 Welcome back to School of Calisthenics, it is a Q&A and it's a live special in a retreat in Morsi and we've got eight special guests with us and they got asked to fill in a question out at the beginning where they said if you've got three questions you'd like to ask Tim and Jaco what would they be and they all filled them in with varying degrees of, what's the right word? Allara 2. Yeah, seriousness, so in School of Calisthenics fashion we're going to try and unpack some of those, some will be serious and some will be more light-hearted. That's it, I haven't got anything else to add to that, that was good. It's a bit like question time isn't it, I feel like that, someone's going to start to stand up and give us a right for if we can go out like this. Really? Yeah. So anyone that's seen our Q&As we literally like, it's funny that normally it started off with, I really liked being a question master, I felt like that was quite a prestigious thing to hold to and I like to try and keep them like a secret from Tim unless he'd seen them come in on YouTube or Facebook or whatever and then just actually just seeing the general reaction of like, what do you actually think about this, you've had no time to prepare it and so like if any of the questions, if you've got anything that's different like then just ask away because actually there's the raw sort of answer whether it is just funny or whether it is actually serious what you take on this then. Very fast as himself as a young David Dimbabee. What that mean? But then it's got, then Tim started getting jealous so let's then share it out and so then there's a hierarchy for it, I didn't like it. Well it was you giving out the best information, I was just there to facilitate you to give it out but the year, so will you now get to be question masters which is a prestigious thing to have but the last one, so it got to the point last one it's not gone out yet, not aired yet but it was, I had a couple and then Tim had one, he couldn't stop laughing because he was like, he knew how, yeah you'll get to see that one, the question but open the floor to anybody who, Amy do you want to go first, I'm going to think on you, shally hosts, Amy and Ian. So I've been working on four arms stands for a little while and I can make some air for a few seconds but I can't quite drag myself away from the wall even though I put myself near the wall and I don't even always touch the wall and I'm basically scared of falling in handstand and forearm stand so how do you kind of get over that, this is pretty stupid question isn't it, we had it today, we had a question today so I'm asking about how do you get over the fear, any good techniques on how to fall kind of vaguely safely so forearm stand scares me because I feel like I could end up in quite a painful position like through the shoulders, yeah well handstand over a thousand skydives so I assume you know how to land safely, how to bounce over them, you answer the question today, handstand is a little bit different in the handstand like I totally understand that for a lot of people it's the fear of going over the top I'll give like two versions and then if you can touch on the forearm a bit because it is a little bit different with the handstand we can just rather than kick up against the wall and just constantly relying on the wall that way that it's never going to let me go over the top which feels nice and you can practice being upside down and get comfortable sit down but as soon as you take that wall away you can still just fall over the top and so some people even just kicking up into that position is one of the questions I've asked before is they just how do you even like you're saying starting point kick up against the wall and it's like well I'm actually scared of kicking up against the wall but that's where we recommend doing the the wall walks where you'll go backwards up so if I put my hands on the floor and I'd walk my feet up the wall that way the nice thing about that is we've just been talking about leaves and angles where I can literally if I'm scared as anything I can just stay in basically a press up position with my feet up on the wall and I can just walk a little bit and get close and close and close and 45 degrees might be where I'm comfortable and I'm about to put my pants and I just hang out there but I can still work on my alignment so have a straight line it's just not vertical and as the time goes on you'll get more confidence to go up but whilst you're doing that you're working on that line and you're working on your core strength you're working on licking your glutes to control your hip and you're working on your shoulders to get loads of strength and stability so that would be one and my other would be I'm a big fan of like if we're if we're scared of something to go right let's go and show us what's like the worst case scenario and have a version for that so a lot of time going like from frog stands and like what or a headstand what happens if I go over the top well actually if you were to do if I said everyone try and do a forward roll you put your hands on the floor you put your head to make a triangle like if you're doing a headstand or tripod and you virtually just roll over and your back of your head might brush the floor or not and you'd be there you go forward roll like happy days so actually going up in tension to go into like a frog stand or I'm a headstand and intentionally going I'm going to do a forward roll and just letting your brain go I actually wasn't anything to be worried about just takes away that sort of that fear because the fear of something we were talking about yesterday like fear of it's always tends to be either the unknown of like the future or the past and it's not what's happening in the present moment and just giving yourself like well that is what's worse case happen if I go this I can do a forward roll and as long as you've practiced that then you know that that's safe here the one is actually easy to get used to almost rotating out of it so you're like particularly for your effectiveness good enough so if you're going to go up