just recovered, again

Hi all!

This has been quite a bad week. Earlier last week I injured my lower back and was out of action, causing me to miss a big football game that I was supposed to cheer at. I feel bad because due to my last minute bail out the blocks were reorganised last minute and some stunts fell. Oh well. Lemons huh.

SO my back is out of it, so I haven't been tumbling. I know I had some lofty targets, but I think I'm gonna tone them down A LOT. For now I'm just going to focus on cleaning round off back tuck and standing backtuck. I didn't expect to be so injury prone coming here so I'm gonna start taking it easy.

I don't really want to make excuses for myself, but studying here is so intense that I hardly have time to work out. Tests and graded assignments take up so much of my time that even attending team training and events is a squeeze. I'll get through it, but I hope everyone doesn't expect too much from me when I get back in terms of skills. But what I am bringing back is a lot of new ideas and training styles from a USA team and I hope it helps Alpha, and the singapore cheerleading scene in general.

I've been keeping up with the Alpha happenings and I must say that I'm really proud of what I'm seeing. The juniors are motivated and happy, and of a good size. I hope the pattern keeps up! Li Jing good job so far yeah. And also congrats to thomas and char, mavis and ji xiong for getting together! May your relationship last forever. Just a heads up, being couples in a team brings a set of unique challenges, so if you feel anything don't hesitate to talk to me or any of the couple seniors.

Joe

Long time coming

Hey Guys!!

I'm so so sorry for not putting a post up all month. You see I

1. Just got a new macbook
2. Have been crazy busy with schoolwork

That I just couldn't find the time to upload a vid. Also, I did a vid, but somehow I can't upload it so here is an old school typed blog.

I've been training hard, and things are on and off for me.

In tumbling, I've been undergoing a lot of reprogramming. What I mean is that one thing I realise is that I have a sever disadvantage, which is that I have many well fixed bad habits when it comes to tumbling, especially in the jump for a standing tuck. What I'm doing very aggressively now is that I am reprogramming, trying to kick out bad habits and replace them with new ones.

One thing that I realised about myself is that I'm always scared to take the final step, especially in tumbling. I'll go go go with drills and basics, and when it comes to actually doing it I somehow run away, and do it shittily. I've really thought about it and I realised that its not because I'm scared, but I didn't believe in myself, that I didn't think I can do it despite all my basics being there, and now I should just believe in what I've trained and throw it. It has so far worked out for round off tucks.

Stunts wise I feel my basics are becoming more rigid. Here we stick to basic stunts and focus on hitting them really perfectly, which is also fine by me. Those are important too.

Sorry I'm a bit drunk.

One thing I learnt here that went opposite to what I previously thought was fighting for a stunt. I was taught here to fight a stunt with my upperbody instead of the lower body, so the flyer doesn't feel like she's on an earthquake. I'm still not sure about this and I'm trying this out, but its a lso a sign that I may have been wrong so anyone I tipped to fight with lower body do try out both ways and see what works.

I've cheered my first game, which was really exciting. Many more games to go! It was a soccer game. When the team scores we throw free shirts to the crowd, which gets them amazingly hyped. Something for src to think about. I have learnt many other things, but I think this blog post is long enough, and its 3am.

Thanks to Bi Yi and nigel for the question from the last post. The hand over hand grip stays the same throughout the whole process, and doesn't change.

Take care guys, see you in a bit.

Cheers and love,

Joseph

P.S. thanks lijing for handling those flowers for me.

New comments!! leave a love or hate comment for me to feature!

Oh and thanks to ben for the video comment!

this is the third and last vid for now :)

learning back hand spring

The painful journey of the backhand spring

Tour of my room!

Proper tour of my room!

here at UNC!

kinda tired. 4 in the morning. that explains the weird eyelids.

now to the next stage of my adventure

as promised, i'll feature my favorite love/hate comment in the next vid!