle" etc.

While he was working on various things like that I was working on basic things but from my non-dominant side so that I was at a disadvantage. I was trying to do two vaults in close proximity so that I was passing one wall at a disadvantage and examining where I was landing so that I could pass the next wall in the most efficient manner. This was very useful and something I plan to do more often. Especially since you can't always choose where you approach things from and if you need to move fast, you also need to be able to take off from and land on both feet, same with your hands and arms.

Secondly, I've been very surprised to find out that I have much more confidence than I did when I was training parkour more often a few years ago. When I started training again a few weeks ago my confidence was shot and I had to start very small and work my way up but this didn't last long and now I have more confidence in what I can do. I also had more ideas on how to improve myself in areas in which I am not as good and feel better trying things I previously wouldn't have. As an example of this, I filmed a few bits of footage for myself to examine where I was going right and wrong. I'll stick them up below. These are both things I have never done before and I've tried different ways of approaching and departing from each.

This first one is a decent first attempt:

and this is me trying different things, different landings and movements, ending in a bail. :(

I've never done this particular obstacle before, as I explain in my video I was playing a game where the pavement was water or something like that and I had to take off from the kerb and land on the wall:

This is the final video and I was doing the same thing as before but also trying to clear the imaginary water hazard both ways - from and to the kerb.

Overall, I had a lot of fun both playing about with inaginary hazards and also trying new things, as well as experimenting with new training methods. Conner has a little bit less hestiation and now has new methods for training too which helped both of us alot.

I apologise for the poor video quality but it is raw footage from my phone. I'm going to make a 2 min video of things I'm training so that I can make another one in a few months to check on my progress.

Thanks for reading,
Kieran

Parkour jam in Dundee

2009-04-27T18:37:00.002+01:00

Today I have aching shoulders and legs, I had a bath last night but to no avail. I also feel quite tired. No, it isn't swine flu but the after effects of training in Dundee on Sunday!

Sunday was the first jam organised in Dundee by the Dundee University Parkour Club (DUPK) and brought together traceurs, free runners and trickers from Dundee, St. Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Coatbridge to enjoy some of the architectural delights in Dundee which unravel before the eye of a traceur. Dundee University and the associated grounds were put to good use by over twenty people, as was the Caird Hall.

While I knew a few people who attended from the Glasgow parkour forums, most people were strangers. I am not usually put off by training on my own or with people I do not know so I branched off on my own while a large group were getting into trouble by an Overgate (shopping mall) security guard for flipping and tricking inside. Outside is a church which offered a number of variations for precision jumps and after dipping my foot in a number of these I decided I'd best not lose the group as I have never been to Dundee University before and feared missing out on any of the spots which Chris and BJ from Glasgow had told me about.

I did not see anyone come out of the rear entrance after me so I assumed everyone had kept moving and come out of a side door through H&M. I have no idea where they actually did go as I didn't find them all for about half an hour. I decided to just head up the Perth Road and have a nosey outside the Union. En route, I met Calum who is a part of the DUPK, who had also lost everyone at some point. I discovered a nice little spot previous to meeting Calum behind the Dundee Rep theatre but we decided to keep moving to find the group rather than track back and re-visit the Rep. After moving through the University grounds without any luck we happened across Mikey, from St. Andrews but Edinburgh originally, who had just parked his car. Shortly afterwards we met up with the group who had taken the (very) long way round which is why we couldn't find them.

From here, a number of different opportunities were opened up to me, similar to a child realising that the 20p ride outside the fun-fair wasn't the only fun to be had. The University grounds offered a very long multiple rail structure as well as a number of disabled access ramps with all associated railings and obstacles, plus a number of walls which all differed in structure, materials, texture, height and obstacles surrounding them, such as lack of ground space, overhangs, and small walls surrounding the bigger walls. Needless to say I worked mostly on balance and climb-ups. It was while exploring these opportunities I met David and Ewan from Edinburgh, who knew Mikey and also Andy from Glasgow. The five of us set out on a different path from the rest of the group, initially to hang about on a thick tree branch which David decided was ripe for a 'table bouldering' challenge and then towards a nice set of low walls that were just outside of my comfortable precision range. We worked on standing and running precisions here over the 5 gaps (only about a few inches up to half a meter above the ground), exploring foot placement and various advantages and detriments to the space.

We moved on and discovered a very nice spot only five minutes away, but outside of the university grounds which I will go back and take a picture of shortly. David and Ewan helped me with a number of issues here, but especially departing on my non-dominant side. David set more challenges at various locations and fun was had by all. We found our way back to the church outside the Overgate centre and spend a while there drilling the various precisions and challenging ourselves to complete certain tasks i.e. landing softer, more precise, using less of a run etc.

I left David, Ewan and Andy at my bus stop feeling tired but still wanting to keep moving. It is days like this in which you fall in love with things all over again and I emphatically fell for Parkour again on Sunday.

2009-04-18T19:57:00.001+01:00

Went out and challenged my nemesis today. I'm not timing it and doing everything by feeling but I can tell that I'm getting faster at climb ups which can only be a good thing. The thing is, I can see what I'm doing with my hands and arms fine but my legs are a mystery! I know I'm trying to kick off and up the wall but I have no idea what it looks like. I took a small video to see what it was like and I was surprised by the speed I scaled the wall but also quite surprised at the dominance of my left side in the "pushing" section of the climb up. I had never noticed that before so I'm glad I filmed it.

I'm not gonna put the video up simply because it is a crappy quality video at a strange angle that looks even worse on the computer screen. I'll wait until I feel I've got it spot on and film it properly with some of the other stuff I've been training.

Here is me standing next to the wall for comparison. Looking at this photo I'd say the wall is about 11ft. I'm 6 foot 1.

Kieran.

*edit* Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that this wall is called my nemesis because I wanted to get stronger to do this before I progressed any further in parkour. My strength was so lacking that I usually had to use my elbows and knees to get up. The fact I can do reps of this climb up and climp up properly shows the leaps I have made in strength while I've been away from parkour. This wall is what put me off parkour a few years ago so I'm extremely happy that I can easily scale it and it gives me confidence back about other aspects of parkour.

2009-04-18T00:59:00.000+01:00

Going to a parkour jam in Dundee instead of inter club in Glasgow.

Bunch of Glasgow traceurs coming through for the jam in Dundee, I'll be able to see guys I've not seen in a while. Also, see Dundee spots I've not seen before. Griphouse hold inter clubs every month but there's not a Dundee parkour jam every month!

Gonne be good :)

2009-04-13T17:14:00.001+01:00

So today I decided to go out and do some parkour training. I've previously tried a few things to get back into the swing of it but noticed I was really lacking in confidence.

I was out for two hours today and visited two locations. beside the college is a park called McDonald park. Most of this is just grass, where I do sprint training but local amateur football team Arbroath Harp play here and have a clubhouse. The outside of the clubhouse offers a small set of obstacles which I use. I mostly practiced foot placement and motion here. Single standing jumps where I pay attention to where and how heavy I land, trying to land as quietly as possible on the tips of my toes and also recovering my balance quickly.

I then moved across the path after about an hour to try a kong to cat over the metal barriers that are put in place to slow down cyclists. I have never tried this before but I believed I could do it so decided to film my first couple of attempts.

After this video I noticed I was getting frustrated so decided to stop before I got annoyed with myself and ended up getting hurt. In case you cannot see it in the video, I kept missing it with my right foot, a if I was mentally holding it back for some reason. I know I can do this so before the week is out I'll practice it more and film myself getting it right.

The second spot I went to is the car park for local council building Bruce House. They have recently repainted and renovated this car park due to Tesco opening and more people seeing it so I now have some more obstacles, which were fun.

I firstly played with balance and tried to walk the full length of one of the handrails on all fours, managing to get most of the way before I slipped. Next I moved to small yellow rails which have recently been erected and then grinded by skaters! They are quite thin and curved which made it a good challenge. Excuse my wild flailing arms in this clip!

Next I decided to play around with various vaults, trying to figure out which one was most efficient from different approach angles and basically just playing with my movement, trying out various things. This was the most fun part of the session. On more than on occasion I laughed out loud at myself for trying things which blatantly weren't going to work.

Finally, I went round the corner to practice climb ups on a wall which I've decided to call my nemesis. I can beat it but it is challenging and always makes me happy when I get to the top. I'm not sure how high it is but it is maybe just bigger than double my size which would make it just over 12ft. I have to kick off and up in order to even reach the top. I can make this almost every time I try so I can practice getting faster, better technique etc. No pics or vids but will be soon.

All in all, a good day.

2009-04-11T01:12:00.001+01:00

I have been watching the Base Muay Thai show from 05 April on www.p4tv.com today. I really want to fight again. I will see if there are interclubs (smokers for you yanks) at any point soon so I can get some more competitive sparring against different folk. I know that Glasgow Caledonian hold interclubs once amonth and their April one is on the 26th but I'm not sure if I can afford to get to Glasgow and back! On top of that you have the issue of going on your own, Graham has offered to drive or come with me as he thinks that he is off work that Sunday so we will see what happens. I've only been to one interclub before but I've also had a fight so I know how things operate and conduct etc. I have the knowledge but I really need ring time and experience so hopefully I can make it to this interclub. If anything it will be fun!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

2009-04-08T16:06:00.001+01:00

So my upper body 5x5 workout is now a 5x6 workout as I try to make it 5x10 workout eventually.

The pull ups were much tougher with 6 instead of 5, even without the added weight. The dips were easier than expected but still pretty tough. Gonna have sore moobs tomorrow!

I finished it off with 30 seconds of jabs while holding 6kg handweights then after 30 seconds rest I done 30 seconds of crosses. I didn't count the jabs but in the 30 seconds I managed to do 27 crosses. I'll work up to 30 - one a second, then see if I can burst through that.

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2009-04-01T14:31:00.003+01:00

So far today I have done three things I am happy with:

I've made a list of stuff to do and completed it.

Sprints

Tabata core exercises.

Ok, so the last two were part of the first one but I've decided to set myself a list of things to do every morning for that day and today was the only day I've completed everything. I had sprints, tabata core exercises and studying for college. I've yet to do the studying but I'm copying out an essay so it is in my mind and I'm going to time myself and do it in the library at college once I've finished my noodles and written this so it is almost as good as done - so I'm counting it. I have to go return some books to the library too.

The sprints I done were not timed as such. I was going to do them following tabata protocol but I don't think I can. I don't handle heat well and it is pretty warm outside so I knew I was in for a tough time anyway. I decided to do sprints using a football (soccer) pitch as a guideline. starting at the halfway line, I jogged to the corner and sprinted across the goal line from corner to corner, jogging back up the touchline to the halfway line again and sprinting the width of the pitch on the halfway line. I managed one test to see how long the whole thing took (around 45/50 seconds) and then completed two with one minute rest between them. After two I couldn't carry on any longer, standing seemed to be a daunting task to I lay on the grass for a minute. I'm not happy with my performance but I am happy that I have started this and now have a routine and suitable location for this workout. Also, I know what level I am at and now have a target: three. Once I can do three complete circuits, I'll do four, then five. When I can do five complete circuits I will be happy. Then I can work on not being so tired after five! That will be just shy of five full rounds for "C" class Muay Thai rules.

Before I went out to sprint however, I got down and tabata'd the hell out of my core! With twenty seconds work and ten seconds rest all the way through, even between exercises I completed sit ups, crunches, toe touches (lie on back, legs straight up, touch toes) and cross over situps. I completed twenty seconds full work with ten seconds between for a total of four times with each exercise which comes to a total of eight minutes. I will work up to doing this twice, back to back so I am completing a total of sixteen minutes. I'll try and make this a standard thing for Wednesdays.

Right, I'm off to the college which is ten minutes walk along the road so that I can get some History books out and then copy out my research issues essay to try and imprint it into my mind! UFC FN18 tonight, followed by premiere of The Ultimate Fighter Season 9: USA v UK! Really excited about this season. Just about finished watching Season 8. Got four more episodes to go, then the finale of course.

Kieran

2009-03-31T14:38:00.001+01:00

What a difference a day (or week) makes!

After a week of not following my schedule due to a number of confounding factors such as research work for college and both arms aching from either giving blood or the shoulder which is still aching, I have noticed a few things.

