Thursday, June 22, 2017
Hello Blog! Long time no see.
It's been awhile. Much have happened since the previous post. And Takuya and Shay (of all people, not even Singaporeans) have requested for the next blogpost. Lol so here it is.
So since May 7th,
- I've gotten LASIK surgery. Not sure how many years this would last especially when my bad eye habits is still ongoing,
- Passed my Prac 4 in my 2nd try! Going to my 2nd Prac 5 tomorrow after like a month hiatus, gonna try to get my license before heading off to my next travels, so pretty much TP by near end of July hopefully.
- Secured a huge TVC job with DBS (which was edited and posted in like 2 weeks)! Earned the most amount of money in 2 days ever.
- Posted a new 'After Melbourne' video on my Youtubes. Legit feel that when watching back my older videos, the current videos lack so much effort in the filming and editing, and it's really high-time to start creating amazing content again... when my body is back on form.
Screw point forms, the next 3 points are major things I did for the past month! USA, AAPES Jump Off, and LCG.
So Beast Coast! First time in America and meeting so many cool Americans. Did 2 of my dive roll seminars - one in slightly wet grass, and another in the pouring rain. Honestly I feel I have much more to teach and my coaching skills (or my delivery) can still improve a lot, but for a first time I think I did pretty well, and even the more experienced people who took my classes (Bob Reese!) felt that it was great. Still am planning to do my dive roll workshop somewhere in Singapore, but have not actually found the best spot to do them yet... Gotta do some recce in the next few days.
Workshop aside, the event was quite an eyeopener on how to offer attractive workshops in an event. There was 'How to Bail Safely' from Max Henry, 'Ambidexterity' from Bob Reese, 'Twisting Biomechanics' by Christopher Hollingsworth, 'Speed Optimization' from Seth Ruji, 'Injury Avoidance and Recovery Tips' by Cordelia Storm, etc. Honestly, most people do not go to an event for a workshop, but Beast Coast is pretty different from the normal boring PKGen style workshops - it caters to everyone and with a specialized coach that is giving the workshop, it creates way more attraction value. Something to think about during the next LCG during the workshop day.
Despite shitty weather during Beast Coast (and pretty much the whole time I was there), I met tons of people there and had so much fun. Hoping to see them again in NAPC (which means it's time to book them tickets...). I also managed to squeeze in time to go to Philly to train at the coolest Parkour gym and also watch the premiere of RCA!!! Yeah boiiiii. My opinions of the movie? Movements were insane. Josh has some of the coolest runs inside (such an underrated athlete). Storror is just so creative with their content. Really pushing the game regarding huge video projects. To be fair the movements part of the movie was a small segment of the entire 1hr 40min documentary, really wish I could scrub back and watch it again, but hey that's until the full release. Let's see what we can do next year if they could come back to Singapore!
After Beast Coast and DC was a 4 days trip to NYC! Max Henry offered to drive me up and housed me during my time there. I kinda wrecked my ankle a little bit at the gym in Philly so I couldn't actually do too much. Also after like 4 days of constant training, my legs are feeling pretty shit so I decided to do more touristy nonsense haha. But fuck man, NYC transport is another level expensive especially when I'm travelling in and out of Long Island. Visited the Brooklyn Zoo in Manhattan, unique name for a Parkour gym right? Did a lot of techy movement to make up for the lack of power. Ate out a lot too. Pretty much spent all the money I got from doing the workshops on food and bus tickets. Bagels. Pizzas. Burgers. They pretty damn good, but I got bored really quick... lol.
After NYC, I went to Boston on a Chinatown Bus which only cost me like 14 bucks if I recalled correctly. It even had wifi. Met up with the Boston boys. Davis has some insane leg power and he trains like a full-on athlete (having his background in Track). His house is also in the woods which was fucking amazing to sleep in (even tho I was sleeping on a couch). By the time I was in Boston I felt slightly better in terms of movements, my wrist feels better now that I could do my first dive kong in 6 months. However, shoulder is the next issue and both ankles are still pretty shitty until now.
My trip is cut short but quite a bit because I have to take a 10hr bus back to DC. All the travelling times (flights, bus, time difference) ate up a huge portion of my USA travels. 82hrs was lost moving from Boston to Sydney, of course with stopovers in between - Boston to DC 10hrs, 6hrs in DC (managed to do a bit of training here!), 14hrs on flight to Beijing, 6hrs in Beijing Airport (edited my US video there, only to know that my music is copyrighted UGH...), 6hrs on flight to Singapore, 16hrs layover in Singapore (+3hrs of flight delay)(managed to settled the last bit of LCG admin work in that few hours), then another 8hr flight to Sydney + 14hrs Time Diff. It was pretty hectic, but when I reached Sydney, I was pretty jetlagged. It rained so it meant that we only had time to eat and go to AAPES 1 for movie night.
