The People's Sports Network | War-torn.com

Archive for January, 2010

411 is a DVD video magazine publication dedicated to boarding – whether it be skateboarding, snowboarding, or surfing. With three distinct magazines dedicated to each area, it’s biggest fan following comes from subscribers to it’s skateboarding section.

411′s monthly features pack the most exciting articles, like interviews with both pro and up-and-coming skateboarders and video coverage of most major skateboarding events. The directorial style of each video article makes good use of camera angles to give skateboarders the best experience possible watching them.

For most major competitions, they also make a point of higlighting the turning points within each event that led to the winner’s victory – as well as showing those occasional splashes made by fan favorites to show how flukes and errors cost them the matches.

One of the more attractive monthly features done by 411 involves chaos exhibition skateboarding, where several famous pro skateboarders are invited to just rip and show their best stunts off. These are pure adrenaline-fests with loads of eye candy that generally leave the audience wondering how the skaters pulled those stunts off, as well as giving inspiration to aspiring skateboarders.

Their interviews with pro skateboarders tends as much to the informative as to the personal. They focus not only on the backgrounds and lifestyles of the people they interview, but also ask for tips and demonstrations from these professionals to help their viewers improve their own skating styles. Not always, though. Sometimes these interviews are purely demonstrative, where the pro is asked to do just one thing – strut his stuff and show off how he kicks butt on a board. Like the chaos exhibition matches, these video clips are focused purely on viewer entertainment.

Perhaps one of the most in-demand interview articles from 411 involve a feature on 14 year old Bam Margera, a young icon in skateboarding. This video is a good example of the quality of 411′s articles, showing Bam at home, on tour, being drowned in a bathtub, and strutting his stuff on a skateboard at his favorite practice arenas. Some of his skating teammates also make cameo appearances in segments of the article.

Occasionally, 411 also features documentary-style video articles whenever there are new advances in skateboarding technology that they feel will make a huge impact on the skateboarding world. For these feature articles, they go straight to the developers of the new technology to make sure that their viewers get the most accurate information.

Aside from the quality of the information they provide, however, the other half of the formula for 411′s key to success is the wackiness of their video articles. They’re definitely entertaining to watch – a bit abnormal sometimes, but hey, normal’s boring right? The video clips are all done with a sense of humor bordering on the warped that keeps viewers laughing half the time, when they aren’t busy oooh-ing and aaah-ing over the stunts of their favorite skateboarders.

Currently, 411′s fans have even taken to posting some of their favorite video articles on free video streaming sites like ifilm and youtube. These videos, submitted and sponsored by fans of 411, show just how much people have been enjoying their offerings. The overall mix of exciting video presentation, combined with an emphasis on facts and information tempered with a wacky sense of humor, all conspire to make 411 one of the best choices to get in skateboarding video magazines.

Most of us have trained at one part in our lives. Chances are if you’ve ever taken your training seriously you’ve used a training journal or a training log.

The main difference between training journals and training logs, is what you document in them after each workout or day, etc. Training journals are just that. They are more of a journal rather than a log. They will normally include things like mental health and how you felt during the day or your workout. They can reach a bit into some statistical information but this is normally saved for a training log.

Training logs are generally created of off some kind of a template. For example. Everyday you fill out a form that has the same fields. Things like current weight, daily workout, diet information, are all things that can be put in a training Log on a day to day basis.

I wouldn’t recommend going all one route or all the other, both journaling and logging are important to keep an effective history of your past. I’ve found out through experience and that for convenience sake it’s nice to have two combined together in some way. This way it’s always easy to remember to do both.

Benefits of recording your training
The number one benefit of recoding your training is to have a detailed history to look back on. This can be very useful in times of planning. For example to figure out what has worked for you and what hasn’t. It’s very useful for figuring out reasons for injuries or for times of burnout.

Have you ever sat down and tried to plan out training with nothing to work with? If you have something to look back upon a detailed account of what you’ve done over the past few weeks it’s easy to plan ahead, and to effectively increase your workout intensity, etc to improve for the future.

A detailed journal is also really nice to have just for personal use, and to be able to look back on past months and years, to remember different accounts.

Feel free to reprint this article as long as you keep the following caption and author biography in tact with all hyperlinks.

For more than 30 years I have been running specialized self defence courses and seminars. Over that time I have shown thousands of people how to protect and look after themselves.

Increasing personal safety ALWAYS commences with awareness.

Since most men may be attacked in almost any situation and for a wide-ranging variety of reasons I offer the following advice.

Here is a list of ten simple things that you can do immediately that will increase your safety:

1 – Most men get involved in physical trouble as a result of saying something rude, offensive, tactless, stupid or hurtful. Controlling what comes out of your mouth can keep it in good shape. Think before you speak.

2 – If a fight breaks out in a bar – leave immediately. Go before all the drunks and brawlers start swinging chairs, bottles, glasses and punches. A “free for all” usually starts with just two protagonists. Innocent bystanders often get hit. Those who leave all the fools to bash each other do not.

3 – NEVER attempt to mediate an argument between a man and a woman. Both will cease arguing or fighting with each other and turn on you – the common enemy. If you fear for the woman’s safety, call the police.

