THE PURPOSE AND NATURE OF THIS BLOG. Making a Commitment: Marriage and Parkour

Parkour and everything Parkour related is an endless source of metaphors it seems.



Making leaps of faith, going with the flow, overcoming obstacles.......fair enough they sound like cliches but a life of cliches is the last thing Parkour training leads to. Having just come back from very lovely wedding of a very lovely friend and her very lovely now husband, the topic of life and where (on earth!) it is leading are forefront in my cakefilled being. After sleeping with the traditional piece of wedding cake under my pillow (which is supposed to make you dream of the man you are going to marry) I awoke to the realisation i had dreamt about; walls. To be clear, i'm not obsessed with getting married, far from it, but I am with dreams and the future. Dreams and my Parkour future.



Commitment to making a jump has been a key training issue for me. Finding a way to stick to a descision you have made and not try and turn back mid air has been difficult (ouch ouch groins + railings, shins + walls; the bruises tell the tale). In truth commitment has been a key theme in life in general in the last year. Ever since my arrival back from The Greatest Trip Ever Taken In My Whole Life (catchy title no?), more sedately described as New York and South America 2007, i haven't been able to settle. Again, it could seem another cliched gringo trail abroad but it changed my world so beautifully that I haven't been able to commit to a person, place, or even bedroom since September 2007 as i wanted to feel I could keep moving. Keep moving I have and around a deeply picturesque procession of council flats in Londons most salubrious areas. However, ironically Council Estates have almost brought me the most joys this year. Lying on concrete, on my raindrenced back and looking up at the clouds in after some Parkour agony/ecstacy in some urban jungle has been delicious. In such an unlikely environment as this I was even more suprised that I have never felt so lovely. Or so in love.



And so it seems that love leads to commitment and more suprisingly commitment keeps you moving. Not commiting is like standing in a room with all the doors open but not walking through any of them. So i'm making a commitment to Parkour training and to this blog itself. In some ways it might not seem as important as the act of marriage itself but I reckon if I can't commit to jumping from one bollard to another then i am certainly not ready for anything else! The location of the blog might also not seem as important as if I was in some far off paradise but again I remind myself that the landscape inside is what really matters. And so.....

For better or for worse, in sickest and in health, forsaking all others I going to get stuck in. In this way it seems fitting to add another layer of metaphor to my training by recording it using this blog and by doing so marking a route and leaving a paper trail/virtual trace of my Parkour discoveries on this new course of action.



So as I wish the newlyweds good luck for their journey ahead I also hope for a little for myself. And now im going for a run because just talking about stuff it not the same as doing it.:.)