and over actually you'd be able to put your hands on the floor with your feet on the floor at the same time so if you feel in the air they come through just literally just roll yourself over rotate out of it becomes a semi kind of cartwheel type position we actually find your feet on the ground your hands on the floor and you've kind of just made that safe landing position yeah that's probably actually my foot that's where we would have first gone with a lot of people like we go if you're kicking up and anyone that would do if anyone's got that in their program for tomorrow like just going I will always there's no like when I'm if I'm gonna lose balance there's no well shall I go that way that way it's like I've got a side that always bail to will always do and when you're losing it it's like push off to that side and just land on you when your feet so having a having different bail options is yeah yeah I totally agree the one is the forearm stand the reality of the forearm stand is that you're quite unlikely to go over the top because the shape you're in your firm base of support hands are pushing down and you're actually making that spinal arch position so you really got a crank pretty hard and shit a lot of weight onto the hands to actually feel like you're gonna topple I don't think I've ever gone over the top in the forearm stand even though a lot of people do it against the wall partly I think because the wall gives you some feedback about where I'm space but you'll probably find most of the time as you go for on stand if you don't get it right your feet end up all back on the ground so that one is a little bit about having enough confidence to actually create a tension to get the arch and the handstand and the hand balancing the forearm stand is the same thing often we just say to people the only thing you need to remember in a wall handstand is keep pushing because your people kick up and all of a sudden they panic because upside down they forget to push it around the head with the forehand stand keep pushing you always got a firm base of support to be able to move your body around and the same with the forearm stand if you keep pushing tension down you're gonna keep that upward height and then your chances are you're gonna come down if you stop pushing and you allow yourself to go over and you're not keeping the tension in it I guess you could go over but yeah I think it's that you've got to have a confidence that you need to crank on that extension the back and the bum to try and create that lift but keep pressure down on the floor and Jack go like you're fall like it does happen like one time I walked into the gym and I've been training and he's like he walks up to me and so it looks like someone's taking a red lipstick and drawn it across his forehead and I was like what red raw like literally that long about that thing and we were doing a photo shoot for I had a client after I'd literally been training and then they like came in they were like you're right and I was like literally like it wasn't just like a graze there was actually like blood coming so I had a piece of tissue in my book and I was like I'm gonna do a photo shoot on Friday first one that we've done for a company that we're working with but like he'd hit the ground on there on astroturf and he's done it but put mats down pad it up put cushions down whatever makes it but you've got to get to that point where actually I'm not afraid to fail and I'll deal with the consequences but set yourself up for success or like I know for me like doing like hand balancing stuff in a really small area I don't like lifts and stuff I know it's I'm probably a bit claustrophobic but if I was to do a handstand with loads of space where I'm not gonna hit anything it doesn't bother me whereas if you like right do it now right there next to me it'd be like the skill is exactly the same but having stuff around like is is putting me off so when I'm learning and practicing I want to try and make that feel as safe and as comfortable as possible so I'll have a look tomorrow. I'll give you some coaching tomorrow. Alright next one anybody they're gonna be shy now. What's the story behind the protein powder photo? Is that Tim's question? Have you seen the photo? No. I'll get it off in a minute. I think so Tim well back when I played rugby there was a period where there was a period where my hairdresser became a wife and I've not probably not been that one grown it that long we were it we had preseason one year and one of the lads just went like he was a bit bit of a loose cannon and he was like I think we really cool if like we talk about the back three used to be like the wingers in the forebutt like we'd be a bit of a mini team and then a team I think we really cool if we all had mustaches and mullets so I go I go back home and captain cuts my hair and we leave business at the front part of the back is what we used to say and yeah so so the the mullet became a bit I think I've actually got wax pants on that as well you know but anyway that so the mullet became a bit of a thing and then one of the one of the supplement companies that used to sponsor us needed some photos doing and the woman that ran the business really liked that leather sofa and that's if we sit there there's classy marketing that isn't it absolutely brilliant that's actually still available if you want it still smells so yeah 50 was it what's that quote from a 50% of the time that's enough of that that's the story but the good thing about Google is that's right so it doesn't that was that someone had said something and Tim replied going if make sure like Google search David Jackson rugby mullet and then all these types of things a few other things come up in there as well and that's one of them so I check it past yeah anybody else yeah so when you tell people you know like if you're a comedian and you they say I'm a comedian they go tell me a joke so you they find that quite hard because it's just to I love you like right show me something what's your best party trick what is it like you can just do like in any any sort of you know the pub or