Rendevous 3 !! Day One. 

As I write this my waterlogged trainers are cooking in the oven ready for the indoor part of Rendevous 3 tomorrow. Whilst I don't want to let the issue of weather dominate to much it needs mentioning that it was a SOAKING WET and FREEZING Saturday without much respite.

 Laura's shoes (Photo credit: Brian Appiah Obeng)

When I woke up this morning I wasn't sure about going. With respect to my last blogs and reservations about how much Parkour was for me, what was I going to gain? And if I didn't go with the right spirit (for what would undoubtedly be a 'take no prisoners' kind of day) was there any point in going? Thinking that it better to regret something you have done than you something haven't and knowing it was a one off opportunity to potentially re-find my passion; the one which led me to start a blog, even to consider getting "PARKOUR!" tattooed in giant letters somewhere on my body, the passion which being bereft of was making me very blue, I decided to suck it and see.

My expectation of Rendevous 3 (apart from a mark in the calender as a reference point for training and celebrating how far you had come) was to find a spirit of unity, a community learning from each other. At times it had all that and at times I really felt 'part' of something which made the weekend very special.

We met at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank on Saturday morning. The atmosphere was a bit tense with people not wanting to seem unfamiliar nor at the same time over familiar with each other or with well known practitioners that they might have wanted to meet for a long time. There were many fresh faces mixed in with Parkour Generations class regulars, people who had traveled a long way and I was interested and glad to see a few girls who were from various communities like Scotland and Sweden.

Southbank on a sunny day (Photo credit: Shi )

The group 'warm up' on one of the abandoned car park style roof spaces started the days' events. It was loud, wet and overcrowded with waves of monkey walkers stalling in flocks and causing traffic jams across what was essentially a giant muddy puddle filled with gravel and bird poo. There was much unintelligible shouting and some (unnecessarily complicated for a group so large with restricted views?) upper body work and all in all it was as a steaming blur. Next we went on to a bigger space this time an actual car park to continue the 'warm up; which I would prefer they just called conditioning as it was far less a gradual unfatigued increase of body temperature, heart rate and joint mobility and much more a test of will. More shouting, this time from us as we counted out sets of 10 aloud, some people clearly enjoying the shouting/group euphoria (and good on them) one voice in particular epically loud :.). I find big groups doing the same thing at the same time part exhilarating and part plain daft so it's fair to say rightly or wrongly I didn't enter fully into the spirit at this point.

We then split in 5 groups for the rest of the day with 5 different zones and focuses around the Southbank (in case this means nothing to you Southbank = giant theater/arts building with ugly/cool architecture made famous in Jump London and neighboring other cultural centers like the British Film Institute all running alongside the bank of the Thames . Each zone was like a whole Outdoor class and I found it really strange and really great to to 5 sessions back to back.

Zone 1

It was great to get the first task; to focus on and direct my thoughts into something, to start to collect information, start getting a rhythm...just start basically! I got on with the cat leaps, climb ups, monkey walks along a wall etc fairly confidently and respectfully in a way I couldn't have 6 months ago albeit with some adaptions where I didn't have the strength.

Forrest decided we were thinking too much about what we were doing so set the task of running as fast as possible across a patch of boggy field, sliding on our bums, trying to get up as fast as possible and then do the wall run 10 times over.....

which is why my shoes are now in the oven.....

and I wrung a bucketful of brown water out of my trousers by 12.30 and still smell like Glastonbury....

I didn't think it was the best idea I had ever heard with a day of training ahead in which trying to stay as warm and dry as possible made sense but I felt like 'in for a penny, in for a pound' and made the decision to say 'yes' to as much as possible this weekend. And it was fun.

Jogging (Photo credit: Marc Brock)

Zone 2

We managed to destroy the railing where we were cat balancing and doing underbars to the point where Tracey had to bolt them back together and I heard that by the time group 5 had left there was not much of them left standing. We did some routes and again I kept moving in a way I couldn't have before and so hard work had paid off. I didn't always keep up but I found some inertia and flow and enjoyed it.

