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 b**$$y FREEZING Saturday without much respite.

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 Pk Gen class regulars, people who had travelled a long way and I was interested and glad to see a few girls who were from various communities like Scotland and Sweden.

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 birdshit. 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 its far 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 theatre/arts building with ugly/cool architecture made famous in Jump London and neighbouring other cultural centres like the British Film Institute all running alongide the bank of the Thames ). Each zone was like a whole Outdoor class and I found it really strange and really great to do 5 sessions back to back.

Ill try an keep it brief so the post is digestible.
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 rhythmn,...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 to 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 rang 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.

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 I find 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 to 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 practise 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 emphasis a belief that we share and equally own this knowledge of our body which I found really refreshing to hear.

Zone 4
Here Aunti 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 rhythmn to move through and it occurred to me that that the much sought after flow is only possible after first having rhythmn.
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 Seb 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 Pk hate. At this point being uber tired and having worked alot I felt like it wouldnt be so bad to quit now...but i didn't!!!! hooraaay!!!. Thomas really helped me out and spent sometime 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, he of the craziness that I had not yet fully appreciated yet, 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 knotching 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 PK '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.:.)