April 23, 2009

Parkour Attemps

So after many long days of only running by myself- I finally got a day to do some parkour drills. Although I would not say we went for a "Parkour Run." We certainly had fun. My good friend Timothy and I took a good stab at Rolling and Speed Vaults, with a little Tic-Tac to Cat Leap impromptu throw in at the end. Which was entirely thanks to Tim's creative eye.
The rolls went slowly at first. Due mostly to an initial fear, attached to anything new. As the practice wore on and my courage to commit to the move improved, the next real issue was flipping myself and landing flat on my back. I could still complete the roll, but it hurt. So more round and less pressing forward. Just let them momentum take me through... Eventually I got one really good set of about 6 in a row. Timothy got 2-3 great ones; when I was not looking of course:( It is worthy of note that I injured my left ankle; pushing off from the wrong foot out of a roll... Doing OK- still walking.
On to to speed vaults. Talk about failing to commit to the moves. The big problem was evenly spacing & timing my steps on the approach to the vault. Being strong enough and clearing the obstacle was no issue. Just really going with good speed and evenly launching; then landing on the same launch leg smoothly to keep up the run. Wow the is tough stuff- Not physically, just getting my head really committed. Grrr... I get a way smoother vault on my left arm. Being right handed...? Eventually we got some smooth vaults over our chosen obstacle; which may have been too tall for our first attempt.
I chose to purchase A.P.K.'s instructional video on Parkour. Enlightening and Clear. But they chose to show many of the moves in big situations. Not in small controlled ways. So looking for smaller ground to practice on is a lens one will have to cultivate to make safe use of the instruction. Let it be said that APK is doing stellar stuff, and I regularly use their site.
Lastly on our walk back Tim spotted a cool spot and we decided to give some Wall-Runs a chance. After a few good shots we decided to add a tic-tac into this and now we were really feeling like we were doing this shit! A guy came out and joined us for a few runs. Good times. Having this guy show up and have a bit of fun with us showed me how cool all this can be. The first words out of his mouth "That looks fun." Yes my man it is! We had a great time and I'll be giving it another shot on Friday. Hopefully next time we can get some pics of all this. Showing me look not so cool:)

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