Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Today is the first full day of being completely alone during my travels. Thus, this calls for a new blogpost of my travels!
I am at Phase 4, after a month of travels so far. Here's how I break it down:
Phase 1 was NAPC and the first half of East Coast travels, meeting up with Leonard and Faiz and started our American travels.
Phase 2 was in Hefei for the Chinese competition, a holiday in a holiday.
Phase 3 was back at the East Coast, Southern California. Back with the Singaporeans and Tim Champion. Phase ended after the guys left yesterday, after 5 days in Colorado.
Phase 4 is now, still in Denver, solo-travelling again, trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my time here in America.
Recollection time.
NAPC is pretty much exactly a month ago now. It was amazing to be part of it, being able to seeing the entire event in person was definitely something worth remembering. Also, it made me realize how far off I am from the greats. Didn't even make it in the 2nd round of the on-site speed qualifiers. Skills challenge was also disappointing, made 0/5 stations. But now I'm inspired to train smarter - reducing time in overcoming mental barriers and reducing attempts to a perfect stick, both very evident flaws in my training that I honestly need to work on.
Apart from NAPC, Vancouver was definitely a sightly visit, feels like another trip is due to travel to the mountains and visit the other huge Parkour park that I missed out on. Hopefully I'll be able to make it again next year somehow, or maybe when I come back to explore the rest of Canada.
We had an extra day in Vancouver before crossing the border over to Seattle. 2 days were spent there, apart from Freeway Park and Visions, there wasn't very much to remember. We stayed in Forge for 3 days in Portland, Oregon and spent most of the time training in the 1.2million dollars Parkour facility. We then hired a car to drive to Sacremento, only spent a day in The Haven (such a cool gym) before driving to San Francisco, for a day of city training and Harbor Bridge sightseeing (which I think thus far is still the most expensive day so far). Crammed so much cities in the 12 days before I have to fly off to China for Freerun Hefei City! Also cool facts, I trained 10 out 12 days I was there, I think 9 days consecutively as well. Didn't have any injuries which was cool.
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One really annoying thing that happened amidst all these is having yet another police incident even when I was away in Singapore. So I had to take down my beloved new video (fourth edition of my hometown training series) due to the 5s timelapse at the end of the video. Imagine connecting to wifi and having the police whatsapp-calling you in the middle of the night at somewhere 15hrs time difference away from your home country. Having to read news article of yourself labelled 'youth risking lives, trespassing to rooftop' and negative comments from hatred-filled, close-minded Singaporeans on your phone after a day of training, and needing to ask people for advice, settling police emails, and getting some of your friends into police call-up because of your video definitely did not feel great at all. Sucks to know that I had to let the image down after all the effort in trying to salvage it. Of course, I should've known better. I forgot the reality of certain things when all I wanted to do is to make another nice edit after making insta-compilations all the time. But, #Singapore.
BTW I called it. 2 years ago for Simei Training 3 I posted on my FB page with this description:
"This video gotten way viral in Singapore, which I wish it could be a goodthing but apparently it's not... it's just really, really sad (or hilarious) because of the kind of shit Singaporean people talk about. Not to exaggerate, but I shudder at the possibility that the police might track me down and charge me for vandalism/nuisance/attempting to trespass to people's house. I mean, of course that's absurd if it happens. But you cannot deny the POSSIBILITY of that actually happening, all because I got viral for making a simple Simei Training Vloggy type thing. Because Singapore. All I can say is... Can't wait to fuck off far far away from here!!!! Sorry friends, I wish I can stay, but nahhhhh..."
I don't quite have a lot of good luck recently, as you can see. This is the 2nd time I posted a video on Youtube that has got me into legit police trouble. Stadium incident, Chinatown incident, USS incident, Now Eastpoint incident. A lot of shit that I inevitably get into trouble somehow. Honestly I wish I can move to a different place. So much things back home that does not suit my ideals and lifestyle. But I'm really not sure how I can escape from this place.
I am planning to do a 'clean' edit and reposted my Simei Training 4 video with a proper statement to the public. I've been staying low for awhile, so far ever since the first few days of the incident, I have yet to receive any news from the police.
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Phase 2: China!
Having already missed out on the Skyladder competition earlier this year, I definitely had to make it for this one. Muradil from Beijing contacted me awhile back asking me to design a set-up for the event. It was such a huge opportunity come to think about it, and I was more than glad to have put in the effort to do it as best I can. So stoked to be invited to compete on my own course as well! Definitely one of the biggest highlights of the year.