Boxing with Graham on Thursday for fifteen minutes left me completely knackered. I think this is actually from doing too much that evening as I ran 3 miles, completed a magic 50 and then went and did that sparring. Nonetheless, I wouldn't normally be as tired as I was but having taken that week off, I really noticed it. I actually felt sick and that's not happened since I was training for my fight!

I'm back into it now and I've just completed my 5x5 upper body workout of dips and pull ups which I am pleased to say is becoming much easier. I'm going to have to start adding more weight soon but for the moment I'm gonna just add one rep so it is 6x5 instead to see if that makes it harder. I didn't do this yesterday because my shoulder is still giving me aching pain.

I have a child protection course tonight so will probably go for a run after that. I'll have to remain disciplined and start doing my sprint interval training tomorrow. No excuses now as I have time and it is not icy cold outside anymore either.

Kieran

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2009-03-22T13:06:00.002Z

I'm a bit disappointed in my self that I haven't completed my sprints but I did do everything else and I do have a reason (NOT an excuse) for not doing sprints on Wednesday.

ON Friday I completed my 5x5 upper body workout and it isn't getting easier yet so I'm happy to stay with the 6kg just now. I can increase the weight with graham's dumbell weights whenever I need to, so that is handy. Instead of 10 seconds rest I gave myself 30 seconds again which made it slightly easier. I've now established that I can do it with minimal rest (10/15 seconds) so I will now be using this minimal rest period to make the exercise tougher for myself.

Graham and Steve from my Muay Thai club are fighting on 6 June and I'll hopefully be cornering them and wrapping their hands which will give me more experience. I like cornering fights, I get more nervous cornering than I did fighting because it is completely out of my hands, but it is a good, albeit different buzz.

Finally, playing a gig tonight! Vulsellum are playing with Vulturyon from Sweden, Bloodshot Dawn from England, Cryptic Hate, Nerrus Kor and Threshold Sicks at Hustlers with doors opening at 5pm. It is £5 on the door. Really looking forward to playing this as we have 2 new songs to play and this will be the first time anyone has heard them!

So, busy weekend again!

Kieran

Open letter to BJ Penn

2009-03-20T18:57:00.003Z

Dude, you are a great fighter... in your own weight class. Georges beat you like a naughty child, No amount of BJJ wiles could have stopped that beating. You were soundly beaten by a bigger, stronger, faster fighter who many think is one of the best pound for pound fighters that the mixed matrial arts world has ever seen. And nobody is sure if this is his prime or whether the best is yet to come. So go back to lighweight and maintain your dominance there. People wanna see you fight Kenny Florian, not Georges St Pierre in a court room, through lawyers and paper. It just smacks of denial. Again, you are a great fighter in your own weight class so get back there and dominate like you can. Are we going to see you try to take on Anderson Silva next? Please stop this because it is getting embarrasing.

Lots of love

Kieran McNairn

2009-03-18T00:03:00.004Z

Today I bought Hagakure - The Book of the Samurai from a charity shop for 50p. I'm about halkway throygh and surprised to find that I agree with a lot of the stuff in there. Not the bits about dying instead of living and living in reverence to your master but some of the things it says really rings true with a modern interpretation of a warrior, especially in the ring (or cage if you are that way inclined):

"There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to exerything."

I think if this book is read in the right way it can be adapted easily to the modern warrior and I look forward to finishing it so I can freely dip in and out of its wisdom over the coming years.

I did not run today or train Thai boxing because I slept funny and now have a creak in my neck although I did complete my magic 50 routine yesterday without much problem. It sounds silly but I can't throw a punch and sitting hurts, never mind running. It is just too painful to do anything physical so I have spend the day reading my history class notes and a few other books, Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival" and a funny one called "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man" which is a blow by blow account of how full of shit the man is. I agree with Moore's overall points in a number of his works but the methods he uses to portray them and the downright lies he tells astound me and quite frankly piss me off. It is funny to read an expose of his work but I have tired of reading rebuttals from an American right wing perspective to be honest.

To finish, here are some pics of my home-made weight belt, using a canvas belt and two hand weights.

Kieran

2009-03-15T20:43:00.002Z

Well, I haven't really done any exercise this weekend but it has still been productive.

Firstly, Graham and I have moved garages. His dad wasn't using his when we moved in a laid the mats and underlay but now he needs the space for spare carpets as he runs a carpet shop. I only just remembered that my dad also has a garage that he doesn't use so with his approval, we have moved in there instead. The underlay and jigsaw mats have now been laid and our tyre, heater and shelfs with various stuff (buddha, skipping ropes, weights, med ball etc) will be going in tomorrow morning before we both hit the magic 50 as I've decided to switch the 5x5 and the magic 50 round just now.

I've started running everywhere instead of cycling. I want to cycle to Dundee at some point when I have spare time but the bike needs some good maintenance so I'll have to stop using it just now. This weekend I've ran around 5km in total going up to my parents and back, coming back from various places etc. As I've been running shorter distances I've been practicing my breathing - in deeply through the nose and out through the mouth and it feels a bit more comfortable now.

I'm pretty disappointed that Kieran Keddle didn't make weight for his title fight last night. I mean come on, if you have a world title fight you can't come in overweight and try to run it off on the day then call it off because you are dehydrated and still over weight! That's pretty lame. The event as a whole was actually pretty good but it was weird seeing the clinch being continually broken up and the fighters attempting it time after time through instinct but aside from that it was entertaining and certainly a change from having to choose between boxing and MMA. I might start looking out for more K-1/K-1 rule shows.

Well, that's about it for now. Tomorrow I start my new schedule which I hope to stick to, the main motivation behind starting this blog was so that I would be shamed into doing things I say I'm gonna do instead of just saying I'll do things and not doing it! Heavy period coming up with college just now, I have psychology research project (2500 word report), criminology report (4,000 words), sociology assessment, history assessment plus Thatcherism essay (2,000 words), graded research project (2,500 words) as well as my final exam. All that in the next few months! And people don't believe me when I say I am a very busy chap... Add in training, muay thai, parkour and gigging.... But hey, this is the life I chose.

Kieran

2009-03-13T11:57:00.002Z

I'm posting this to encourage everyone reading this watch this:

http://www.setanta.com/us/Articles/other-sports/2009/03/09/Kickboxing-Keddle-eyes-UFC/gnid-43686/

Too many "this" in that sentence eh... Seriously, gonna be a good event, worth watching!

I tweeted earlier that I ran my 5k in 23 mins, last night the same route took me 20 mins! It works out at 5k or 3.09 miles. I'm gonna try to keep on improving this time until it is at around 15 mins then I'll increase the distance.

I completed my 5x5 workout yesterdy as well and tried to give myself minim rest time between sets and I really noticed the difference. I took 10 seconds this time whereas last time it was 30 seconds.

Finally, done some boxing last night, still working on counter punching. I have really long arms so I should be using my jab much more effectively than I do now. I did see that moving in angles around Graham made me much harder to hit. I lso got in some good body shots. Bas Rutten would be proud.

2009-03-11T12:56:00.006Z

I've written out a list of things I want to do every week:

Monday - 5x5

Tuesday - 5k run

Wednesday - sprints

Thursday - 5k run

Friday - lower body - magic 50 circuit

The 5x5 is both pullups and dips - five with only bodyweight, five with 3kg added, five with 6kg added, five with 3kg added and finish with five with only bodyweight.

Magic 50 is something Ross Enamit came up with. It is snatches, swings and burpees. Five snatches with one dumbell on left hand followed by five on right hand, straight onto the same thing with swings and finish with ten burpees. Do that five times with minimal rest bewteen sets (I used ten seconds). It is pretty intense actually. I've been using my hand weights instead of dumbells but I might get some instead because 6kg will be pretty easy aafter a while.

Tuesdsay and Thursday is Thai class and I'm not scheduling grappling and parkour because college work and other time constraints will make sure I have to jam that stuff in when I can! Similarly, the circuits Graham and I have been playing with outside - med ball and tyre training - will take place of either my Monday or Friday depending on when Graham can come out and train. We still need to relay the mats in his garage and tidy it up so we can use that for grappling so that needs to be done too.

Class last night was pretty good, had a really good workout to start up with after warming up and the padwork was really good. Basic but really got your sweat on! The only combo we worked in the hour was: jab - cross, left hook - right hook - left uppercut - right uppercut - left knee - right knee - right kick. It flows pretty well but you need to have good technique to get the kick right at the end and keep going with the punches at the start. Following this we were shown a new technique by Colin. It was actually a new technique, I've never seen or heard of it but it was bloody great! I'm not sharing until I can get pictures :p We finished with sparring and Graham and I done 10 mins of hard sparring. I was trying to work lateral movement and counter attacking, but apparently so was Graham so it was interesting!

Finally here is my arms -

Watchmen tonight :D

2009-03-08T18:03:00.004Z

I posted this the other day over at the Glasgow Parkour forums and decided this would be a good blog and educational for those people who don't have too much parkour experience. I'll post my weekly training at the end of the week as I now have an idea about what I want to do in terms of conditioning.

I've been thing recently about what I am doing with my various training activities such as fighting, parkour, self improvement in general. I've often explained this to people as an extension of the parkour philosophy, applying it to my whole life but I've realised this is wrong and I have been thinking wrong for ages. The reason I chose to do all this stuff was to give my life purpose which I lacked at the time and I was primarily inspired by parkour, hence the confusion. In reality though, it was Erwan's posts on the parkour.net forum and my research into what he preached: Méthode Naturelle. It is this which influenced my decision to train in various manners.

Méthode Naturelle focuses on ten fundamental utilities; walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, balancing, throwing, lifting, self-defense and swimming. This was influenced by Hébert's experiences in the army. I have adapted his méthode naturelle philosophy to suit my own lifestyle and the current society. For example, throwing or quadrupedal movement aren't imperative utilities in my life so I am not particularly interested in specifically focusing my attention on those. I feel that méthode naturelle would be better if it was more flexible to suit the individual rather than being general. I understand why these particular utilities were chosen by Hébert but I cannot justify training quadrupedal movement for example, in this day and age and in my life because it is not particularly useful and thus not a fundamental utility for me, despite my body being able to do it.

Of course, I'm only focusing on the physical and ignoring the virile and moral utilities in my previous paragraph but my training does not ignore these aspects. I am constantly trying to do things which will scare me so that I am more courageous, trying to act in a way which I feel to be morally correct. I meditate and do breathing exercises and plan on researching more into this. I have been studying altruism and try to live my life in an altruistic manner. I try to control my emotions and thoughts and have discipline.

Because of this, the reason I do parkour is different to the next traceur. The preference I give to movements and techniques and the way I perform them will generally be the same as most traceurs and there are a finite number of movements you can perform in many situations. When traceurs talk about their own parkour, half of them don't really understand what they are saying and the other half are grossly mistaken by everyone. Of course, individual creativity will give traceurs their individual style and this is what a lot of people think is meant by "your own parkour". I feel this view is borne from a misunderstanding of Foucan's statement regarding "your own way" and "following your own path".

Sure, the way you move is part of your own parkour path and your own way but your parkour journey is mostly a mental one, coloured by your life choices and decisions - why you do parkour, what you do when you "do parkour", what you get out of parkour etc. My parkour is flavoured by Méthode Naturelle moreso than many other traceurs but I feel it is important that you recognise the path you are on and the purpose for walking it.

In conclusion I would like to explain that the point in this post is to hopefully inform people of what I feel is meant by the phrase "your parkour", to inform people of my own parkour as an example but most importantly, to gain feedback and input from other traceurs on this topic, that's an important aspect of parkour too! If you agree or disagree then please share these thoughts. Share - learn - live better.

2009-03-07T10:24:00.001Z

Just a quick post to say that I've added a Twitter widget to my page on the right hand site. Sometimes I tweet rubbish and sometimes it is, well I actually just post loads of crap! However, if you want to read my crap with a character limit then I'm over at twitter.com/thekieran

Also, a quick shout out to Mike, BJ and Aberdeen David who all share similar goals to me. We will get to fighting and rolling soon! Mike - I'll start reading up on the kimura for sure, I am also now somewhat familiar with the americana arm lock and the peruvian necktie. Obviously I'm still a total n00b but I'm increasing my BJJ "vocabulary, so to speak. I think next time me and Graham get to grappling I want to drill positioning and using my hips properly. Will also need to work on sweeps because I have next to no experience and have only read a little about sweeps. Got my hands on the very old "Gracie Jui Jitsu Basics" 3 part video so I'll see what Rorion has to say about sweeping!