whatever what is there anything you'd like you know we answer this week when we first started the business we wanted we went to the Nottingham show show from Nottingham's Dragons Den and there was a it was a pitch to win a three grand grand business so we went in and we pitched up and we did a we're like we definitely went in a vest and shorts we went out of the business part of Tom and he was like in suit and stuff and all the other contestants there were obviously in suits and whatnot so yeah so the board of these people the sheriff was there with his proper like always regain your own and we were like we can explain what kind of things but we'll just show you so we have this partner dragon flag where Dave sort of like I put my shoulders on his knees and then Dave holds me one hand and then like we lower down into this position so really like we've got it and we won't we got the grand and then we went to the red to go to that tea with the show for nothing to go and pick the the checkup and we were like we're hoping that we're gonna get one of these massive checks just like made out of you. I was doing a bunch of checks at home. Brilliant. It's like Robin Hood comes in and nicks it away. Dave was like let's go and shorts and vest again like Dave was at the counterhouse we need to go presentable so what we did is we went in like smart clothes vest underneath and then they gave us a check and they were like can you show us anything like that. We've got a photo of us doing a handstand next to the show of knotting. We stood there with his holding his staff just looking completely amused. Is the photo available? I've had to get it. It's on there. It's cut to the wall. So we generally opt for that one because it looks pretty cool. We'll do one tomorrow. We did say we'd do it tonight and I was like I'm a bit smoked from the session. But then funnily we don't do it very often these days. No. We did a video on it. We did a how to join Cirque du Soleil. We were like we can't guarantee that you'll get into Cirque du Soleil this move but if you're in the Cirque du Soleil it would be one of the ones we expected to be able to perform. It's our most Cirque du Soleil style rubbish thing that we can do. So our act at the Cirque du Soleil would be about 15 seconds and then we'd be off. Like if you can do a dragon flag. I'll try and do you to me. You what? Do the dragon flag. There you go. Says that guy for you. Get a sofa out. The dragon flag. I'll assist the dragon flag. I like the one that Neil's got on here. The second part of that question. Honestly though were you happy? Yeah. The thing that's preceded by how did you get so ripped? Honestly though are you happy? That's because every now and well not every now and again. Regularly Tracy will just get a fan out and go. Look at these guys. Are they happy though? Are they happy? Yeah. Could you look really sad and unhappy? Is that what we're trying? I haven't learnt how to control the anger. Have you saw that out? Yeah. We actually consider ourselves on a serious note. To be massively fortunate to do what we do now. And it's hard. I think everybody works hard these days. Even though one doesn't work hard really. But we get to have a bit of a laugh while we're doing it. And I think that's one of the things that we really enjoy. Like we graft. Like we put a lot of time in. We're fortunate to work with really good people. We've got people like Harvey and Tomo. A guy called Seth and Lani. There's people in that team that is growing. A lot of it affects the training. How we wanted to train was actually we wanted to get back to having fun. And training had got boring. Just in the gym, just doing the same old stuff. Jumping around between programs. I don't know, just doing training because you felt like you needed to. And then Calisthenics for us all of a sudden came to a bit of a... It brought in fun and play back into our training. And we tell this story a lot. But people literally said to us, what are you doing in the gym? Because it looks like you're messing about. You guys like what we've done tonight. You're just messing about. We can do a few more things to play with than we could at the start. And we're marginally better. But I like that sort of stuff. Like just do it because it's fun. But what's that phrase like if you... Get cool pictures from it as well. Yeah, get some cool photos. Enjoy what you do, you never work at any life. I think that's a big thing. And for me as an SNC and working for myself for the last 9, 10 years. It's been hard trying to get established and perform a sport. And get to the point where you achieve what you want to do is that. It takes a lot of effort, time and emotional stress. And I think if we can get now to a point where we just go to work and have a laugh. And we take it seriously as I hope you guys appreciate what we can see. But we generally have quite a good time. They didn't just fall out very often. In terms of training, enjoying it. When Tim really started playing about with some handstands and that. Was when I'd got back into... I think we were talking over dinner. I think I was talking with you in the other dinner about it going. Yesterday going... I've always loved training. I've always loved lifting weights. Part of it ever since I was a kid. Doing 100 sit-ups every night before bed. And then in the morning, regardless from the age of 12 to 80. I just always loved sort of training. If anyone wants to know how he got those out. So is there any 30 year olds listening? Is it just to tell them again? It's 100. Did you see some variations? Like some basketball crunches? Or eat a tortoise. Yeah. Would also work. But it was all baseranks. I wanted to be like... My dream was to be a professional player. Or to play internationally or whatever. But when I was playing rugby, I had that thing at the end of the week. There was a Friday night game. There was a game to get ready for. And when that went away because I had to retire. I've never struggled with motivation for training ever. Until then. It took me a while to get a year before I could run without getting a headache. It was about six