Zone 3

Chau helped me to learn a palm spin, I can't say I cracked it entirely but again I said 'yes' and gave it a go. It was very interesting and very useful to be spotted in the true sense of the word in that you get actively lifted out of the air if you go wrong rather than someone just offering their body as a cushion before you hit the ground (!). The other vault routes showed my lack of range as where other people were getting creative I had to just get over the obstacles with my limited although effective resources. This didn't stress me out too much but I would enjoy being able to play more and mix it up a bit. Daniel Ilabaca said an interesting thing about the idea of trying against the idea of being in the moment which I took to mean (and am paraphrasing as) 'when we practice our skills, taking balancing as an example, we don't need to 'try' and get these things right, the aim of our training is instead to have our mind and body working together so that we are in the moment because from that the natural ability follows.' After this prompted a bit of a round of applause he said something along the lines of 'these aren't my words, they are yours, it just happens to be me saying them right now'. I took this to be a conscious attempt to avoid gaining status and to emphasize a belief that we share and equally own this knowledge of our body which I found really refreshing to hear.

Zone 4

Here Annty and Brian were leading some traversing of the windows and vaults over the table chairs and benches. It was a really nice station with a lot of movement with loads of options at different levels. I particularly liked that the rows of tables gave a really good pattern and rhythm to move through and it occurred to me that that the much sought after flow is only possible after first having rhythm.

There was a cat balance on a very high wall (about 15-20ft), wide but curved and wet and I gave it a careful go, though about half way along, fear intact I slipped and gave the security guard a heart in mouth moment but after getting Sebastian Goudot to spot me I did it which made me quite happy.

Zone 5

This place had 5 round wet railings which are my personal Parkour hate. At this point being very tired and having worked a lot I felt like it wouldn't be so bad to quit now...but I didn't!!!! Hooraaay!!!. Thomas (Couetdic) really helped me out and spent some time on a jump from a rail to cat thing with me . Of all the tutors he knows my abilities the best and thought that it was a good level for me even though I had looked and decided with the wet and the tiredness to miss it out. I did it a few times and really appreciated the luxury of having someone around who has a knack for finding fun challenging things to do.

Yann (Hnautra), he of the craziness that I had not yet fully appreciated, was working with us here and made us play some games to stress our obligation to play. Doing tandem vaults holding hands with someone else sounded like a recipe for notching my phobia up to serious proportions, it being one handicap too many. As it turned out it was the most fun and most hilarious thing I did all day, I screamed like a girl in a hen party but I think it cured a bit of my stress as it was so ridiculous that I lightened up. After that we did wall runs up human pyramids (!) and I left the last station with a big smile on my face (and Yann left with a raised eyebrow and tinnitus from my screaming debacle) and an insight into real Parkour 'playing' i.e which to me is not so much conditioning games (fun factor dubious!) and more rules to games that sound that they were invented by the minds of drunken schoolboys.:.)

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Rendevous 3 Day 2.

I had a brilliant day. My flatmate had to peel my energy of the ceiling and dilate it with cheap chinese food.

It was brilliant for many reasons. I found knowing that I had all day took the pressure of feeling like I had to be in the zone straightaway so I was more relaxed and happy. We had started with a 25 min run around the canal near the Westminster Sports Center which was all good. Then came warm up/conditioning. I was more than warm and pretty tired so in all honesty I didn't do all of the exercises and had no intention of doing them. Is this terrible? I figured ripped muscle fibers are going to gain worse tears rather than strength after the day before but maybe my knowledge is inaccurate? Judging by the subsequent 3 days of fatigue and plethora of pains I'm not even the slightest bit bothered that I committed the Parkour crime of not conditioning to death (!) as I gave it my all for the rest of the day.

We then split into groups to do 4 stations, 3 indoors and 1 outdoors. It is all quite a blur because this part of the day lasted over 4 hours which is a lot of movement. From the off, jumps were a little bigger, higher or further than I was comfortable with and normally I would stress about them anyone adjusting them 'for a girl' but it kept me moving and everyone was very encouraging. I'd picked a group with as few Parkour Generation regulars as possible like yesterday to avoid feeling any sense of expectation or an urge to make comparisons. I really enjoyed watching everyone in my group, some of them had some real flair and dynamism and i felt the irrepressibility of their energy provide a stream to carry me along.