Thanks for reading and hopefully I'll have some videos up in the next month or so encompassing all the training I do in the parkour spirit.

"Etre fort pour être utile"

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2009-03-06T21:24:00.002Z

Today I fashioned a weight belt by hanging hand weights from a canvas belt. I wanted to start doing pull ups and dips but also wanted to add weight so this worked pretty well. I started with pull ups and decided to do 5x5 of both exercises. The first 5 was just bodyweight, 2nd 5 was with 3kg handweight, 3rd was with both my handweights (6kg), 4th with a single handweight and the last 5 was just bodyweight again. I tried to make sure I was performing each rep consistently and without rushing them or trying to do them too fast. Between each set I rested 30 seconds, partially to get the weights on/off the belt but also to shake off my stiff shoulders. My shoulders are way too weak...

I done the same weight rotation with dips and the final five were easily the hardest, despite coming down from 6kg extra to only bodyweight. To finish this session I threw 25 left punches and 25 right punches with one 3kg handweight, focusing on proper technique and making sure my shoulder didn't get ripped out or whatever. This was harder for me than it sounds since my triceps and shoulders are quite under-developed. I'll post a pic soon of my arms/shoulders so you can see what I mean.

I'm gonna start doing this with my runs as well as Ross Enamit's "magic 50" circuit.

Kieran

2009-03-04T15:57:00.002Z

Trining last night was tough simply because my stomach was really painful. I think it was simply something like wind but I also has diarrhea so maybe it was just an upset stomach. Anyway, I completed most of the class but stopped on the last combo Colin shouted out because I felt sick moreso than at any point during my fight training.

After 10 mins of sitting out I joined in with the technique sparring that everyone was doing. It was basically a loose drill where one opponent kicks and you have to block it in some way then counter with a kick. We counter with a kick rather than a punch because of the heirarchy of scoring in matches which dictates that a counter must be an attack which is of equal or greater power than the original attack. It goes like this - punch - knee - kick - elbow (roughly), obviously depending on your distance etc.

Dean and Chris play rugby and are as a result both strong guys. Dean has a twinge from rugby training that was playing up during this technique sparring so Chris asked me to fill in for him. It was great fun because we were both cautious of the other guy but were also keen to attack and counter. Both our legs got battered from round kicks and peck kicks and we both landed one or two body kicks too. My main problem was that some of my kicks were telegraphed or too slow and were caught with me ending up on my arse! After Chris had enough I started the same type of sparring with Graham. We both know each other's game inside out by now but that makes it even more fun! I know how he blocks and moves away and he knew he had to change it up to be able to catch me and the same goes for me. I really like this type of sparring as isolating your kicks gives you the opportunity to increase your speed and accuracy in a real setting but you don't have to worry about having to get punched in the face!

2009-03-01T19:15:00.002Z

Graham and I decided to hire out a hall in the local sports centre so that we could try out some grappling basics such as takedowns, bridging, sprawling and some basic submissions as well as controlling your opponent.

We worked on single and double leg takedowns and then picked a few submissions we would like to try from Ken Shamrock's "Beyong the Lion's Den" book. Think what you will about Ken but his tutorials are amazing.

We we at it for an hour and managed to practice takedowns, sprawling, kneebar and triangle. It was outstanding fun and hopefully we'll be doing it again soon. We've set each other the homework of trying to theoretically know another hold that we can try out next time. I really want to guillotine him so that might be mine! He totally by accident caught me in an armbar too! Well, he only half knew what he was doing so it was half by accident that I was in the right place etc.

Only downside is that he poked me in the eye with his thumb and I have a wee tear beside my tear duct. Have to make sure that doesn't get worse according to Lynn. If you have any ideas about fairly easy holds or something let me know.

Kieran

2009-02-26T12:19:00.002Z

wow, being ill totally floored me. My stomach muscles and diaphram were killing me for two days and I was getting pounding headaches too.

Graham and I went out last night to see what type of exercise circuit we could come up with considering the lack of equipment we had. We have:

a football

a 4k medicine ball

a truck tyre (not sure of weight but its a big 'un)

two 3kg hand weights

a space where there is a hill which gradually gets higher and steeper with a flat piece of land beside it.

We managed to come up with a few different exercises.

We bench pressed the tyre, which is bloody tough and possibly stupid.

Sprints along the park were good as it is grass rather than concrete.

Sprinting up the hill with the medicine ball or hand weights is also good and tough. We done these alternating between ourselves which worked out at around 30 seconds each so we done 3 each - 3 mins.

Tyre flipping is always good. Also tried flipping it up the hill which is twice as hard as just flipping it on flat land.

We threw the medicine ball at each other as hard as we could in a few different ways to see which muscles each throw worked. Over head and the shot putt type throw seemed to be the best for shoulder and triceps.

Finally, we also done medicine ball slams which are a really tough way to end any session. We plan on teaming up medicine ball slams with hill sprints - sprint up the hill with the ball and do a minute of slams then run back down the path.

We only used the football for a fun warm up, running the length of the park chasing passes that we made for each other.

Needless to say, my stomach muscles didn't thank me for this afterwards!

Plan on doing a circuit once a week with Graham and running my regular twice weekly.

2009-02-22T19:45:00.002Z

Gig went well I think and I'm pretty sure the sociology assessment was fine too. Unfortunately I seem to have a bug and I've been up since half 4 this morning being sick :(

I plan on cycling to Dundee soon. Just to see how hard/easy it is and how long it takes.

no sprints this week

2009-02-18T18:56:00.004Z

I'm not going to do sprints this week as I'm playing in Perth with Vulsellum tomorrow night and should also be studying for a sociology exam on Friday. The drumming workout is a beast as I play Death Metal of the fast and thrashy variety so I'm using all 4 limbs in quick succession for most/all of a song!

Untitled

2009-02-17T19:03:00.001Z

Ran 4.2km today in 20 mins and 26.67 seconds. My average speed was 7.7 which is fine. I need to keep a eye on my speed because I'm using this as an indicator of my aerobic/anaerobic limit. I'm only aerobic at below 8.0 mph while running this distance so I'll be looking to keep it below 8 really when I'm jogging and above 8/8.5 when I'm doing my sprints.

The running today was really nice because the tide was out so I took a slightly different route to run beside the sea. I forgot however, that the beach at Arbroath stinks like shit when the tide is out! I was attacked by loads of flies too.

Thai training tonight so hopefully I can get some sparring in. Been watching DREAM 5 & 6 over the last two days so I'm bursting to spar. Since I can't batter a heavy bag every day just now I'm gonna start conditioning my shins again with a long pad. Need to go to the doctor to see why my toe is still painful. I'm certain I broke it before my fight and it is still giving me bother. I can move, run, dodge, jump etc fine but it won't bend.

Kieran

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Interval training showed me how unfit I am

2009-02-11T22:56:00.001Z

I couldn't do what I had planned so I had to cut it down so I could finish. I wanted to run hard for 1 min and 30 secs and jogged slower for 1 min and do this 5 times. This was in order to simulate the anaerobic conditions of a fight. After the first minute of the first "round" I realised that I was not going to be able to do another 30 seconds or do 4 more 1 min 30 seconds so decided to just start at 1 min anaerobic and 1 min aerobic. I completed 5x1min rounds but it was harder than I anticipated, despite expecting a tough session! I will be gradually increasing the speed as well, but I'll stick to a speed of about 70% of my top speed at the moment until I can complete a full round of hard running.

I have decided that on Wednesdays I will be doing this training and on Mondays and Fridays I will do my normal 4k run, gradually increasing this again in a cyclical manner. For the next three Wednesdays I will increase my round by ten seconds so that by March 4th I will be doing the full round of 1 minute and 30 seconds. My contingency plan, should I fail to be able to do this is that I will simply increase by five seconds instead of ten. It may take longer to reach my goal but at least I know I will get there.

By the way, to explain what I've been doing with all this running - I don't have the time nor money to train properly so I'm just doing what I can at the moment with what I have. I'm starting with running for two reasons. Firstly I need to have better stamina, as this is one of the reasons I had to retire in my fight. Secondly, I want to get into the habit of running every morning and going on previous attempts, starting is half the battle. If I can keep it up for a few months I will most probably keep it up and be able to gradually increase it to running every day rather than every other day. Anaerobic stamina is the thing I hate training the most and as a result, I've got really shit anaerobic stamina. Once I have an established routine where I am running at least 4k twice a week and doing interval training which is representative of fight conditioning I will be moving onto increasing my all over power/strength. I know the two works have different meanings in terms of what reps/weights you do but I'll be researching that in the coming weeks so that I'm not wasting my time and potentially doing damage to my body.

Finally - If anyone is actually reading this and knows anything about breathing when running then comment or get in touch. I don't know if I should be trying to regulate my breathing or breathing faster as I run faster. If you have any advice then let me know. Neither seems to feel any different as I've tried both while running but I'm certain I should really be doing one, the problem is I can't remember which one!

Cheers. x

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2009-02-10T18:30:00.002Z

I can't stop thinking about fighting again! There are unmatched fighters on New Breed 5 in March but I really don't have the time to train for it! I've got to have my research project handed in by Aprilso rally it has to be completed this month and written up next month - Plus I've been accepted into a 3 year honours course at Dundee provided I get a B in this research and a B in my exam so I can't just do any old shit cos it needs to be good.

About to go out for another run - I've mostly been keeping to my schedule but Graham fancied a run tonight and its a nice night. I'll try running with my hand weights to see how that feels. I ran 3.9km yesterday at an average speed of around 8.4 mph so I'll need to slow down slightly but its fine otherwise. Tomorrow I'll be doing interval training - running hard for 1 min 30 then jogging slower for 1 min. I'll do that 5 times and see how I get on.

Class tonight too so hopefully I can get more sparring in :)

Kieran

2009-02-02T19:34:00.002Z

Graham didnt come out running tonight so I had to go on my own. In the rain.

It was horrible! Tried to run the smaller distance but at a slightly faster rate. Average speed was around 8.4mph and I ran 3.5km. It was easy in the sense that I'm sured to running further but also very hard as all the way back I had the wind and rain in my face.

2009-01-30T13:59:00.002Z

I'm gonna change to running in the evening so that Graham and I can run together. Slept in on Wednesday and Thursday so didn't run in the mornings, but after a hard session last night I ran 5.6km with Graham and it didn't seem too hard. That's around 3.5 miles so I'll run 5 miles next week and then see what effect it has had.

Training at class last night was great but foor some reason I was kicking completely wrong with my right and perfect with my left. My right shin has a solid bruise on it and I kept connecting with my ankle and that's pretty painful too on the muscle. Must just be completely out of practice!

2009-01-26T08:16:00.001Z

Ran three miles this morning in just over 20 mins. The only thing that made it hard was the bloody ice! It got sore to breathe after a while with the icy wind in my face and I had to constantly look at my feet to make sure I didn't hit an icy patch, unlike some people I know in Spain who worry about the cold because its 8c! haha
Ran with Dizzee Rascal's Showtime this morning, awesome.

I'll have to get my History essay finished today, "Did Thatcherism save Britain from economic and political ruin?" Easy!

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Plans for February and March

2009-01-24T11:29:00.006Z

Ok, so I did start running in the morning, which was my plan. I'm really glad I've done this as it involved getting up about an hour and a half before I usually do. Anyone who knows me will know I'm rubbish at getting up in the morning, so simply managing to escap the confines of my toasty bed is a real achievement! In addition to this, it really does wake you up and make you feel great for the rest of the day.

Next week I will continue to run twice a week in the morning, but in the next three weeks I will be increasing the time and distance I run. In the fifth week I will just run the two miles I started off with, to see if I can feel a difference. If there is a difference then I will start interval training. To start with, this will involve running hard (not sprinting) for one minute and thirty seconds and then jogging at a slower speed for one minute. This will emulate the demands of a fight. I will be doing this for another four weeks, making it three early starts a week. If I can feel any difference in my lung capacity and stamina over these four weeks I will be extremely happy and will probably have made bigger changes to my fitness in this time compared to when I was training for my fight.

