Christmas Day.....!
u tubed various pk communities, blane, interviews with stephane, girl parkour etc..
would go out and train but got flu like nastiness and have barely been out of bed most of the day....
many parkour thoughts to be had....as 200 and fine approaches this is where i stand on the parkour, the training, the blog....
my playing will continue in 2009 after feeling for a while that it might not...i want to think of it as playing not training, to reassert the lightness, the curiosity, the discovery.
why train?...
the focus and attention that pk necessitates quiets my chattering brain, fills up the spaces with touch that would otherwise be filled with cyclical dialogue. It's meditative and in that way very healthy, just as long as i keep sentences that contain should in out of my head, i should be able to do that, i should do that again, i should try harder, i should have this down by now. Who for?..most of the time if im fufilled and focused the voice inside my hand is urging again, again, the motivation is inherent, if the voice isn't there why carry on? certainly not to get a certificate from the school of parkour saying i passed, achievement seems meaningless if you hated the process that got you there.
what do i hope to achieve?..
whilst i would like to be more confident and consistent with certain recognisable 'moves' the thing i strive for most is learning to connect to that state of being where movement is fulfilling. I really really enjoy doing simple stuff over and over again, small vaults, small wall runs, monkey walking along walls, and from that comes that moment that i love when you make an adaptation and its suprises you (e.g both feet track up directly underneath you rahter than arching round the side...never did that before?!; why now?..because i was ready). There was a time where a simple along a wall was a huge deal and so there is a risk im coasting on past endeavours but these movements are the nuts and bolts and refining anf refining them is never time wasted. In fact i dont want to challenge myself with fear and risk together at all, maybe them both seperately but not together for the moment. Challenging my thought processes, energy levels and creativity are also good focuses for me right now.
how to train?
mostly on my own i reckon...which is a shame in a way as i love seeing everyone at classes...im not the best of students right now. Its a strange thing as in other movement activites i practise i love feedback, i can do something with it, in fact i always do something with it; ' next time tuck in your chin', 'look up', 'more energy', 'less energy', etc and i can respond. With Parkour however my body is doing its own thing, i can listen, and i can notice, and recognise variations but im unable to make an instant change; 'get your foot up = 'no! ill bang my knee!'and 'land with your left!' elicits the response 'its a miracle i landed at all!'. Its very limiting and im sure it will change but for now i have to accept that it aint happening for me in certain environments. I also have a few training buddies now and it will be good to have them for company if possible.
and as for the blog...its been a bit of a trial and an embarrasment at times to feel you are constantly talking about yourself and your vunerabilities. But its also been a great source of insight, a place to make decisions and a source of interesting discussions as well as support both of which i am really grateful for.
Thankyou!
merry christmas...xx
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 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 Centre which was all good. Then came warm up/conditionning...i was more than warm and pretty dam tired so in honesty I didn't do all of the exercises and had no intention of. Is this terrible?...i figured ripped muscle fibres are going to gain worse tears rather than strength after the day before but maybe my knowledge is inaccurate?. Judging by 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 conditionning 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. Its 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 PK Gen 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 irrespressibility of their energy provide a stream to carry me along.
One of the stations was a scaffolding cube with lots of junctions and variations of bars providing opportunites for precision jumps, laches, and underbars. Its 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 favourite station and could I 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...when he talks about playing, being open and not analysing and planning to much he really lives and breathes it. Quite often he kind of slide down something the wrong way round ending up in a heap on the floor when something didn't go 'as expected'. I loved watching someone who wasn't inhibited about looking skillfull 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 when if I had slowed down or even stopped before an obstacle if i was unsure of my ability, rather than it being a dead stop where its easier to bail the inertia meant 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.
The lastt station was rail balancing which is usually my favourite. This time it seemed i balanced with nothing but willpower as the normal tiny twitches that keep you balanced had turned to the shakes and lurches of soggy tired muscles. Then came 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 an 8ft+ wall, which at the best of times provoked a scrabblefest, would equal definately needing a bunk up. During, the first 7 or 8 attempts the guys clocked that i was preventing the whole group being up by 10 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 realise i would have to be done and up by 5 for them to be up by 10. I ran at that wall with such a single minded imperitive 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 im not just attentive and in the zone but im totally consumed by a desire to achieve a massive action in moments...i doubt 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 Pk Generations, unfortunately dominated by many questions about historical pk conflict and 'shoulds' of training and only a few about the future and the 'coulds'. I managed to get them to squeeze in one finally question (no Dave i did not do a hand waving dance! i just happened to be quite animated:.)).The question was; were Chau and Hann 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 Pk 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 '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.
