Black Friday at Robinson High

With the public schools out of session, it's always a perfect time to train at the high schools and middle schools that're always so well-constructed for this kind of thing without looking like a bunch of pedo predators. As such, we made the decision to do our training at Robinson High School, which offers ledges, ramps, walls, and the like. Due to people coming at various times, it took on more of a relaxed jam atmosphere, but I and some others managed to do a few conditioning things here and there. Nothing intense, but the aim is fun, especially when people like Leon and Corey are back for the holidays. I did some long duckwalking, backwards QM upstairs, and that sort of thing. We tried various wall-related exercises. At the playground, I did some pull-ups. Three total sets, though it was 5, 8, and then 7. Nice to know I max at 8, now, which means that I can probably GTG at six without an issue. I know my dips need more work than my pulls. I can pull to my chest easily at this point. It's dipping to the clavicle that presents the serious problems. Once that gets clear, I'm sure the muscle-up will be easy-peasy. All the same, I'm not going to rush things and I will continue to follow Dan's program. I'm sure I'll be able to get a muscle-up before completing all the necessary steps in the program, but will it be clean? Probably not. And even so, how many can be sustained? So, slow and steady.

At the end, I was trying to instruct Andy a bit in climb-ups. He does that thing where he pulls until he can lean his chest over the ledge and push up the dip from there, which I think slows things down. He says he has trouble climbing up on ledges that are flat and don't allow a finger-curl. In any case, I demonstrated a climb-up for him while keeping my fingers extended and keeping my chest away from the wall entirely, and his response was, "I think you're cheating." It was rather amusing to me, given that the climb-up has always been something that came to me intuitively, even when I was a fat tub of lard. All I could suggest is pull-ups and dips. Even though I know there's no real direct transfer between the two. Who knows. It's not something I necessarily get or understand.

All in all, it was a fun night. There were vaults, there were climbs, Leon busted his nose on a bar he didn't see cause it was dark... Poor him. But we all had fun. And, in the end, that's what this is about. At least when we get together on holidays. Next week? Next Thursday? It's back to the tough shit. It's back to harsher training. So I hope they enjoy the break.