I have decided I do want to fight again but first would like to get some ring experience at interclub competitions, which are basically sparring sessions with other clubs which ape a real fight (ring, ref and cornermen, if you want) but in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. Many people often do more than one session at an interclub and the rules are pretty much the same as if you were sparring with someone from your own club.

So, my fitness plans for the next two months involve running and interval training. On top of this, I'll see if there is an interclub in March that I can go to and also continue to teach with Colin in schools. Finally, something I have not mentioned is parkour. The whole reason I started getting fitter was to be better at parkour but the fitness training seems to have taken over. I'll try to redress this in February, with at least one parkour session a week. I will not specify a time until next week for parkour sessions to take place.

February should also see Vulsellum starting to practice and gig again, should see me working again and finally, should also see me complete my research for college. Busy months ahoy!

2009-01-21T09:20:00.001Z

That's two running sessions this week and for just now that's what it's going to stay at. I plan on running twice a week until the end of February then I'll note down what advances I've made. I'm measuring time and distance ran with a nifty application on my phone. I'll be advancing how long and how far I run each week while trying to maintain an average speed, so I'm not running much faster one week than the last.

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Running

2009-01-19T13:15:00.001Z

Went out running this morning, to try and get into the habit of running in the morning. I decided beforehand to aim for about 20 minutes at a slower pace than normal, knowing the route I had planned was to be approx. 2 miles. I was measuring time and distance with my phone but it slipped through my hands and reset itself at the 1.6 mile mark!

My run was really only 15 minutes but it felt good and set me up for the day I feel. I've got to finish one essay and start another one today, well that's the plan anyway. I also intend to get my Xbox 360 to network with my Suse Linux desktop as the wireless only seems to work on XP for some strange reason...

My next morning run is planned for Wednesday, as I don't have classes any more, unless I need help with my research project - minority ethnic groups and their portrayal in the media. Tuesday and Thursday will be Muay Thai training where I intend to get some sparring and good padwork in. Friday will be teaching day for a good few weeks at various schools as per previous blog entries, I'll do no training on Fridays.

I'm also going to be looking at training strength as I feel that could do with some work if I intend to actually perform a muscle up this year. For those who may not know what a muscle up is - it is a pull up (palms facing away from the body) then you push upwards so that your arms are straight - http://www.beastskills.com/MuscleUp.htm

Peace.

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Fighting again

2009-01-17T22:22:00.002Z

Just watching UFC 93, the Shogun v Coleman fight has just finished and Dan henderson is just making his entrance. Watching this has made me realise that I do want to fight again, even if only once. The feeling I got from fighting was unlike anything I've felt before. Imagine making a presentation to 200 people, the feeling of nerves you get then add that to knowing that your going to take punches to the face, kicks and knees to the body and legs as well as knowing you are going to go out there and try knock someone out.

It really is the closest I've come to feeling really human. Despite wanting to go out and knock out my opponent, I wouldn't call it aggression. It is a much more raw experience. So I'm gonna fight again in the future, for sure.

Teaching Muay Thai

2009-01-16T19:33:00.002Z

Tonight was the first of a number of taster sessions I will helping teach in secondary schools around Angus. We had a healthy turnout, 15 people and all were guys. We ran them through a generic warm up, some stretching and then explained what Muay Thai was and why it was different to other martial arts like karate and kickboxing. There were a few guys who attended kickboxing classes at the school in Forfar so they understood that kickboxing started in the 70's in America and Japan but didn't know that kickboxing came about as a way to compete with the Thais who have over 2000 years of development behind their art!

We showed them the correct stance and movement for Muay Thai. Once that had been done, we gave out pads and gloves and showed how to jab and cross, and how to put the two together in a jab-cross combination. Next we explained the technique behind a straight knee with a demonstration. My knees are one of my strong points so the kids were suitably impressed! They got to try it out on the pads and to be fair, they all picked up the techniques quite quickly, aside from the guard staying up which is either them being quick learners or Colin and I being good teachers. I'd like to think it was a bit of both.

We then demonstrated the standard Thai round kick and how to gauge and work within your distance. We explained the turning, twisting your hip and making contact with your shin and not your foot. The kickboxing lads did tend to flick their kicks and bounce a bit but they were really enthusiastic and totally up for learning how to do things our way. I did explain a few times that we weren't trying to say what they were taught was wrong and we did everything right, that it was just a different way of doing things but they were all happy to learn something different while using the skills they had already learned at kickboxing.

We finished the hour off with some basic self defence and explaining why you might throw someone rather than just knee them in the balls! We will be heading to Forfar for another hour session next Friday then I think we're at Webster High for two weeks. There were a lot of enthusiastic guys today who are already interested in leaving kickboxing to come to Arbroath and train with us, and the guys who had never done anything before were just as keen to learn from us and head though to Arbroath with the other lads who are already arranging which buses to get to and from our classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays which is encouraging.

I really enjoyed teaching tonight and I'm reinforcing things which I had almost forgotten how to do. Explaining how to stand and move properly, for example is something I've not done much of since I'd been training for my fight for a while and before that there wasn't any new students to teach. Colin is enthusiastic about helping me become an instructor, telling me that he can see I have great communications skills and I can explain technical aspect in a way that people can understand easily. I feel like I have a good enough knowledge of Thai boxing to teach people comfortably and I also feel that I could answer most queries a beginner would ask. With more advanced students, I am lacking a bit of conviction and confidence because at a certain point the techniques become opinion rather than rule, with each camp doing things slightly differently but I'm sure this will come with time.

Today was a good day. :)

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Goals for 2009

2009-01-12T10:58:00.004Z

Yes, I'm aware the picture in the header is complete crap. I am looking for a better picture, possibly from my fight last month but for just now, that's the only one available! I've also changed the theme to one that is a bit less cluttered and easier to read.

This spring cleaning is a result of procrastination on my behalf. I have a 1,500/2,000 word Criminology essay due in on Thursday and I have only written about 250 words so far. It is an easy essay and I have everything I need to complete it including the knowledge but I really can't find the motivation to write the rest of it. It is a look at the creation of a criminal and the role nature and nurture play using a bunch of different theories. But I can't be arsed!

Since procrastination is the flavour of the week, I'm going to outline my plans for the year, in order to make sure that I'll actually do them! I have been thinking about this for the past few days and I've decided on achievable goals for the year 2009. So in no order, here they are:

By the end of the year, I want to be practising parkour at least twice a week. I will start working towards this as of next week, so that my criminology essay and psychology assessment is out of the way. Also, by next week my cold/flu/bug should be successfully vanquished and I'll be able to breathe properly!

I hope to have completed at the very least the short story I have started. I have a short story and a novel started and I would like to have the short story completely finished. It would be nice if I could get it published but I think I'll focus on actually finishing the story first! I have stories floating about in my head all day but never write anything down. If I get in the habit of writing for fun then I will hopefully be able to get more practice in and get published eventually. Finally, my plans for future employment may or may not be stable, so it would be advantageous if I'm confident I can write. Not a spectacular back up plan but a plan all the same, plus it will be fun! Sure, show me a blogger who doesn't want to be a writer, but all the same, it is a life goal I'll be working towards this year.

Continue to learn to cook. Well, last year wasn't a total wash out but I've not really learned many recipes at all! I'll have to learn at least 10 for the year to be happy about this goal. I think 10 is a good number of meals to be able to make and it is less than one a month. It is achievable and means I can choose progressively more difficult recipes, if my skills improve with each recipe that is!

My last goal is a double barrelled as they are both music related and may happen at a similar time. I want to tour with one of my bands and also write and record an album with one of them. This could happen with any three bands to be honest. before the year is up, I'd really like to do one of these. Both would be fantastic but these goals really depend on other people other than just me, so I can only try my hardest and hope for the best from my band mates.

Well, hopefully in a year I'll be posting about my published work, how well my tour went and the food I've been cooking. We'll see!

Parkour and 2009

2009-01-10T16:15:00.001Z

While everything I've done in 2008 has technically been parkour in that I have been using the parkour philosophy of personal advancement, I haven't actually done much parkour in 2008.

2009 will see me return to playing music regularly, but also return to parkour specific training. To do this, I will have to reassess my skills, strengths and weaknesses as I have changed physically and mentally in the last year. For example, I feel like I am much stronger that I was before in both in leg and arm strength as well as my core body so things such as jumping and pulling myself up will hopefully see an increase. On the other hand, having not moved at any speed among obstacles, I will have lost co-ordination and confidence. Finally, there are aspects which will have, for better or worse, not changed. I will still be rubbish at landing with any degree of elegance, I'll still be heavy on my feet landing and heavy on my wrists when taking off. I'm also going to be just as good, if not better at balancing. My Muay Thai training has given me much better balance through training stance, movement and having to deliver kicks. A lot of my fight training focused on my footwork and movement so I can take that aspect across to my parkour training. Despite being different sports the training, especially psychologically, is very similar.

My diet and eating habits are much better than then were a few years ago but this aspect still needs work as I'm still too tempted to take chocolate over fruit, for example - even when I would prefer fruit to chocolate. I'm not sure why this happens and as soon as I eat my chocolate i know that I would have preferred a banana or a plum. It must just be habit and I'll have to work harder throughout this year to break it. All credit for my advances in diet have to go to my wife Lynn though, she has been organizing the meals for the two of us via a monthly meal planner and cooking the majority of the meals from scratch. here's an example of what we've been eating in a week (just evening meals):

Butternut Squash Curry
Enchiladas
Parsnip Soup
Chilli
Paella
Stovies
Moussaka (the only thing on this list that I make!)

We've built up quite a library of cookbooks in order to get more meals for our monthly planner and some of the curries in particular are spectacular! We have Parsee Red Curry and Pistachio and Chicken Curry to look forward to in February for example, which are both from a book called "50 Great Curries Of India" by Camellia Panjabi which Lynn got for Christmas from my brother Ross.

I've not yet written down what I wish to achieve in 2009 but Parkour and music will feature for sure. The final bit of news I have is an exciting opportunity which I didn't expect or plan for, but am more than happy to embrace. Schools in Angus are interested in giving their pupils the opportunity to try different sports which they cannot provide in a typical PE lesson and thanks to Colin's hard work, Muay Thai is one of them! Starting next Friday, we will be hosting workshops in various secondary schools throughout Angus, starting with Forfar Academy. I never even thought about teaching Muay Thai but I've been helping teach in class and Colin asked me to help him host these workshops as he has recognised that I am comfortable and quite good at teaching kids and teenagers, which is a huge boost to my confidence and self belief.

cheers for reading, I'll update when something has happened with parkour training. I don;t fancy going out just now, the rain could take the skin off a man!

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New year

2008-12-31T12:20:00.001Z

So, that's pretty much another year over and what have I achieved?

Well, I had a fight - one of the life goals I set myself. I've also decided on a career path which will provide enough scope for different work. Hopefully I'll be a chartered psychologist in a few years, helping me help other people.

Next year I will go to University for the first time to study Psychology so I'll most probably be moving to Dundee. This will be the first time I've lived in a city and somewhere else than Arbroath.

I plan on starting parkour movement training again next year as well as playing music. Vulsellum will be writing an album and sorting out a summer tour and gigs hopefully; Welcome Home, Explorer will be getting started again with our new guitarist and finally, I formed a new band, Duncan Idaho so that I can still play punk music.

Next year looks like it will be just as busy as 2008, which is fine by me - the devil makes work for idle hands!

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Post fight - my thoughts

2008-12-21T20:00:00.001Z

In the centre of the ring, to the right of the referee, I stood with my hand raised. Over the din of the voices in the crowd and the thoughts in my head I heard the MC for the second time, “And a big hand for your runner up, from the Phraya Pichai Muay Thai club, Kieran McNairn!” I had lost my first fight, but I was happy. Happy with my performance, happy with my experience and most of all, happy that I would be able to walk out the ring safe in the knowledge that I had come through this experience relatively unhurt. The bruises I had gained from training and from fighting would eventually fade, the swelling would die down and my lip would stop bleeding and heal but the things I have gained from training and fighting will never leave me.