4 – Understand that many people these days have a cocktail of drugs and booze in their veins. It makes them argumentative, aggressive and “Mike Tyson-esque.” Avoid people who are “off the planet.” Even a casual glance at them can set them off. Leave them with their own demons.

5 – Don’t make the fatal mistake of thinking that ANYBODY fights “fair” any more. Those days are over – they have been since the John Wayne era! Expect multiple attackers, weapons, possibly both.

6 – The cemeteries are full of dead heroes. Don’t add to their number. Run if you can. There is no shame in avoiding a fight. In fact, running away is smart.

7 – Recognize objects in every room of your home that could be used as makeshift weapons. Home invasion is a growing curse these days due to the unwillingness of our governments to protect their citizens.

8 – THIS IS MORE OF A LEGAL WARNING: Understand that if you allow yourself to be placed in a “compromising” position with a woman, particularly one who is “under-age,” then the woman’s version of events will usually be believed over the man’s version. Do not allow yourself to get into such situations.

9 – Negotiation is a far higher art form than physical confrontation. Do anything reasonable to avoid a fight. NOTHING good ever comes out of conflict. War is proof of that.

10 – When all else fails, your back is to the wall and there is absolutely no other alternative left remember… “it is better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.”

Remember my opening words – “increasing personal safety ALWAYS commences with awareness.” Increase your awareness, mind your manners, know your surroundings and you will certainly improve your safety.

Please feel free to distribute this article. The only condition is that the resource box remains intact and that the article is not altered in any way.

Kayaking Alaska gives boaters an opportunity to enjoy relaxing wilderness scenery or to test their limits in the frozen wilderness. Alaska is home to the nation’s largest national park. Both the park and the state have much to offer beginning and experienced kayakers. Tours and rental kayaks are available for kayak experiences throughout the state.

Le Conte Glacier Bay

Le Conte Glacier Bay is a 12 mile fjord carved out of the mountain range by glaciers. Le Conte Glacier is the southernmost tidewater glacier in North America. It is an active glacier, fracturing and calving constantly, filling the bay with thousands of icebergs.

Kayak day trips through the bay give boaters a glimpse of lush forests, ancient, sheer rock walls, thundering waterfalls and icebergs in every imaginable shape and size. Kayaking Le Conte lets boaters see and experience the majestic and sometimes fierce side of Alaskan nature.

Big Creek on Frederick Sound

The Kupreanof Island coastline offers miles of beaches and coves waiting to be appreciated by sea kayakers kayaking Alaska. Marine mammals in the area include stellar sea lions, porpoises, harbor seals and pacific humpback whales. River otters and bald eagles also call the island home.

Tebenkof Bay

Tebenkof Bay encompasses 65,000 acres of coves, bays and small islands – a dream destination for Alaska kayaking. The area is one of the most remote and wild parts of southeast Alaska.
Tlingit once lived there. No humans reside there now. Black bears, wolves, and Sitka black-tailed deer inhabit the area.

Stikine River

The Stikine River is the largest, navigable undammed watershed in North America. The river flows more than 400 miles from head waters in British Columbia to the Alaskan Delta.
Flat-water paddling the Stikine takes boaters through areas once used by natives and gold-seekers. Kayakers can visit a hot spring, view the towering Cottonwood trees of Ketili River and see salmon spawning.

Prince William Sound

Prince William Sound is said to offer some of the best kayaking in Alaska. 7,000 miles of ocean, river deltas, tidal flats and glaciers make up the Sound.

Shoup Glacier, unique because it can lay claim to not one but two tidal basins, boasts the fastest growing Kittiwake rookery in the Sound with over 20,000 birds and 6,000 nests.

Columbia Glacier, aka the world’s speediest glacier, is currently the largest glacier in Prince William Sound and the second largest glacier in Alaska. The glacier is moving backwards as much as 4 feet per day during the summer months.
Kayakers can take a boat to the glacier then set out via kayak to paddle among icebergs and through bays that motorized boats cannot access. Harbor seals, sea otters, sea lions, bears and whales are likely to be seen. Such areas are what sea kayaking Alaska are all about.

Sitka Sound

Experienced sea kayakers will find wilderness beaches, bioluminescent waters, and experience kayaking in ocean swells, rock gardens, sea cliffs and outer caves while paddling Sitka.
Coastal tide pools and kelp forests abound. Eagles, otters, seals, porpoises and whales call the area home, as do many smaller animals.

Less experienced kayakers will still find plenty of Alaskan beauty to tour.

Tongass National Forest

Tongass National Forest is America’s northernmost rain forest and the largest national forest in America. Almost 17 million acres, or over 20,625 square miles, make up Tongass forest. Saltwater and fresh water kayaking opportunities abound in this part of Alaska.

The Tongass is home to a wide variety of plant and animal life. Black and brown bears, caribou, sheep and goats call the forest home. So do moose, bald eagles, foxes, beavers and other small animals. Swans and hummingbirds are two of the birds boaters are likely to glimpse.

The destinations mentioned here are just a few of the many Alaska kayaking opportunities for beginning and experienced kayakers. Paddling among glaciers, kayaking in sea caves, and seeing Alaska’s wildlife in their natural habitat are some of the reasons kayakers visit the state.