The playground begins...

Every since I moved to California I have been wanting to get a house with a yard so I could have some space and now I have a house and some space. First addition to my backyard playground is a $100 round 14ft trampoline that I bought of craigslist (which is quite possibly one of the best websites ever). Until my teammates and I are able to build/buy/create our own freerunning gym, my backyard is just going to have to do. Come stop by for a bounce.

SWEDEN!

My freerunning adventure has landed me in Sweden. From a national gathering in Colorado, to the World Championships in London, then all the way to Sweden for the Red Bull Art of Motion. Freerunning, it takes you places.
I'm with my team up in Helsingborg, Sweden where the stage for the comp is located in the stairs of a castle (pretty epic). We have been here for a week, hanging out with the guys from team Air-Wipp.com. Red Bull knows how to treat their athletes. They hooked us up with a 3 bdrm apartment just two small blocks away from the areana. The event is scheduled for tomorrow night where I will be sitting on a tower along with 4 other judges watching the competition. Judging is a lot easier on the body, but very difficulty with the level of talent that will be competing. Will it be the bulgarian? or the swedes with the home court advantage? maybe the strength of the UK? or a little nugget from USA?
It's going to be a fun event to watch. Make sure to search for all the youtube clips.

http://www.redbullartofmotion.se/

Vegas

I finally experienced Vegas. A crazy town that never sleeps where you can entertain yourself for days. From 80oz guitar drinks to $100 bets on black, you find yourself stumbling through casinos and hotels in a drunken high. Sleep is overrated and seldom got. I mean who wants to spend their precious hours laying down with their eyes closed when you only have 72hrs of Vegas fun to experience. I definitely want to go back and back and back. I just might need 2 to 3 months to recover after each visit.

The NEW Shag Palace

Finally the time has come for an upgrade. Victor, Oj and I have moved into a huge house in North Hills, CA. We have so much space we don't know what to do with it. This two story valley house comes with enough closets for a whole school of 6th graders to play 7mins in heaven.
First time having some yard space since living in California, we are sure to make the best of it. Already we are planning our mini-parkour playground that we want to build in our backyard.

Swedish fish

Skinner from Team Air Wipp has been staying with me over the past week. We've been hitting the streets of LA training, partying and making videos. Skinner's such an easy going guy who is down for anything. Tomorrow is the goldfish tradition. It's about time we officially make Skinner apart of the Tempest family.
Training has been going well. Oj and McLovin are laying down some solid tricks in prep for Red Bull. I've been in the gym working on my twisting. Tweeked my right knee at a jam this weekend, but determined to keep training.
Music is a plus. I've been listening to a play list my friend back east made for me each day and I can't get enough of. Good songs bring you back to certain parts in your life and where you want to be. Now it's my time to make a little musical compilation. I have the perfect mix in mind to put together.

Hitting the wall

Today was a good day. Way too hot. Apparently it was a recorder breaking high today so you could say it was a little hot. The highlights of the day was getting a call from Nitro Circus which is the sickest show on tv right now. Those guys are so talently crazy you want to watch them do everything. Travis Pastrana and his crew are ridiculous. They go full out on every extreme sport and crazy idea they can think of. The call was about having Tempest come out to show Nitro Circus how to freerun! It would be so sick to get on that show. Fingers crossed.
The other highlight of the day was a nice little training session by the LA river. I found a sloped dirt bank to practice wall flips. Today was my first day trying wall flips since my knee surgery. My technique was a little off, but my knee held up and I felt great. Looking forward to getting back to inverted wall tricks. It's a great feeling flipping off a wall. The progression continues...

Crunch time

Blogs always start off with good intent and then they become stale and forgotten. Mine has fallen into that demise. Let's see if I can't get back on track.
My knee has healed better than I thought it was going to. Most of the pain is gone and I have a good range of motion which has lead to more training. The team and I have been training for the Red Bull competition coming up at the end of May. Every one is stoked to go to Vienna. Training hard in the gym learning new tricks, training outside and conditioning with Crossfit. Mike at Valley Crossfit has been working with us to make us stronger than we could be with our own training. The comp is less than four weeks away so now it's crunch time.