I started training in Muay Thai around two years ago with the primary intention of getting into the ring and competing. I've aways had an issue with protecting and defending myself but since I was in a relationship with a woman who I knew I would spend the rest of my life with (and have since married, in August this year) I was consumed by fear. Not of commitment but of protecting my future family. How could I protect what would be my family if I was too cowardly to protect myself; a fact violently pounded home by a head-butt and a punch after a night out almost three years ago on Christmas Eve where I walked away from being hit twice instead of fighting back in a fight, I am embarrassed to say, I started on a drunken whim. This is backed up by most of my primary school years being filled with bullying and most of my time in secondary school were made shit by the people around me. Despite me being drunk at the time,the fact still remained that I couldn't defend myself properly and if I was to feel happy about marrying the woman that I loved and bringing children into this world then I would have to feel secure in the knowledge that I could at least try to protect my family if the need ever arose. So with the intention of just boxing, I went along to the local community centre to join the boxing club so I could start to learn how to fight. I had attended this club about ten years previous but was scared off by a guy bullying me. The guy was kicked out the club, but the experience put me off boxing, until now. Unbeknownst to me, amateur boxing clubs work in seasons, and this was off season. Above the empty hall, however, was the sound of pads being hit. Venturing upstairs I was surprised to see what looked like kickboxing and decided to stay for the class and see what it was all about. What I had walked into was a Muay Thai class – the national sport of Thailand which can date itself back over 2000 years and was the basis, along with Karate, for western Kickboxing in America around 50 or 60 years ago.

As soon as I seen what these people were doing; kicking and kneeing as well as using elbows and fists, I knew I had to do this instead of boxing. If you want to become confident in self defence, I can think of few other martial arts which offer the real world crossover that Muay Thai does. All martial arts come from the same place – a need to defend yourself and your family, farm or livelihood, but few have retained this application as well as Muay Thai. In Thailand, it is not uncommon to see children as young as 7 or 8 fighting full contact in the ring and British Muay Thai has only two brackets to compete in – amateur (with body, shin and head protection) or full contact (with three classifications of rules).

My studies in this martial art were diligent and to be honest, fascinated me. Muay Thai is steeped in Hindi and Buddhist traditions, like Thailand and every movement (including simply walking!) has a history which can be linked to wars, great heroes, stories from the Ramayana and movements in other Thai martial arts which incorporate weapons, Muay Boran and Krabi Krabong. But I don't intend to bore you with the history of Thailand, like I have with the history of my life so I'll press on a bit. If you really are interested in this history, I'd suggest you start looking at Yaang Saam Khum and the story of Tatawan the Demon...

Go backwards in time about eight weeks and you get to the start of the training for my fight. My friend, Graham was going to fight for the first time on the same night as I was, and we were both glad of this. It meant we could complete the next eight weeks of training together and prepare for the fight with someone who was going through exactly the same thing as you were. The training for fights in our camp usually starts six weeks before the bout but both Graham and I were keen to get started so our Kru (coach) decided that a further two weeks of less intense training would be good, to get us started on the more technical side of Muay Thai, things such as ring craft, pacing ourselves for the 5 rounds and when to throw which shots where.

I am generally quite clumsy, so as you can imagine, training for a fight 5 nights a week for two hours at a time was a much scarier proposition for me that it would be for most people. It wasn't if I was going to be injured in training but when really. Over the course of the eight weeks of training I: Dislocated my big toe, fractured the one next to it later on, suffered multiple injuries to my shin bone, as well as the muscle in that area and also had such heavy bruising on the inside of my left thigh that I still can't bend my leg completely, four weeks after injuring it!

Nevertheless, Graham and I diligently trained at RM Condor with our Kru three nights a week, as well as attending class twice a week and stuck out the many exhausting sessions. It was exhausting mentally and physically as we were learning many different things as well as cementing the basic knowledge into our instincts. We were to work out our weak points so we could work on them, without ignoring the stronger points of our game at the same time. Mood swings affected me around mid way through the eight weeks where one day I would feel over the moon to be training and feel positive, even about my weaknesses and the next day I would be almost in tears (at least one training session was followed by a weeping session!) and feel like I should stop training and give up. I'm sure all fighters feel like that at least once in their career if not more, but it was completely new to me. The emotional rollercoaster and daily ups and downs gives me great sympathy for women who have to go through that once a month for most of their lives! I know that Graham felt the same way as I did but ironically, our moods were usually polar opposite, so I'd be pounding on Graham on Monday and he would be feeling like quitting but by Wednesday he would be mentally in the game and feel pumped while I didn't even want to defend his head kicks because I felt so miserable.

Come forward in time a bit, to Saturday the 13th of December. We left Graham's house in Colin's car at around 1 o'clock. We were travelling to Linwood, just past Glasgow for the weigh in, which was set for 4 o'clock. After a short stop in Tesco Extra in Dundee and a nervous 20 minute search of the venue in Linwood (no thanks to the sat nav, I might add!), we arrived at Tweedie Hall, the venue of our first fights. I have been to better venues...

I was to be fighting at 81kg and Graham was down for 70kg. My original opponent and I were to be meeting at 79kg, which was ideal for me. Unfortunately he pulled out and the replacement would be looking to fight at 80kg. Since we were told this about 4 weeks before the event, we accepted, since it's only a kilo. That guy pulled out too. Three weeks before the bout, I was matched with a guy from Markinch called Malik who informed the promoter that he would fight but would have to lose weight to get to 80kg and would inform us of his weight the week before the fight. He must have been cutting an awful lot because we were informed almost three weeks later, a few days before the fight, that Malik would not be able to make 80kg. He would be able to weigh in at 81kg instead, if that was ok for us. Colin discussed this with me over the phone and since I had come through multiple injuries and a lot of hard training time had been invested, I decided to agree to the fight at 81kg, knowing full well he would have at least 1kg weight advantage on me.

Stepping into one of the rooms set aside for fighters and coaches above the Tweedie Hall, there was an air of suspicion. The coaches all know each other from previous events and having trained with one another over the last twenty five (or more) years, but for many fighters, this was their first or second fight and there were a lot of new faces: no man knew his opponent at sight, which created an atmosphere of excited nervousness. I had felt this before, while cornering another fighter from my camp but to know that someone in this room was going to be my opponent was a much more exciting, and nervous prospect.

We were handed packs which included the running order of the show , our disclosure form (to ensure we wouldn't sue if we got hurt etc) and our medical form. Since all fighters were classed as novices (less than 5 fights), the running order of the show was put simply in order of weight class. This meant I was on second last, with only the 86kg fight after me. Graham was mid bill, even though he was without a certain opponent until that day, as he was down as fighting at 69kg. The two junior bouts were to start the night. In Scotland, junior rules are fought up to the age of 16 and these ensure that there are no blows to the head with any weapon; knee, kick or punch. No elbows are allowed in Scottish Muay Thai rules aside from elbows to the body in C and B class until you reach A class fights, which are professional fights and usually the main attraction and headline bout at any show.

Graham weighed in at a surprising 68.4kg, he had been struggling to get below 70kg until a day or so before so was surprised to see himself weight in without a hitch. His opponent was from North Aryshire and came in at a much lighter 64kg, that's 5kg underweight. As both he and Graham were happy to continue with the bout, it stood. I weighed in later on at a shocking 77kg. I had been consistently weighing between 78 and 80kg up until the fight, even weighing in at a fraction under 79kg the morning before we left, and that was after having two protein cookies and a protein flapjack in the car! Even more shocking was that Malik weighed in at 82.8kg! He would have to lose nearly 2 kilos of water weight in an hour or so in order for the fight to be confirmed. Having skipped for about an hour and stepping on the scales twice in the buff, he finally weighed in at 81.1kg. We decided to allow this as he was only gonna drink water and eat, piling all that back on. And he had time to as well. We estimated that he had around five hours to eat, drink and let it all settle before he had to warm up for our bout. I tried to do the same but was to nervous to eat much after the weigh in, and by the time I felt like eating, the buffet that was laid on for all the fighters and coaches was long gone, with only a bowl of sad looking salad and a browning, half eaten banana left standing. I had to settle on a yoghurt drink and an expensive sandwich from the garage behind the Tweedie Hall.

It was decided that there was enough time between Graham's fight and my fight for me to be able to do Graham's corner as well as go through my complete warm up, massage and hand wrapping included. After wrapping Graham's hands and helping him warm up with light, technical sparring, Colin took him for a few rounds on the pad to get him warmed up and we were ready for Graham's fight. He was not nervous at all coming down the stairs or standing backstage, but I was shaking with nerves and excitement. We heard Graham's chosen entrance music start up – Little Richard - and made our way to the ring.

Graham's fight was, in my opinion, null and void. His opponent, while weighing in much lighter, was built like a wee steam engine and used his punches like pistons, constantly pressuring Graham to keep his guard up and resort to push kicks and attempts at body kicks. The reason I consider Graham's fight a write off is simply for the number of fouls the referee missed. Graham was kicked on the ground three times before the referee intervened, he was kneed in the groin and was also kneed in the face – all three fouls were intentional (maybe not the knee to the groin actually, it was solid but maybe just off target). Graham did not complain though, and was eventually stopped via punches in the third round. Graham maintains that he was tired rather than hurt and looked unable to continue through exhaustion rather than being injured. The fight was ruled a TKO but after my experience in the ring, I was forced to agree with Graham in that he was probably just exhausted.

I was as calm as I had ever been before my fight. I knew what I could and couldn't do, in terms of my own strengths and weaknesses. I knew that Malik was more of a brawler than a martial artist and that I should concentrate on leg kicks in the first two rounds in order to tire him out and make him lose concentration. I know that my right hand has knockout power so the plan was to focus on leg and body kicks until his guard started to drop after which I could work for my big right (either a straight or a hook would do!) and knock him out. The fight started exactly as I planned... for all of ten seconds! I started with a leg kick, the power of which seemed to shock him, then followed up with a huge right hand straight to his face, both of which landed perfectly. The rest of that round, I have been told, was just back and forth brawling between he and I. I can't remember it at all! I was told between the 1st and second rounds that I was hurting him and to keep pressuring him, that I was doing great. I got back in there and just threw everything I had at him, completely ignoring his attacks and just focusing on hitting him as hard as I could. In the clinch, I felt I was mostly effective, turning and kneeing him very well. He was a strong guy though, and I couldn't throw him. He half threw, half fell on top of me near the end of the third round though and this knocked the stuffing out of me completely. When I sat down between rounds 3 and 4, I knew I was finished. It was the one coherent thought in my brain as Colin was giving me a talking to about my defence (ie – where was it?). I just came out with it, “Colin, I'm finished. I am sorry if I let you down but I can't continue. I am just too exhausted to finish”. He was sad, I could see it, but he told me that I was not letting him down and I fought as hard as anyone could. If was exhausted, there was no way he could force me to continue.

The referee was told I was retiring and the fight was stopped. I know now that Malik was just as tired as I was, and that was why he had simply fallen on me when trying to throw me in the clinch. If I could have gone another round, I am convinced I could have knocked him out. Equally, I am convinced that if I had continued, I would have been seriously hurt, knocked out or both as I was too tired to even maintain a fighting stance or throw another punch.

Afterwards, I knew this experience would stay with me for the rest of my life because of three things: Firstly, Malik telling me in the ring that it was a very hard fight and thanking me for the bout made me realise that I hit bloody hard and can take the best punches and kicks that the bigger, stronger man could offer and still stand fighting. Secondly, Colin, his wife and Graham all told me that they were really surprised to see me fighting with such ferocity and aggression and never expected me to take and give so much punishment in three rounds. Finally, as I exited the ring and came down the steps, the look in the eyes of my parents, my brothers and my wife told me that I had done something that made them all very proud. Making my family proud of me for doing something none of them though imaginable two years ago is one of the best feelings I have ever had. Despite not winning my fight, I made those close to me; my family, my coach, my friends, proud of my achievements and progress and truly made myself feel happy with what I had done.

I do not think I will ever fight in the ring again but as corny as it may sound, the experiences I take away from the time spent training and fighting really will last me a lifetime.