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 Centre which was all good. Then came warm up/conditionning...i was more than warm and pretty dam tired so in honesty I didn't do all of the exercises and had no intention of. Is this terrible?...i figured ripped muscle fibres are going to gain worse tears rather than strength after the day before but maybe my knowledge is inaccurate?. Judging by 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 conditionning 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. Its 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 PK Gen 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 irrespressibility of their energy provide a stream to carry me along.
One of the stations was a scaffolding cube with lots of junctions and variations of bars providing opportunites for precision jumps, laches, and underbars. Its 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 favourite station and could I 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...when he talks about playing, being open and not analysing and planning to much he really lives and breathes it. Quite often he kind of slide down something the wrong way round ending up in a heap on the floor when something didn't go 'as expected'. I loved watching someone who wasn't inhibited about looking skillfull 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 when if I had slowed down or even stopped before an obstacle if i was unsure of my ability, rather than it being a dead stop where its easier to bail the inertia meant 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.
The lastt station was rail balancing which is usually my favourite. This time it seemed i balanced with nothing but willpower as the normal tiny twitches that keep you balanced had turned to the shakes and lurches of soggy tired muscles. Then came 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 an 8ft+ wall, which at the best of times provoked a scrabblefest, would equal definately needing a bunk up. During, the first 7 or 8 attempts the guys clocked that i was preventing the whole group being up by 10 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 realise i would have to be done and up by 5 for them to be up by 10. I ran at that wall with such a single minded imperitive 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 im not just attentive and in the zone but im totally consumed by a desire to achieve a massive action in moments...i doubt 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 Pk Generations, unfortunately dominated by many questions about historical pk conflict and 'shoulds' of training and only a few about the future and the 'coulds'. I managed to get them to squeeze in one finally question (no Dave i did not do a hand waving dance! i just happened to be quite animated:.)).The question was; were Chau and Hann 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 Pk 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 '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.
Monday, December 15, 2008
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.:.)
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.:.)
Friday, December 5, 2008
On the couch with heartonsleeve
....i'm having a bit of Parkour crisis.
If I viewed Parkour as an isolated activity within my life there would be no trouble. But as I believe that nothing exists in isolation my Parkour practise was quite life changing and now my Parkour crisis is having equal impact. I really don't want to sound like overdramatic as I am very heathly, happy and safe in other ways and as such my crisis relates to an internal landscape not equatable with the diffculties of the external world. So what im sharing (for your reading pleasure (?!:.()is a little trip to the psyche of heartonsleeve. Maybe even a bit of therapy for me.
I have developed what im now calling a phobia in that it is irrational and behaviour affecting. I remember posting the oddity of losing the ability to slide monkey a month back. This wasn't a movement memory inability as i still understand how to do it but rather a mental block. My confidence over other elements like jumps, balancing and height have come; and interestingly gone depending on fatigue, frequency of practise, state of mind, level of (percieved) pressure from tutors if it was in a class and best of all time of the month (true)but then come back again as I eased off with the pressure and broke down tasks. Unfortunately the vault issue...and dudes...i mean at times step vaults STEP VAULTS!! (of which i consider myself queen as i used them in place of any other option:) has only grown in gravity. My mind has wound a bundle of neurons around that thought of vaults and fused it with fear, annoyance, timidity, and defeat. I think its a misplaced step to defend itself in some way from me constantly pushing the fear obstacles. Even writing this makes me uncomfortable, i actually feel sick and vunerable thinking of vaulting. I would rather go to the dentist for filling. Its a confidence issue and as usual Parkour is holding a mirror up to yourself. You can shout at a wall but at the end of the day you are only experiencing yourself of which the touch from the wall has stimulated the edges of your being and know your reeling, or buzzing or bummed from that contact.
so right now im not practising at all which is sad. I could go out and do everything else but vaults but then i would be one step closer to the potential of being able, or asking myself if i was able, to do one which is an unthinkably uncomfortable thought.
dudes..im in trouble. fight it or rest?