months properly to train effectively. But as soon as I could it was like get back in the gym. And then quickly I was like... What am I doing? I'm just doing biceps. One of my arms a bit bigger. I had lost that sort of drive. Which was a bit of a surprise. So then when Tim started playing about with that. I don't know where I'd seen human flags before. But I was aware of the human flag. And sent me on the line of like... Are they all photoshopped? Is it actually possible? And then trying it and going... That feels impossible. Maybe it is photoshopped. But then working out to be able to do that. The first thing we actually did was a back leave. Wasn't it after about three months? Something like that. And actually back then it was like... We could hold it for a second. And that in our head counted. So that was like... That was cool. But it gave me that buzz of like... Something to work towards. And like then... Doing things that you didn't used to be able to do. Was just something that really like... Floats my boat if you like. So I found that that then gives me that motivation I was lacking before. Which I think is a healthy way to approach training. I think a lot of us... And I do it myself. We can easily get bogged down in like... I want to be fitter. I want to lose weight. I want to look this certain way. Which I personally don't think is as... Potentially as healthy as... I just want to be able to use my body effectively. And like... We've talked a little bit about long term... Like progress of like... When I'm 50, 60, 70... Tim's got a little boy now. And like when Tim's 50... He wants to be able to run up the mountain with him. He doesn't want to be... Knackered. Or just still worried about... What do I look like in my wax pants? Which is a concern. But it's more like... Train for an outcome that's... Like mentally a bit more... I don't know what the right word is for that. Like... It keeps you engaged, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And less about what your body looks like. Which I don't think is that mentally... Positive for us all the time. And more like... What can I actually do with my body? And then I'll look however I look. Because a lot of that's going to be trained on. How much you can train? How often you can do it? Or is it not? Yeah. It comes with it. Yeah. I always think we look like gymnasts. And I can do some really cool stuff. They're not in the gym worrying about what they look like. They get that physique as a result of just training... Like a gymnast. And I think no one ever looks at a gymnast and goes... Terrible rig. So actually there's a lot to be said for actually just training... Like a gymnast. And we... Dave turns... Poor man has gymnastics. We don't pretend to be gymnasts. But the principles are the same. Managing your own body weight. And ultimately like physically. As each of us are in different frames and we have different body types that we... We're able... We're structured and built to be able to handle certain amount of forces. So your bone mass is related to how much muscle mass you're able to build. So you can't outgrow your total bone mass effectively. Like it's... I think it's 2.4 times... Your bone mass is how much muscle mass you can actually build. So for me there's something with quite a light frame. Trying to get bigger was never going to work. Because what often you'll find... People hit that 2.4. I think it's 2.2 or 2.4 times. And the only way to get past that is typically... Is to start getting into some steroids and doping. To try and get the additional hormones and stuff that you need. So I spent years trying to get bigger. Put a little bit of weight on. And then after not training for a couple of weeks, body goes right. Get rid of this. This is inefficient. And go straight back down to where I was before. And I never got big. Like... But... So I've talked about it in a few blogs and stuff. But there's some stuff around male dysmorphia. Like the eye struggle with still and have done in the past. And still have that kind of battle about what I look like. And the really interesting thing around male culture these days. Particularly is the pressure on lads. And you see that steroid use now is... So stats came out a couple of years ago. I think last year. When needle banks do more work with people exchanging steroid needles. Than they do with people using class A drugs. And I could go into nottingham. I know tomorrow we don't train there. I've never been there. I'm not associating myself with it in any way. But I know there's a gym in nottingham to go to where I could get steroids. If you wanted to. If I wanted to. Because I know people that have been there. Signed up on day one have been off of gear. Is that freely available. You can buy it on Facebook. If you watch the documentaries and stuff. People have done insights into it. That's a really bad place for us to be. As a fitness and health society. Or particularly male culture. And a lot of it is driven by... Like... Everyone wants to look like a physique model all year round. But the reality is those guys will train for that. They'll shred down and dehydrate themselves. They'll take some photos. And then they'll push those out all year long. Everyone's under this impression that person looks at it all the time. My thing is actually. If I can take my shirt off at any point in the year. And look half decent. And I'm happy. And that's just consistency of training and lifestyle. We don't bulk. We don't... Then bulk and cut. It's not about overeating and under eating and dehydrating. It's just... Keep it balanced. Healthy, natural. Keep it... Keep it simple. A long answer to a random question that I've forced upon you. Are we happy? Yeah, I think... It comes... The thing I was trying to say was like... Then being just happy and being a bit more happy in our body. That like holistic thing of actually like... Is that your question? Like, are you actually happy? It comes back to that we're going like... Ultimately we do all... Like training. We do all these other things we do in our lives. We do them to try and be happy. And like... I know