2008-11-12T16:00:00.002Z

Not posted in a week as I've been busy with college work and training every day.

I've been feeling a bit crap this week so far. Had diarrhea which made me feel weak, was careful to make sure I was hydrated all the time but still felt rubbish. In any case I've been training as hard as I can. Yesterday seen me do sprints on my bike, as many as I could physically handle, up a steep hill. I think I managed 6 which I was quite happy with, since the wind was coming right into my face the whole time!

Last week was tough on the shins so we've started off this week working on footwork and clinching techniques to let Graham's shins heal a bit as he was getting a lot of clobbering despite the shin guards. My only problem bruising-wise is around my knees but that's really just from a bunch of knee to knee and knee to shin clashes. Since tweaking my stance on Monday I feel that I can utilize my reach advantage much easier with my legs and my kicks are much stronger as a result, from both my right and left legs. Tuesday's class demonstrated this to me further as my kicks just felt right. It's hard to explain but you just know when your shots are landing sweet. Good power and technique on the pads and this effectively makes my legs much more dangerous from any range, since my technique is looking sweet and my stance and movment is comfortable.

After only a week I'm feeling much stronger than I was before. I feel faster and fitter too. On paper, I'm keeping a diary of what I've been doing each day in terms of interval training, sprints, running or whatever and changing it week by week to fit round college work or other commitments and I hope this will prove useful to look back on.

Not sure what we will be doing tonight, hopefully some sparring as well as the usual padwork and conditioning. I've no excuse for not doing extra training today other than that I was at college until 12 and after that I've been eating, watching UFC 1 and WEC 36 while reading and tidying the flat. Tomorrow instead of sprints I think I will go for a run of maybe 3 miles in my 2 hr lunch break.

BTW, first UFC is awesome! The sumo guy gets totally taken out!

2008-11-04T23:24:00.003Z

Just an hour tonight but tried to put 110% into absolutely everything. Plenty of kicks on the bag to toughen up my shins, especially my left as for some reason I've been neglecting my left leg.

My mate Darren came back from the RAF for a week and since he started when did and is still really interested in Muay Thai and fighting . We had a few rounds with him and he posed different problems since he is quite happy to just fly in with punches and kicks coming in from all angles. It may be because he hasn't trained in a while (undisciplined) or maybe that is just his style, I honestly don't know and can't remember. I managed to stay quite calm despite some haymakers and got my counters in quite accurately. Sparring with Graham was much better tonight because I worked on my own plan rather than trying to figure out how to defend and counter his. I am going to do this from now on because despite being caught with a few good shots (up top and on the legs) I landed almost everything I wanted to and only messed up when I lost my head in the last 10 secs of the last round. Tried a spinning back fist as I seen Graham's hands drop as he moved in. Little did I know he was trying to clinch and because I didn't look over my shoulder I hit his forehead with the back of my arm! I tried to stop in the clinch because of the pain but he thought I was checking on him and just said he was fine and kneed me in the leg! hahaha. got a knee of myself in his gut before the buzzer spelled the end of the round.

Feel really energized, hope this lasts until my fight.

Staying up for a while to watch the election in the USA, good luck to Barack! :)

*edit*

Damn, almost forgot! Graham and I started our circuit training today. It was really tough but I just sppent the whole time thinking that if I don't give everything then lose this fight, I won't be able to try harder, won't be able to take that time back and do it again but better. I only get one shot at a first fight and I'm damned if something as burpees is gonna get in my way!

2008-11-03T20:41:00.002Z

Training tonight went good. we done a little bit of everything. After warming up we worked on technical hand sparring taking turns at picking shots and covering up and countering etc etc. I started pad work poorly but felt much better as the rounds went on. Started using the speedbag tonight in between rounds too (while Graham was on the pads) and it is quite tricky, never used one before you see. I started just hitting it but after a while I used it as an attack and covered up, trying to cover up fast enoough to not get hit in the puss.

Sparring was much tighter tonight but I need to pay attention to my footwork because I'm still getting carried away every now and again whereas I should be relaxed all the time. I am generally much more relaxed now but occasionally I get excited and swing for the fences...

Last saturday I dislocated my toe which was total pain in the arse (or well, foot) but it seems to be getting much better so much quicker than I thought and is almost fully healed now. I'm still getting a slight shooting pain when I hit it and an aching after training but I think this will never go away and may also just be because it is cold. few of my joints get stiff in winter (getting old!)

Found out the name of the guy I'm fighting today. He is from the Glasgow Thai Boxing Academy which means that he will have been taught well and will be sparring with top class fighters day in-day out. So he will be a good test for me. I'm really looking forward to beating someone from such a good camp. GTBA have a great reputation so hopefully I can do my coach and my camp proud.

Official start of training - 34 days left!

2008-11-03T12:55:00.002Z

Since I have 34 days until I fight I've picked up the intensity of my normal workout and will now be training everyday aside from Friday and Sunday. Just completed my Monday workout which consists of interval training 5 exercises with the intervals being 30 seconds full effort, 10 seconds rest x 4, but between each 30+10 I've got a 30 second rest so it wroks out like: 30 on 10 off, 30 on 30 off, 30 on, 10 off, 30 on ->- 10 secs before start of next exercise.

Skipping
Split Squats
Calf Raises
Tuck Jumps
Squats

Calf Raises and Squats were done with 6kg handweights. Gonna work up to doing tuck jumps with 6kg hand weights too.

Training with Colin and Graham at 5pm tonight where I'll do a mixture of callesthenics to warm up followed by 2x2 min rounds of skipping, 4 laps round the mats (maybe 400m in total) and then stretch off before we find out what Colin has in store for us. Most probably some technique work, pad work - 5x2 - hands (focus mitts), legs, all weapons then maybe either technique sparring or full contact sparring for 5x2 mins. If its anything drastically different I'll update, if not, I'll let you know how the core body workout went.

2008-10-07T13:16:00.002+01:00

I'm training Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday this week so I have done an upper body workout yesterday:

pull ups - 3 x 10
tricep dips - 3 x 10
press ups (weighted-3kg) 3 x 10

That was pretty tough, mostly from the pull ups which are my weak point.

Today I have just done a lower body workout:

Squats - 3 x 10
Calf raises - 3 x 15
don't know what to call this one but basically just put 3kg weight on each foot and lifted my foot up to strengthen my shin muscle - 3 x 10
Again, names escape me but this time with the weights back on my feet I hung my legs over the side of the sofa and lay down and lifted my legs to get my quads - 3 x 10

The idea behind just doing 3 sets of 10 reps (mostly) is that I know I can do this and it is a good base to work from and adjust by doing more sets or more reps as required. I know I would struggle to do any more pull ups or press ups, for example.

Thai class tonight will just be going over gradings again. Graham wants to sit his on Thursday so he wants to go over the full thing tonight. I'm not really bothered about doing this one just now as I know I can do everything required and also, I can't afford it!

Kieran

2008-09-30T12:30:00.002+01:00

No blog on Thursday simply because we done exactly the same as on Tuesday but sparred a bit harder and done rounds rather than just play sparring for 20 mins.

Started training for my fight yesterday. We are going to be training an extra day for the next few weeks (Monday, Tuesday & Thursday) to get "warmed up" for training 5 days a week. Was tought pad word for the first hour then the second hour we worked on footwork and timing with teeps, kicks and knees. It was great but obviously fight training is gonna be much tougher.

One thing I'm getting a bit annoyed at is that I bruise like a peach. It doesn't hurt (aside from the bruise I got from a clash of knees!) but my legs are covered in yellowing blotches and that's while wearing two shin pads! Crazy.

For the next wee while it looks like I'll be following this schedule:

Monday - rest
Tuesday - training
Wednesday - cardio
Thursday - training
Friday - rest
Saturday - sparring/technique work
Sunday - rest

I'll have to amend things for gigs and practices though as I've got a gig this Saturday in Aberdeen and we will need to practice for that and Calum wants to try again with Welcome Home, Explorer so we will hopefully be practicing with him soon too!

Kieran

2008-09-23T21:05:00.002+01:00

At class tonight Graham and I were going over our respective gradings. I'm going to be doing my 6th (brown) whereas Graham will be sitting his 5th (blue and white). Graham has a slight niggling injury to both feet from trying to kick me outside of his range, so his toes and/or bridge of his feet hit me instead of his shin. This has built up over the past while and he has now decided to wear foot protection while doing everything as well as using his kicks sparingly for the moment.

With this in mind we were careful while practicing techniques for our respective gradings and tried to use the bag instead of the pads as much as we could with kick and knee techniques so we could avoid aggravating his feet/toes.

After this we had 15/20 mins left so we decided to do some play/technical sparring. I have been working on using my knee as a counter since my jab reach is about the same as the reach I have with my knee! I managed to get a few round knees into grahams ribs while evading his punches which I was proud of. I also got a bare knuckle punch to the bridge of my nose which was just a bit sore!

All in all, it was a good class since we got a good workout at the start and worked on movement and the technical aspect of our game (due to Graham's foot not being able to stand up to hard sparring). Next session is Thursday. As of next week I think Graham and I will be meeting with Colin once a week outside of class to start extra training for our fights. I'll write here if this gets arranged for next week.

Back Thursday :)

Fight arranged

2008-09-23T19:18:00.002+01:00

Kru called the other day to offer me a fight on 14 December. I said yes obviously!

I'm going to try update every other day with training/meals etc.

Have started to keep a paper diary of what I am doing every day for training so I'll just make the transition to sticking it on here instead of in my diary :)

Kieran

2008-06-21T00:13:00.002+01:00

I've started training Muay Thai after a forced break throgh injusry. I had severe muscle damage to the tibia region in my left leg and I think the tibia itself was damaged but not broken. It is strong enough to stand on and support me while I kick with the right. It is not ready for left kicks yet but that's fine, I can wait. I can deliver knee strikes with both legs and my boxing is not hampered at all, which is a bonus.

After training the other day my training partner out of class, Graham remarked that my right kick was much stringer and technically better than before I was injured which surprised him since I hadn't kicked in over 2 months! I think this is because while I was unable to train I was helping teach kids who were new to the class and muay thai. I think this gave me a better understanding of the mechanics of a kick. Also, I thought of nothing but fighting while I was injured, which also may have helped!

That just goes to show you that visualisation can work, at least for me. This is something I've used before but not really ever noticed a marked difference, whereas now that I have, I will certainly be using it more.

I've been doing boxing sparring with Graham the past two weeks in class. I started off rusty and ended up getting clocked quite hefty on my jaw (still stiff!) but I've improved much more since then; its as if not doing anything for months has left me really hungry but also really understanding of muay thai. yesterday, we were sparring and I was doing exactly what I had hoped to do, which was use my significant reach advantage a lot (my jab reaches about two to three inches longer than Graham's, for example), link up head and body punches to catch my opponent off guard and try to dictate the pace of the session. until the final 30 seconds, I done all this and while Graham caught me with a few jabs and hooks, nothing really caught me too bad until he turned up the heat and didn't give me time to keep him at bay. After talking about it, he told me he realised that while he tried to play my game, he would always come out second best since he would not pick shots as he kept getting caught first and as I kept him at range, I was able to evade most of his attacks. His best plan of action, which proved to be totally successful was to just get in as close as possible and bang non-stop.

The theory behind this is that while Graham may eat some shots on the way in, he will be able to get off a lot more while so close because I am at a disadvantage since I cannot use my main advantage which I had been relying on a bit too much.

Next training session I plan on working on defending this. My idea is that while he is so close, the only short range weapon which is effective enough to stop him advancing is the uppercut. I plan on trying out these to the body and chin and see what happens. I think I am fast enough to be able to weave to one side and hit his body with an uppercut. But we will have to wait and see since he is on holiday for a week and on 12 hour shifts after he comes back, for two weeks!!! :(

I hope to start training some parkour in the very near future but I am getting married very soon and I need to work my arse off to pay the bills and the remaining wedding money so there may just not be enough time in the day. I still do balance work and my workouts are useful for both parkour and muay thai so hopefully I'll be a bit rusty but not too bad when I start training parkour again!

Kieran

Damn!