If I viewed Parkour as an isolated activity within my life there would be no trouble. But as I believe that nothing exists in isolation my Parkour practise was quite life changing and now my Parkour crisis is having equal impact. I really don't want to sound like overdramatic as I am very heathly, happy and safe in other ways and as such my crisis relates to an internal landscape not equatable with the diffculties of the external world. So what im sharing (for your reading pleasure (?!:.()is a little trip to the psyche of heartonsleeve. Maybe even a bit of therapy for me.
I have developed what im now calling a phobia in that it is irrational and behaviour affecting. I remember posting the oddity of losing the ability to slide monkey a month back. This wasn't a movement memory inability as i still understand how to do it but rather a mental block. My confidence over other elements like jumps, balancing and height have come; and interestingly gone depending on fatigue, frequency of practise, state of mind, level of (percieved) pressure from tutors if it was in a class and best of all time of the month (true)but then come back again as I eased off with the pressure and broke down tasks. Unfortunately the vault issue...and dudes...i mean at times step vaults STEP VAULTS!! (of which i consider myself queen as i used them in place of any other option:) has only grown in gravity. My mind has wound a bundle of neurons around that thought of vaults and fused it with fear, annoyance, timidity, and defeat. I think its a misplaced step to defend itself in some way from me constantly pushing the fear obstacles. Even writing this makes me uncomfortable, i actually feel sick and vunerable thinking of vaulting. I would rather go to the dentist for filling. Its a confidence issue and as usual Parkour is holding a mirror up to yourself. You can shout at a wall but at the end of the day you are only experiencing yourself of which the touch from the wall has stimulated the edges of your being and know your reeling, or buzzing or bummed from that contact.
so right now im not practising at all which is sad. I could go out and do everything else but vaults but then i would be one step closer to the potential of being able, or asking myself if i was able, to do one which is an unthinkably uncomfortable thought.
dudes..im in trouble. fight it or rest?
Monday, November 24, 2008
im pink therefore im spam!
i feel a bit weird lately writing this blog...in particular about what to share...
sometimes i feel like writing...did'nt do Parkour today...couldn't be bothered!!! (inspiring stuff !!!)
or
balanced on something...mmmmnnn it was nice...why? dont know!....but it was nice...!
i looked at the tally of hits etc and in one way its cool that it finally got beyond 5 from when my Mum read it ...and (then got past 10 from when Shi started reading it...haha lol thanx Shi..I owe you!). In another way though knowing that people are reading makes me more concious of wondering...why do we choose to find out about some people and not others?
and why do we choose to listen to or disregard what we discover from others?
Which brings me to something else....more and more I am noticing..(and this noticing is how part of how i rate 'improvement' in Parkour in terms of a growing awareness) when i am seeking information from inside and when from outside. Lately I have been searching for new sources of outside information from a wider net of physical activities and from a wider group of people. We will always go out from ourselves to a community and this is really great and i suppose also healthy and neccesary. Essentially though Parkour as a way of spending time develops awareness of the senses; touch, sound and visual. There will never be a lack of kineasethetic (spelt wrongly again im sure) information whilst you are living and breathing and so there is endless feedback to be had with yourself.
I have a chip on my shoulder about society in general in that i think its to 'virtual' and 'artificial' and not ' real' enough anymore in that we are protected by a nanny state and live outside our natural rhythmns and impulses. In relation to this problem Parkour becomes an activity where we can immerse ourselves in the viseral and corporeal, we are boss and call the shots, and no one can knows our way other than ourselves...
im listening to all those physical cues from inside as much as possible and maybe this way i will never be without a teacher.
Thanx to everyone who has posted messages to me or is following the blog....ill take a look at yours..
xxxxxx
sometimes i feel like writing...did'nt do Parkour today...couldn't be bothered!!! (inspiring stuff !!!)
or
balanced on something...mmmmnnn it was nice...why? dont know!....but it was nice...!
i looked at the tally of hits etc and in one way its cool that it finally got beyond 5 from when my Mum read it ...and (then got past 10 from when Shi started reading it...haha lol thanx Shi..I owe you!). In another way though knowing that people are reading makes me more concious of wondering...why do we choose to find out about some people and not others?
and why do we choose to listen to or disregard what we discover from others?