Day 2 of Sydney was the real start of AAPES Jump Off. And of course, of course, in typical CP fashion, after a few fun jumps and not even an hour in, I bumped BOTH knees on a stupid Kong vault (going for a Kong dive roll), which rendered me useless for the day. Spent pretty much the rest of the day socializing, crying inside as I see everyone attempting jumps that I was dying to try, and made the best out of the situation by requesting to be the judge for the Comps (which I was supposed to be in... sigh. Lose out in experience again). That was a pretty shitty first real day in Sydney, but oh well.
Day 3 of Sydney was speed run day. Knees were feeling much better. Popped some painkillers and I was off! Did all the jumps I was eyeing and was pretty happy with them all. Including some pretty cool hanging casts, and lache tac backflips... I also did pretty well in my speed run for the first go, but slipped up a bit on the 2nd run (still improved my timing tho) - still got so much to improve on if I really wanna do well in NAPC! No jokes. After Jump Off wrapped up, we went to Shark Bar, but due to my stupidity, got barred from entering the bar which pretty much ruined the day. Typical CP fashion, yet again... Lol
Day 4, we went to AAPES again and tried out the Parkour Tag. Got totally trashed by Pedro and Phosky. Also fucked up my heel a little bit during that. My whole body was pretty gone after the massive day tho. All in all AAPES improved so much compared to last year. Much more organized. Had the budget to fly in 4 athletes and even provide them a hotel, better itineraries, also better shirt designs by a mile. Speed run was pretty damn intense this year round, tho it was so tough to beat the magic of last years. I will definitely be back next year and make sure I don't fuck myself up before the comps again... (will I ever learn tho?). Spent the day tripping out and going to Vivid Festival before heading home to the comfiest of stays (Oh Nachos, Zack and I crashed at the hotel Wellington Grandma booked for the trip btw... pampered life ftw). Meeting all the familiar faces in Australian (and Melbourne!) was so good and really enjoyed it.
Day 5, did pretty minimal training with what energy my legs have left, before heading back home with like a whole bunch of Australians as I prep for LCG.
I should talk about LCG more of a whole now that it is all over. It was quite an effort for the few days running around and getting shit done, while having 6 people over at my house. Not sure if I feel as satisfied as I did last year judging from the fact we had some much internal screw ups and a lack of a fulfilling climax. Not even sure how good the official video will be. Didn't even take a group photo at the setup.
Was I happy that it turned out the way it did? I probably think so, as it was the only way we could have done it, but the fact that we did not come close to breaking even made me feel like it isn't a very sustainable model. On the surface it looked like it reached new heights. Only the organizing committee knows how much shit we went through and how last minute everything was. However, we managed to pull through as much as we could and it was still an event well run if you look back.
Working with Sports Hub was a remarkably bad choice to make. The only positives I can think of was the free venue, the publicity, the fact that we are working with Sports Hub and SportSG to build better connections, and also the experience in working with a government body. However, they fucked us over for the shirt sales, boxes were forked out from our own pockets (we did work with NYC this year, so hopefully this can be a stepping stone for a bigger budget next year). The rain did fuck us over too, but the sun came back and everything was going fine, until 'Cat 1' came again halfway through the Style comp (rain did not even come down till an hour later, could've finished the entire comp by then if we pushed for it, but was told to cease all activity anyway... DUMB af 'safety standards), so annoyed that all the shitty Singaporean rules affected all our international guests. Ruined our event which we spent ALL our money on. I thought it was all over after the army, but working with Sports Hub again really reminded me how much I hated Singapore for all the dumbass rules... Next level bullshit really. So sick of it.
Also had a huge fuck up with medic coverage which was fucking me up over while I was in Sydney. It's really revolting know how companies work and when they say 'sponsor' or 'free', it really never is. It's such a huge screw up on my end to incur a $1.5k debt to PKSG just because of trusting someone too much, when I could've covered it if I found alternative and legit source of free medical coverage in time.
Now that it is all over, I really want to make next year even better. A lot of plans in my head. We have a whole year now to prep, and hopefully shits get done before the end of the year. We need even more budget though. But then again, the first two LCGs will always be the best LCGs... sad to say, it's very very hard to replicate it without getting into trouble again. #IllegalIsAlwaysBetter
Well, at least now I can have a breather, after like a whole month of hustling out. Now I'm back to the floating space, no more jobs pretty much for the next few weeks I am foreseeing (holiday period). I have a lot of money accrued and am just waiting for them to come back to me... Still have to book my America trip and have enough money to travel till Oct/Nov. But since I'm free, I could probably afford a last minute trip out, which I might do actually, let's see what happens.
Also, today is someone's birthday. We could've also hit the 1 year mark. I didn't really care about it as I was so caught up the past month and honestly am past it. But I have to say this one definitely s more than the first breakup. I also found out she's with someone else now. But then knowing this, it really shows how shitty her character is. So I dodged a bullet pretty much. People change, and once changed, they can never change back. What can you do about it, right? Just like how I can't do shit about the shitty Singaporean rules. My life is a never-ending battle with helplessness.