2008-05-21T18:15:00.002+01:00

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry I haven't used you in a while. I intend to resurrect you very soon with details about my training in both Muay Thai and Parkour as well as my life.

Sorry for neglecting you since October last year.

Love,

Kieran.

xxxx

Monday - Detox day 1

2007-10-02T12:20:00.000+01:00

Well today I started my detox with one less tooth. :(

I was up all Sunday night with mega toothache because of my poor diet and lack of oral hygeine. The irony has not escaped me!

I got my tooth pulled out on Monday morning and didn't get anything to eat until about 12, which was an apple sliced up really small so I could eat it without damaging my raw socket. Then my pal Graham came across with a ham and egg roll which actually looked awesome! :(

Had a stir fry in the evening which contained beansprouts, courgettes, green and red peppers, carrots, leek, red onion, mushrooms and cabbage. I know it's not raw but it's a stir fry so it's not exactly cooked either! Plus, it was cooked in unrefined sesame oil, which adds points! haha!

Bought bananas, apples, strawberries and oragnes at the shop with Lynn on Monday afternoon after she had finished work. We missed the market stall on the high street that sells locally grown fruit and veg so we went to Lidl instead because they have a big sale on fruit and veg. I don't know how Lidl treat their suppliers, or if they have the same methods as tesco et al but that's not my main concern at this moment!

Veggie box should come today! Hav to get down the street and pick a birthday present for my dad too because I've forgotten it's his birthday on Wednesday and so has my brother! Also, Lynn and I have to buy things for the housewith with our engagement present money from my Aunt.

Kieran

Preparation

2007-09-28T09:49:00.000+01:00

I ordered an organic vegetable box last night from bee-organic.co.uk and it will contain:

New Potatoes
Onions
Carrots
Beetroot
Pointed Cabbage
Courgettes
Leeks
Aubergine
Swede
Milan Turnip

Lynn bought apples and plums the other day and I'm going to have to buy some more fruit during next week like bananas and more apples, maybe some melon too...! I ordered a surprise for Lynn from the same website so I think I'll eat some of that also.

I don't really know why but I am feeling very happy. This is my last day working at the college but I don't think it is just that. Maybe it is simply just that I feel like I am ready to make major changes in my life for the better. My constant goal in life is to be as useful as I can be and I think in the past I have failed to do that consistently but now I feel like I am getting somewhere.

Also, since I got shouted at for not putting it up last time, Lynn and I are engaged! I proposed last Friday and thnakfully she said yes! We are hoping to be married in 18 months and it will be an Alice in Wonderland themed wedding. The reception will be the Mad Hatters Tea Party, hosted by me, The Mad Hatter!

Kieran

Detox! Plus other Kieran related news!

2007-09-25T13:59:00.000+01:00

After a few failed attempts to change over to a better diet, I am going to try a 4 day detox in the hopes that it will kick start a healthier period. I'm starting this on Monday and I'll be able to post up a blog each day to show how I'm getting. I will have a lot of spare time soon because...

I'm leaving the college on Friday(!) as it does not interest me any more. I need to be doing something which keeps me active, either physically or mentally and this does neither. I'm sitting on my bum all day wishing I was outside. I don't mind the phones and helping people but the work on top of that I have to do (logging application forms and sending out prospectuses and reference requests) is extremely boring and I feel like I'm going crazy working here. It's a frustrating situatioin because this is by far the best place I have ever worked and the people here are all fantastic! You get good banter with both staff and students and there is always something going on, whether it be internal drama that you can follow via e-mail or students having punch ups outside! Unfortunately though, I don't think the college can offer me what I need and So I'll be looking for something else soon.

There was the possiblility of working with my mum in her shop but new owners came in and got busted with loads of debt and had to liquidate, leaving my mum unemployed and the shop closed. She was in that job for 8 years and is a bit upset. So am I, cos there is no chance of me getting a job! hahaha! Seriously though, it's a horrible situation for her. We are now both unemployed, which is a bit weird!

I started working with Argos at the weekends and I'm gonna be getting a lot more hours from them when I leave, which will help a lot!

On Thursday I'm gonna be ordering a veggie box from a local farm and I'm also gonna have to decide which fruit to eat. This should be fun!

Next week will consist of:

Oblivion & Blue Dragon on xbox 360
Muay Thai
Parkour
Job hunting
Caffeine cravings!
Reading
Argos

Update no.1 coming Monday!

Cheers,

Kieran

Results and follow up

2007-07-20T17:53:00.000+01:00

Yo,

The interclub went a bit rubbish.

I was a bit disappointed in myself. I ran out of gas after the first (of three) rounds and got pummeled in the subsequent rounds because I lost concentration and wasn't thinking about my techniques or actually, anything at all aside from "I'm knackered".

I know now for a fact that I need to work on my anaerobic stamina, as it appears to be extremely poor! I'm currently thinking of things which can help me with this. I might start rowing on my rowing machine again. I stopped doing thatbecause I live in a flat and it's pretty noisy, but i'm sure I can find some way about it.

:)

Kieran

I'm gonna be fighting soon!

2007-06-29T09:43:00.000+01:00

Yo,

I've been training Muay Thai really hard recently and on 08 July (next Sunday) I will be fighting in Falkirk!

It's not a "real" fight, but rather an Interclub fight. This means we will have full protection on and the ref will interrupt if we are hitting too hard. It is so I can get experience in a ring and fight someone who is not in my club. You get accustomed to training and sparring with the same people so they all know my strengths and weaknesses and I know theirs. This way I will be learning how to fight against the unknown. It is good experience and if I do well and I am happy then I may be able to fight in October or November for real!

My bruised shins are nothing compare to what I can expect if I start sparring bare shin! I've been using shin guards recently you see and even though they provide a lot of protection, you still get bruises on your shin.

For fighting, I have to learn to compose myself. I often get carried away and if I done that against... well anyone that wasn't my usual training partner then I would get hammered for letting my guard down, moving wrong and generally being a mess!

I'm working on angular movement and cutting off the ring at the moment, which is difficult without a ring! This basically involves trying to be at 90 degrees of your opponent at all times. In doing this you are both maximising your chances of spotting (or creating) an opening in your opponent's guard or stance and also making it harder for him to hit you. Obviously, this is something I would imagine my opponent would have trained as well but I'll have to hope that when the time comes I can avoid his tactics!

With Muay Thai you want to be 3 steps ahead of your opponent. For example, when you throw a straight left, your left leg is a sitting target and if the straight left is followed by a right cross your opponents weight is on his left leg, which makes this a prime target for kicks! You have to make your opponent do what you want him to do to get him in position, but you also have to strike your opponent so that he covers up in a way which will leave him open for your real attack!

I'm really excited about fighting this interclub. Apparently in my weight class there are not a lot of inexperienced guys so I will probably be fighting someone who has fought a few times before, or fought many times before! Of course, this is great because I can learn a lot from someone who is an experienced fighter. If I get beat up I will have to learn fast how to retreat, block and counter and if I am able to strike often I may even be able to put my angular movement training into practice!

In other news:

Relating to my overall "lifetime" goal of being a more complete and useful person I have started (again) my Spartan health regime. More can be found out about this through a quick google search of "spartan health regime" or "anthony bova". The main focus point of this is that you eat and train as a spartan warrior would have done back in the day of ancient Greece (this came out way before the movie "3oo" by the way but Bova takes influence from the battle of Thermapolyte, the one featured in the movie). Of course I won't be living like a spartan! Mainly because they belong to a different time but also because they were all paedos!

Anyway... In physical training, the hardest thing to do is often left out by most people. I mean, how many women do you now that would rather roll about on an aerobics ball rather than do crunches? Almost no-one does burpees and a lot of people just plain ignore things like push ups and pull ups/chins or dips! The hardest thing to do will bear the most fruit. You always see things advertised like "the easy way to shed lbs!!" or "10 step guide to a beach fit body" but they are usually crap and do no good whatsoever. people always look for the eay way out. This goes for diet too.

Because of the collapse of the nuclear family and the need for both parents to work due to rising prices in taxes, morgage/rent, food and not to mention or growing obsession with "luxury" items and "celebrity" trends, we need more money to pay for everything. hence both mother and father spend more time working. Because of this, food standard has gone down hill. No-one has time to prepare a proper meal and fast foods have taken over. By fast food I don't just mean takeaway or microwave meals. half of what I ate growing up was fast food. Highly processed food designed to be cooked quickly. No thought put into the actual food or the nutritional value to the consumer at all. the otherr half of what I ate was home cooked by my mum. All credit to her by the way. I'm not trying to discredit parents who work extremely hard to bring in money so they can live comfortably with their family!

What I'm trying to say is that food and meals have gone downhill and it has become the norm for "cooking" to mean sticking something in the oven for 20 mins or putting chips in the deep fat fryer. No-one pays any attention to what they eat and those who do are all following fad diets which are just as unhealthy!

The spartan diet (as in what you eat, not a fad diet to lose weight!) cuts out all crap that we eat and puts focus on what is natural for humans to eat regardless of what the "experts" say.

For example: how often are you told that you are better cooking with vegetable oil or sunflower oil because it is healthier? That's actually wrong. The vegetable oils we use today are quite a new thing. We only recently created the technology to create these oils. The things which we used for thousands of years before (in the days when we didn't have high blood pressuse, high cholestorol levels and all manner of health problems) are being classed as "unhealthy". That doesn't make sense to me. The best rule of thumb is to follow this rule...

If a man made it, don't eat it"

I've stolen and paraphrased that quote but it is a fantastic rule! Every man made food is crap and below the standards of naturally avaliable foods. This is applied to everything you can eat. refined sugar and white flour are crap. White rice and pasta and bread are crap. tea, coffee, hot chocolate and all soft drinks are crap. Fish fingers are generally crap. potato waffles are crap. belive it or not but Shredded wheat is probably crappy too. It isn't just the ingredients you need to look at but also how these ingerdients were prepared. Rememeber that food isn't just to fill you up. Food is fuel for your body so you can be full of energy all day. You need to eat properly so your body can repair and grow and so your brain can concentrate.

The spartan diet's main principals are to eat as naturally as you can. By that we mean that you eat what man is intened to eat. The natural diet of man is to eat mainly raw fruit and veg. This is to be supplemented with properly processed grains (brown rice for example) and the occasional meat meal. Fish is to be eaten as regularly as you would eat your grains (2-3 times a week). It is preferable to eat all your food raw as in this state it is the most useful to out bodies. cooking kills a lot of good stuff in your food.

I am following this "diet" and exercising vigorously almost everyday so I can be in tip top condition and be able to be useful at any moment. I think this is the back bone to my overall goal.

Last night's meal, for example was fantastic and comnpletely natural to man.

We (my girlfriend and I) had grilled rainbow trout (I'm not eating my meat and fish raw just straight away!), potatoes (gotta cook to get rid of starch), green beans and boiled eggs. this was covered in vinagarette which Lynn made with sesame oil, white wine vinegar, garlic, dill and thyme. It was lovely, if a bit smelly (Garlic, fish and boiled eggs!).

This is something I will hopefully continue until I die and I really hope that the current trends of organic foods etc will carry on down the path to where I am now.

Thanks for reading all that (if you did). Comments are welcome.

Kieran

2007-04-06T11:01:00.001+01:00

Hi,

Been a while!

I've been mostly conditioning and training muay thai rather than parkour for the past wee while, so that I am in tip top shape for the good weather which is hopefully just around the corner! This way I can enjoy parkour without having to be annoyed at myself for not being strong/fit enough to do the things I want to do, which was what happened last summer .

I have decided I would like to fight muay thai at least once to prove to myself that I can do it. If I can do this then the whole reason for taking up muay thai in the first place has been satisfied. Not that I will quit though. Taking up muay thai has changed me and I like the changes. As well as overall challenges and goals I have, within muay thai I have even more. My next grading (Yellow) and full contact sparring are two of the goals I have to achieve with the long term goal of winning my first fight. The people I train with are brilliant too, they make hard work fun and no matter your level, everyone knows when you are needing motivation or when to say "well done" when you have pushed yourself to the limit.

As far as parkour goes, I want to travel to Glasgow more. The people there are amazing and some of the locations they train in are perfect! Hopefully I will go down again soon and meet up with everyone again.