 Scaffolding cube (Photo credit: Marc Brock)

One of the stations was a scaffolding cube with lots of junctions and variations of bars providing opportunities for precision jumps, laches, and underbars. It's density and height meant that there was a lot of suspension, rotation and swing within the small space so it was a beautiful station to watch as it was so alive with movement. It quickly became my favorite station and I could do much more than I did on the scaffolding in Evry. I wish I could go back and have another go! Yann was on this station and I really appreciated his 'lead by example' approach and when he talks about playing, being open and not analyzing and planning too much he really lives and breathes it. Quite often he would kind of slide down something the wrong way round and end up in a heap on the floor when something didn't go 'as expected'. I loved watching someone who wasn't inhibited about looking skillful or in control but who could also share breathtakingly fluid and dynamic routes and constantly radiated energy.

By the time I got to the 3rd station I felt like I had built up such an inertia that , even if I had slowed down or even stopped before an obstacle where if I were unsure of my ability, rather than it being a dead stop where it was easier to bail, the inertia meant that part of me was already projected over and it was now an easier option to move through the fear than to be stopped by it.

RDV3 Question and Answer session, Yann Hnautra, Chau Belle and Stephane Vigroux (Photo credit: Marc Brock)

The last station rail balancing which is usually my favorite. This time it seemed that I balanced with nothing but willpower it seemed as the normal tiny twitches that keep you balanced had turned to the shakes and lurches of soggy tired muscles. Then game the bestest bestest bit of the day. In our last 5 mins the whole group was asked to simultaneously jump down from a rail balance and do a wall run arriving together on top of the wall within 10 seconds. Logic would say that being very fatigued combined with 8ft+ wall, which at the best of times provoked a scrabblefest, would equal definitely needing a bunk up. During the first 7 or 8 attempts the guys clocked that I was preventing the whole group being up within 10 seconds and started to hold back to put their hand under my foot and then get themselves on top after. At this point I started to realize that I would have to be done and up by 5 seconds for them to be up by 10 seconds. I ran at that wall with such a single minded imperative to run up it that I bobbed up without any assistance apart from the feeling I had been wafted there by angels. I have rarely had such focused moments in my training when I'm not just attentive and in the zone but I'm totally consumed by a desire to achieve a massive action in moments. I doubt that I can actively recreate it but I will look forward to finding my way back to that feeling.

We finished with questions to Majestic Force and Parkour Generations, unfortunately dominated by many questions about historical Parkour conflict and 'shoulds' of training and only a few about the future and the 'coulds'. Finally, I managed to get them to squeeze in one question (no Dave I did not do a hand waving dance! I just happened to be quite animated:.)).The question was; were Chau and Yann as crazy as they are now when they were teenagers or is it because they are high on 20 years of PK adrenaline? If so if I do Parkour for 20 years will I be as crazy as them? As usual they didn't really answer the question (!) but they spoke of open minds and open hearts and I got the vibe. I left with the feeling that the idea of a 'true' Parkour spirit was actually something quite different to what I had once thought. I used to identify it as a mentality of strong mind and other catchphrases about working hard and being disciplined which, although this is part of it, misses out what I strongly feel is the priority.A strong corporeal spirit, a bounce, a irrepressibility, a feeling of being larger than life, of being psyched up; uninhibited and unapologetically a physical being.

Laura at sunset (Photo credit: Brian Appiah Obeng)

Saturday 13th December 2008

December Sydney Girls' Jam IV

Location: Manly Beach, Sydney

 For days before it had been pouring with rain and it looked as if the highly-anticipated girls' jam on Manly beach would be a washout! But somehow the heavens parted to let sun through although all the girls brought their own sunny and cheerful dispositions with them (that may have helped with cloud-parting). At 11am, a group of girls got on the ferry from Circular Quay to Manly Beach, where we did the warm ups and stretching on the beach. We experimented with wall-runs (settling on wall-climbs) and the girls practised their vaults over different obstacles on the beach. Girls joined us at different times of the day, a combination of new girls and girls who had been training for the past year and it was great to see everyone eager to practise together.

  The girls were going for it, vaulting over walls, signs, table tops, climbing up monuments and jumping off the pier. Anything went (and did) and eventually we stopped for lunch at well past 3pm.After all that running around, a bit of cooling off was needed and we headed into the ocean for a swim. At the end of 2008, it's great to finish off the year with a mix of new and old faces in the Sydney traceuse community. And best of all, it ended 2008 on a high note and with everyone ready to go in 2009!

Sunday 30th November 2008

Umea Indoors Girls' Workshop 

Location: Umea, Sweden