XSD at Rampulla's! Kicks, flips, tricks, parkour!

Hey everyone,

Hope you all enjoyed last weeks post about one of my favourite trickers! This week I'm going to talk about flips, kicks, and tricks in Rampulla's XSD class. This class is dedicated to combine acrobatics, martial arts, stunts, and parkour all in one. The class ranges from basic to advanced levels, as well as a wide range of ages. It's challenging and fun at the same time, because students work their butts off to learn a trick or move, and when they get it, the feeling of achievement is amazing. 

The one thing I have learned from teaching XSD is that everyone learns differently, and everyone is going to learn things at a different place. I've seen some students learn tricks their first try and others take years of training to get it down. The most important thing I tell them is that if you work hard, and continue to work hard anything is possible. It took me a year and a half to learn a back tuck, and I trained that move every single day. Everyone learns at a different pace. 

What I leave about teaching students, is that I get the chance to see them grow, I've seen students who first started who could barely do a cartwheel, and now they are doing cartwheel fulltwists like it's nothing. The transformation is amazing to see, it also shows what hard work and dedication can do. 

I love teaching XSD because it's what I love doing. I love being able to share my knowledge with people who are interested in the same thing I am. Tricking, flips, stunts, parkour and martial arts is my life. I want to be able to teach them everything I know and make them the best they can be in all aspects of their life. I want to be able to inspire, and motivate them every day. That's what XSD means to me. 

I put together a quick video of one of the classes that I decided to a small vaulting set-up. Check it out and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEtp5SV1I_s

Check out bo staff martial arts tricking!

Hey everyone,

Hope you all enjoyed last weeks blogs about trick kicks! This week I'm going to be talking about bo staff tricks. Ever since I was a young kid studying Martial Arts, my favourite weapon was always the bo. 

I loved watching action movies with bo staffs in them, such as those really corny chinese movies with Jet Li in them. I started using the bo staff at the age of 7 when I was a blue belt in Tae Kwon Do. I would do private lessons with my instructor all the time, just so I could kick ass at tournaments. 

When ever I do bo staff tricking I try to create the most fluid way of doing a trick or move. I don't want to stand there and just do the trick because then I become a baton twirler, and that's not so cool. 

So what I try to do, is make all my movements stand out by finding cool ways to get into them and cool ways to finish them. Instead of standing there and doing a neck roll, I doing a 360 spin as I do the neck spin, to make it look more impressive.

Ever since I've started to doing flips, and tricks, I also like to implement them into my bo tricks. Sometimes I'll do 540 kicks in the air while spinning the bo behind my back, which looks really cool. Another thing I'll try to do is spin and throw the bo in the air and catch right before I do a flip, the transition into the flip ends up looking really cool. 

In the video below, you can check out some of the new bo tricks I have been working on. If you guys like it, subscribe for more videos, and comment what you would like to see next! Come back each week to check out Martial Arts, tricking, and parkour!

Enjoy!

Breakfalls

Hey everyone!

Hope you enjoyed last weeks episode on hard ground training! I hope no one got hurt trying tricks on concrete last week, I still hope you are all improving!

So many of you may know me personally, and know that I am an aspiring stunt man for film and television. In man journey or quest, I have learnt that it takes more than just doing a couple flips, and a few spin kicks to be stunt man. The most important part about doing stunts, is falling and making it look painful. But before you can make it look like it hurts, you have to make sure you can fall safely.

So in this weeks blog I'm going to show you a video on some basic-advanced breakfalls. Note, that I myself am also working on my breakfalls and I'm still not happy with how they look. But I'm going to give you guys the opportunity to get a head start on them that I wish I had.

Steps to practice breakfalls:

If you have an instructor ask them to help you with them, if not film yourself doing it and be your own critique

Step 1: find a matt, mattress, sand, or any squishy surface that you can land on safely

Step 2: practice some of the basic breakfalls I demonstrate in the video below: front, side and back breakfall

Step 3: practice until you feel yourself land all at once, or in a way that you could land without getting hurt. Landing with your body hitting the ground all at once spreads the force out making it much less painful.

Step 4: try adding a twist or flip to make it more challenging

Step 5: once you can safely fall, try taking away layers of matts until you find yourself doing it onto normal ground.

Here's the video of me practicing some breakfalls at Rampulla's Martial Arts, in Georgetown Ontario.

Enjoy!