I am still finding things in my area as my training progresses. I am planning on getting some clips this weekend of things I have been playing on. Not a video mind you, just some clips of the parkour specific training I have been doing recently.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll update again after the weekend with those clips. I may be enjoying the sun to much to stop moving though ;)

Kieran

Results...

2007-02-26T11:01:00.000Z

I failed. I done 280 of each.

But I have increased the number of pressups I can do and 140 in a day is a new personal best so that's a bonus.

Pics:

First Pressup and first Situp

I only managed 10 of each when I first started as I had to make some food. My G/f was going to work so we had to eat before she left. The rest of the night was punishment!

I'm glad I attempted this challenge even though I failed it. I have just bought a rowing machine so I can feel another challenge coming on... ;)

Another weekend challenge!

2007-02-23T16:17:00.000Z

This weekend I am challenging myself to do 500 press ups and 500 sit ups.

It can take from the minute I finish work to the minute I start work on Monday.

Thats 1700 tonight 'till 0845 Monday morning.

This number may seem low to some people but it is a challenge to me!

I'll take pics of me starting and finishing (if I finish it!) and post them up here and in my blog on Monday.

Have a good weekend!

Good Start

2007-02-22T11:20:00.000Z

I've started this every night (except Tuesday and Thursdays as they are muay thai days!):

Press ups = 10
Sit ups = 10
Press ups = 9
Sit ups = 9
Press ups = 8
Sit ups = 8
Press ups = 7
Sit ups = 7
Press ups = 6
Sit ups = 6
Press ups = 5
Sit ups = 5
Press ups = 4
Sit ups = 4
Press ups = 3
Sit ups = 3
Press ups = 2
Sit ups = 2
Press ups = 6
Sit ups = 6

rest get a drink of water then:

Pull ups = 5
Squats = 10
Pull ups = 5
Squats = 10

Split Squats = 20

And its punishing!

I'm gonna stick this out for a while and see what happens. It feels good so far. I've also started running in the morning again, just 20 mins on alternate days but I like it already. At 7 in the morning no-one is really about so it fels like I have the whole town to myself!

Rubbish!

2007-01-23T16:51:00.000Z

Right, I was ill and injured over christmas/new year with this stupid flu bug that is going around right now so I got 2 days of hardcore training done and no filming for my video.

I've actually decided to not do a whole video but to just put clips up now and again to get help/advice. I know people will be thinking "just put them all together and mak a video!" but I don't see the point in that. I am not willing to put the time in, to be perfectly honest. I woiuld rather be training Muay Thai or Parkour or Drums than wasting time on a video, worrying about angles, music etc etc. bugger that. My time is better spent on more productive things!

Saying that I need to get back into training after a lax new year :(

That is my plan for February (seeing as there isn't much of January left!); I want to get back into regular training, not just parkour but for everything. My fitness levels have sorta plateued and after I made such brilliant advances with regards to my climb ups and strength I neglected to keep working on them and they have now gotten worse!

COLD WEATHER IS NO EXCUSE! GET OUT AND GET TRAINING! IF IT'S RAINING TRAIN INDOORS!

That's what I will be shouting at myself when I feel lazy.

Leave me a comment on how your new year and christmas went, I'd love to hear if other people were as lazy and ill as me!

Peace

Hardcore Holiday!

2006-12-21T10:38:00.000Z

Christmas is almost upon us! Personally I don't like to celebrate christmas. All the values and things associated with Christmas are actually how I try to live my life anyway. you know, the usuals like be happy, be kind to everyone, joy to the world, enjoy the company of your close family/friends.

In addition to Christmas celebrations, my birthday is on the 1st of January, and I will be 21! I get two weeks off work for Christmas/new year so...

Instead of a traditional celebration (read: get really drunk...) that most of the country will be doing (or would be if it was their 21'st) I have decided to have a hardcore holiday. Every second day I will be training muay thai, parkour and conditioning to the extreme. Proper hardcore training.

As I most likely won't get access to the internet too much over thie festive period I will keep a diary of my work and post it up here at irregular intervals or all at once when I come back to work on the 8th.

In the mean time, have a merry christmas, a happy new year and good luck to you all. Thanks for reading my blog this year. Hopefully I will have my first video mid January for you all...!

Kieran

Almost a year...

2006-12-11T10:21:00.000Z

I started parkour on January 12 2006, so it has almost been a year...!

In this time I have learned so much.

I have learned the difference between knowing something from reading it on an internet forum and knowing something through actually training! That is one of the most important things I have learned this year.

I have also learned that everyone progresses and learns at a different rate, both physically and mentally.

Only recently, I discovered the benefits of training with someone vs training alone. I understand reasons for wanting to train with someone, but also for training alone. I think that to learn new things, it is amazingly helpful to learn first hand from someone that knows the technique but to improve on the technique it is best to train alone, in isolation. This is something I will hopefully be able to use in the future.

Being forced to train on my own for 90% of the time this year has made me a better person in a few ways. I don't often get time to myself, but when I do, it is because I am out training and no-one else wants to join me. This has developed into a brilliant way to get rid of stress because I am getting everything off my mind and just focusing on one thing again and again and again and again and again and again (you get the drift..!).

This week onwards I am going to try and start filming my one year progression video which will hopefully be finished by the 2nd week in January. The tripod I ordered last week came this morning, so I may go out for a quick half hour session at dinnertime to try it out... haha! :D

Weekend Challenge Results

2006-11-27T12:40:00.000Z

Not to make excuses, but I had more on at the weekend than I though. I had to work on Saturday and I got roped into christmas shopping with my girlfriend on Sunday!

Friday:

I went home and done press ups, pull ups and chin ups. I didnt keep track of numbers. It was bitterly cold outside and raining horribly so I stayed in with my book and some music. Every 10 minutes or so I would stop reading and do something physical like 20 pull ups, or 20 press ups, then read (rest) for a bit, then do more. I musta done quite a few because I done this for a few hours.

Saturday:

After I had finished work at 3 on Saturday I went home, got changed and headed straight back out to train in the cold. :(
I was training from about half 3 to half 5 on one wall, just on climb ups. I know 2 hours sounds weak to those of you who are hardcore, but that is plenty for me as I am that weak!

Sunday:

Most of the training done today consisted of carrying shopping bags around town :(
I'm gonna make up for the lack of training on Sunday by training tonight as well. I have to paint the ceiling tonight, but I found that my loft is perfect for practicing clump-ups...!

The weekend challenge

2006-11-24T16:52:00.000Z

I'm setting myself a goal and I'm gonna try my hardest to reach it. I only have Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday to complete it.

I'm gonna do this for the rest of the year and see how I get on.

This weekend I am going to improve my climp ups. Zeno from Glasgow seen how weak they were and with his help I did improve slightly on my technique. I know it will take more than a weekend, but I hope by Monday I will feel more confident in my abilities.

I'm going to try film myself and see if I can get a few progression videos from the weekend. It may be possible...

Wish me luck!

Training tonight

2006-11-03T14:06:00.001Z

I was training Muay Thai last night, and it wasn't as physically intense as it usually is because I was training footwork and also Yaang Saam Khum (three stride movement) as well as my left and right low kicks on the heavy bag. Tonight I plan on making myself work hard!

There are two things which I don't like about my parkour at the moment.

1. Take Off

When I take off for a vault or whatever, I will usually stall (as seen on my video below) slightly before taking off. I think that learning a split foot takeoff will improve this, as well as make me more efficient in my movements. I plan on learning this, or at least making a start, tonight.

2. Climb-ups

These are a real weak point. I have very good power and strength in my legs but because of this, my upper body is pretty weak. My climb ups are really really rubbish, so tonight I will also be working on these.

I know it may not be sensible to train both upper and lower body in the same period, so I am thinking about going out tomorrow morning as well. In the afternoon I'm going to see a guy in my Muay Thai club fight. Should be fun!

I leave you with this photo of my mate, Graham. This was the second time he came out training with me. He has since decided parkour is not for him and is sticking solely to boxing, but at least the photo is good :)

I made a video

2006-11-02T21:50:00.000Z

I made this video to figure out how to use Windows Movie Maker and to see if the quality of my digital camers's camcorder mode was any good. It's only 36 seconds long, but it had the best ever music in any demo I've ever seen.

I was intending to make a video on training in my garden a while ago, but I forgat about that project and focused more on training rather than making a video. I decided to stick on some random clips to figure out how to do it, and this is the result.

I know some of the editing and movements are a bit shit, but I was learning how to use that program so I can make my one year progression video in January! :D

Looks like a nice day

2006-10-16T15:42:00.000+01:00

Yup, outside looks like a nice day, and hopefully that means a rain free evening. Which means PARKOUR! :D

I now have a video camera. My Dad got a new one for his birthday, so I got his old one. I may take this (rare) opportunity to try it out tonight. I'll have to learn how to edit it, but that should be no problem! All I need to do now is to convince my girlfriend that she should come out and hold the camera for me... ;)

RE: standing jump entry earlier

2006-10-09T22:00:00.000+01:00

Took a pic:

Back from Glasgow

2006-10-09T11:52:00.000+01:00

Stayed the weekend in Glasgow.

It was mad on Saturday night because of our football result against France (GET IN!!!!) but during the day I met up with a good few of the lads (and lass!) from the Glasgow parkour "scene".

Hopefully I can remember names:

Bj
Liam
Sean
Ross
Ryan
Paul
Mick
Nina
Cal
"guy that fell on his arse at the scaffolding"

Can't remember his name! Ach well... :(

It was vey good fun speaking to all there people I've spoken to electronically but not in person and having a bit of a jam with them. That was the first time I've ever done Pk in such a large group, I think the largest group I've trained with before was about 4...

Hopefully I'll be going back to Glasgow again very soon and this time I won't forget my camera!

If any of you Glasgow traceurs fancy coming to Arbroath for a weekend or whatever just give me a shout!

Going to Glasgow

2006-10-05T10:43:00.000+01:00

This weekend (7th & 8th) I am going to meet some traceurs in Glasgow. I often visit the Glasgow parkour website and frequent their messageboards and I think it's about time I met them all and checked out some of the spots down there.

Hopefully I'll get one or two photos of us all from the day.

I really hope I do meet up with the Glasgow guys because my girlfriend is going shopping and I really don't want to have to go with her!

I'll update tomorrow with a few photos I got last night before it started raining :(

*EDIT*

Click here to see one of the best parkour Media pieces I've ever seen, whch just so happens to have been from members of Glasgow Parkour!

Some pics and movies...

2006-09-26T15:00:00.000+01:00

Ok, I remembered I had a Photobucket.com account and that I had put a few photos in there so here ya go!

This is me training in my garden. The blocks are there to help my landing technique, not mark distance. My landing here is a bit guff... (video may/may not work)

This is one of my friends practicing his balance

This is the perfect height for learning most vaults and that is exactly what I used it for!

Darren airborne!

Finally, I was trying to help my two pals with their diving saut de chat techniques and overall confidence. First is the video of me doing it, then my pal Darren's attempt.

Meditation

2006-09-26T11:10:00.000+01:00

Just yesterday I was introduced to Buddhist meditation techniques.

I downloaded an e-book on meditation from buddhanet.net, which I have printed off and started reading.

From what I have read and heard from other people, meditation is exactly what I need. here is an excerpt from the e-book:

"In the Buddhist tradition, meditation is used to defuse the source of all the trouble -the illusion of self and other. In Cha'an (or Zen), the aim is to overcome thought and defilement. Having done this and with thoughts no longer strring, the real substance of mind becomes evident. Without thoughts and without the illusion of self and other, greed, anger and hatred have no place to arise; and the energy that was tied by those illusions becomes avaliable, helping to provide an overall improvement in health"

This is the paragraph which made me decide I wanted to try out meditation for myself. To raise my subconscious concentration to a level where I can block out everything, including my own thoughts and focus on one thing a time, whether this may be the huge saut de bras I require all my energy to even contemplate or the guy in ring who I need to knock out. It may even be that I require my concentration to be focused solely on the pile of work in front of me! I can see how this sort of thing can help me in many aspects of my life: Work, drumming, parkour, muay thai etc.

As usual, any progress will be up here.