However, performance-wise, I really think I have tons to work on. This is the 4th time I fuck up in a speed comp. Obviously, some speed run routes have risk in them, but are necessary to be taken as every milliseconds shaved counts heavily in the end. In practice, I was able to do the tricky plyo at the end pretty well. I had a misstep in the actual run that threw me off balance. Didn't make it to Top 8 which was my main aim from the start. I have to practice the full runs more as endurance is a huge factor in runs like this. I also feel that from the Surabaya competition, I have to work on reducing my footsteps and keeping my body low throughout a run. So yeah, more speed run pracs in general.
Style run tho! I was pretty happy with how it turned out. But again, it's the lack of practice that bit my right in the ass. A lot of unclean movements and slow connection between moves. I blame my body for its injured state thus not wanting to practice hard enough. It's true for sure. I have to expand my flow vocabulary too. Sadly didn't even make it to Top 16, but hey new target for next year for sure! No injuries, that's the main thing as of now.
Living the invited athlete life is definitely amazing. Nanjing X-Warrior was similar, but this one beats it undoubtedly. Chilling with the all-stars and the underground talented Chinese locals was hands down what I enjoyed the most. Buffet breakfast and dinner, amazing catered Chinese lunch, free-for-all afterparty. Didn't spend a single Yuan. But had tonssss of fun. Most people are going to Santorini after this. I wish I could go. But definitely didn't feel right this year. It might be the last year this year... hopefully not.
Phase 3: Southern California! + Colorado
After yet another 18hr+ long flight journey. I made it to LA. Back to spending USDs is definitely painful again, but L.A was legit hardcore training again after one week in China. No rest for the wicked. Visited a lot of gyms again. Two Tempest gyms and another gym called JAM. I managed to get Kong Gainers and Lache Double Gainers pretty easy in the gym, so Santa Monica was the best place to do it. And I did! I felt I definitely did push a lot mentally in this trip (Phase 3), despite the lack of rest and injury-prone body, I achieved some pretty good stuff. Also, I am finally able to do dive kongs again without having my wrist hurting too much. It's still not fully comfortable, but it's definitely getting stronger again.
San Diego was the last stop of California. Spent 3 days there and honestly felt it was really well spent. Had a day trip to Tijuana as well - was happy to experience Mexico for once, and really inspired me to want to travel more in Mexico (more in Phase 4). I had my first real injury in my travels doing a double side here. Weirdly felt that I was able to do this onto grass today. My double rotation spotting is still way off and needs a lot more practice. Kinda happy I landed it pretty alright, although definitely shouldn't be pushing this outside when I can't even land it well in the gym yet. Another thing to work on for sure.
Time to head to Colorado! Finally done with the East Coast. Took a flight 2hrs later than the boys but was glad to finally be at the Parkour Mecca in the states. Wanted to take a full week's break but that proved impossible when it is the last week for the other guys. I am still feeling really weak, not able to move at full strength with muscle tightness and unhealed injuries... so I didn't want to train a whole lot so far. Went to Boulder for the weekend, did a bunch of substances after breaking for two weeks (since Forge) with my justification of resting/being injured. But now I'm facing the real deal:
Phase 4: What's next?
Now I'm back to my lonesome travelling in America, no more winning Rock Paper Scissors with Leonard and making fun of Faiz's peanut butter allergy. The first month in America flew past and I've been surviving pretty well. However I can see the cash I have slowly depleting and I am not sure what my options are next.
Initial plan is to stay in Denver for awhile and get some work done. However, the process of securing my working visa is a tough one and despite sending several emails, there aren't any replies as of yet. Apex did tell me the possibility of working with them, only if I can settle my working visa here. So I still need to do a bunch of research there.
I am planning to stay away for longer anyway so I still have till probably the end of November to travel non-stop. Probably will spend so much money and not earning anyway, which to me is really the suckiest thing at the moment... I'll probably be real broke once I am back to Singapore and I'm not sure how much more time I can spend not earning money... sucks.
I did a bit of flight ticket researching - if things don't work out this week, I'll probably book a flight next week to Missoula Also, spoke to Max Henry and I have this rough plan - Denver > Missoula (travel in Montana/Wyoming for a bit) > Minneapolis > Chicago > Detroi > Cincinatti > Fly to Miami, maybe day trip to Cuba, > Orlando > New Orleans > Houston > Dallas > Austin > cross the border to Monterrey > Guadalajara > Mexico City > Singapore.
That should be the plan if my working visa does not pan out well. Which is a high chance.
Let's see how long more I can keep up the travelling and see how long my money can last.