someone that does a different form of training. And that's just because that's all he's known. And he lost like five stone doing it. So he knows it's good for him because he was really overweight. And he hates it. But he carries on doing it. And I'm like... Man, you don't need to hate like training. Like you shouldn't do... A, life's too short for that. And B, trying to look a certain way. That's where I come back to that as I was saying. Like rather than trying to look a certain way. Like trying to achieve something with your body and see what it can do. And then like you'll look how you look dependent on a load of other things. And some of those are completely outside of our control. Like what genetics you were given. And trying to be and look a certain way that isn't even... That you can only achieve through adding in things that aren't natural. Can't be healthy. But mentally as much as anything, I'm quite big on that side of things. One more? Or not really? Do you build cardio into your general workouts and how does that complement calisthenics? So like my... Cardio wise, like my big thing like when I was playing rugby was I was never the biggest and I was pretty quick but I wasn't like absolute jet shoes. Which means fast. My thing... So like I sort of made my thing was like I'm just gonna like outwork everyone and just be the fittest and just basically try the hardest. So like my... I've got a... When we were talking about this it was in another podcast. I started playing rugby when in 1988 when I was six years old at Nottingham I went through all the age groups and only ever played that one club and I got... I know I started in 1998 because I've still got a trophy at home it's the best effort award. Which normally means you were rubbish but you tried really hard. I know. And we've got one of those to give out. We've got eight of those to give out. And I sort of... A part of me like still like you know when you're doing like sport like a particular position you're playing on like the wing or foot. You want to be like the best because you're like if you can do some really cool stuff type of thing and really exciting rather than going like you're just really... You just work really hard. Almost sometimes I feel like that sort of takes a shine of it but it was what I sort of tried to make my thing and so fitness was something that was just like that I can sort of own that if you know what I mean. Just be... Try and be the fitter. I spent a long time... A long time... A long time trying to be the fittest at the club constantly which meant a lot of cardio type of stuff and so if we're doing fitness tests it's just absolutely you know blowing blowing putting everything into it and some of that mentally is about pushing yourself as much as anything so it might not have came with like for me I feel like I've done my fair share of that so now I've got absolutely zero interest in like doing like set routine things to build my cardio up I've started doing it. I mean the first time I've tried to do a 5K I think we tried to do it on the treadmill and I stopped after about a minute because I literally can't do it I can't do it like with no reason there was no reason for it other than I just wanted to do some running to refail over but do part runs at the moment and do I've got a road bike that me and my wife just literally the cardio I do is a pretty I don't have any single cardio at all now unless my wife is doing it and we do something nice that we just do together we go we go on runs to actually just do some nice stuff together but then also I'd like to try I can't help but be competitive so sometimes we rock up a part and I'm like in the car I'm like there I'm just dawdling around today and as soon as I go and I'm like oh that guy! I can't help it I want to dawdle around but I just can't help it and then like biking is more about as you get on the bike and go and explore and see some stuff a little bit like with the training with kind of things like explore what your body can do and try to explore so after the retreats finish we've got our bikes and we're going to go and explore around France and whatnot and get into the apps and see what we'll see if we can get up any hills but that's just more still about just enjoying like that side of training, enjoying the hills good I believe that mine's not that interesting at all mine's microscopic time that I've got available and then prioritising the number of sessions I can do works inconsistent in terms of like it's all over it's all over the place and family life for the last seven months has been a challenge so it's just I fit it in like I'll go for a run, I've got a dog so I walk a lot actually and sometimes power walk which I don't really like that for but I'll just get with a yomp on with a dog but he's a goal retriever so he didn't run well like he's slow, we walk slowly for all day but he's not got much gas if I tried to ram a biker with him I'd be literally 20 metres away he'd be sat on a piss on something sometimes trying to put higher intensity sessions in but a lot of the time I'm tired that's part of my problem and to really have that self-motivation to go and hammer myself in the gym or out for a run or wherever then it's I played rugby when I was younger as well it's very much a speed based I think that's what I've always done so anything was always like sharpers so for me to go out and do a 10k is like the worst thing I could ever imagine so if I can't pace myself so I go for a 5k I'll literally do it as fast as I can and I won't go I've never done a 5k I'll go around again because I'm absolutely smooth so yeah that's pretty much the massive benefits but fits into what you're enjoying and how it fits in I think that just get a holistic approach and what it does for you that is everything, I think we're going to call it a day for the purposes of wrapping it up you don't get caught in question time it's just someone throwing cheese at you so that is the end of the special version of Q&A live if you've got any questions that you want to ask us then put them in the comments below and until our next Q&A thanks