Which brings me to something else....more and more I am noticing..(and this noticing is how part of how i rate 'improvement' in Parkour in terms of a growing awareness) when i am seeking information from inside and when from outside. Lately I have been searching for new sources of outside information from a wider net of physical activities and from a wider group of people. We will always go out from ourselves to a community and this is really great and i suppose also healthy and neccesary. Essentially though Parkour as a way of spending time develops awareness of the senses; touch, sound and visual. There will never be a lack of kineasethetic (spelt wrongly again im sure) information whilst you are living and breathing and so there is endless feedback to be had with yourself.
I have a chip on my shoulder about society in general in that i think its to 'virtual' and 'artificial' and not ' real' enough anymore in that we are protected by a nanny state and live outside our natural rhythmns and impulses. In relation to this problem Parkour becomes an activity where we can immerse ourselves in the viseral and corporeal, we are boss and call the shots, and no one can knows our way other than ourselves...
im listening to all those physical cues from inside as much as possible and maybe this way i will never be without a teacher.
Thanx to everyone who has posted messages to me or is following the blog....ill take a look at yours..
xxxxxx
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
kinaesthesia!
I have been thinking again about this issue of confidence after a few more emails from other traceuses via the net. One thought is it can be intimidating to consider if you can 'replicate' a particulary impressive move that you have seen someone else doing. Recently I have been trying to bear in mind is that how something looks and how something feels is very different and my current plan of listening to the movement from the inside and less watching it from the outside has been helping, especially as my level of anxiety jumping over things is lower. Yes!...i can safely say at times i'm 'breezing ' over things !. Its significant that before Parkour was as widepread as it is now, people learned from videos on the net and so if you are making a video you are going to 'display' movements that come across strongly in a visual medium. To much focus on the visual element can overule the kineasthetic element which is actually where the fun is at. At the moment I am instead thinking that every move from the start of the route to the end is as important as the next, from the very first subtle shift on weight to move forward to the moment you come to a stop. It feels safer too...:.)!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Slow burn.
I have recently done a total 180 change in attitude from the one I had when I first began this blog. It's coming up to 11 months since I first attempted Parkour. I'm not counting the Benny Hill style incident involving my flatmate and I and a brick wall and a tree that occured after watching Jump London on T.V. 'Attempting' Parkour was the phrase I spied in my hospital notes as the reason for my hand injury which stung slightly but that first post Jump London debacle was indeed a dismal attempt.
On Thursday I got over a 10ft wall. I could go into detail (wall surface, width of ledge blah blah blah) but instead I state that never ever ever pre January 2008 would I have been able to get over that. That's the beauty of structured training, you can't help but improve. Often if you ask a traceur how long they have been practising they will answer like a child or a recovering alcoholic: knowing exactly how many months it has been since their life turned a new corner. Similarly they will often make a distinction between when they 'played' at Parkour and when they 'got serious' and the structure began.
11 months ago after the passion was ignited and an idea for a once a week bit of Parkour fitness turned to an obsession, the desire to improve exploded and I began to get ambitious. Phrases like 'be able to do', 'achieve', 'get good' filled my vocabulary. I relished conditioning to agony as it felt like a passion that intense could only be aserved through a baptism of fire and I wished it could be more intense...to suffer everyday so I could be sure of 'getting there'...to my ambition. I was frequently scared, then high from adrenaline....and babbling like a idiot. Its a wonder all the people who i trained with then and who I now consider friends managed to put up with it.
In place of the single mindedness is now opposition to the struggle and a little also to the structure. The part of my life where i played was brief...I quickly got into dance...very structured and became a teenage girl...self censoring and cautious. Play itself is often inherently structured anyway motivated by intrinsic goals rather than external ones. So now i find that although I keep counting the months i'm not trying to keep track of the path so rigidly and just seeing where it goes.
On Thursday I got over a 10ft wall. I could go into detail (wall surface, width of ledge blah blah blah) but instead I state that never ever ever pre January 2008 would I have been able to get over that. That's the beauty of structured training, you can't help but improve. Often if you ask a traceur how long they have been practising they will answer like a child or a recovering alcoholic: knowing exactly how many months it has been since their life turned a new corner. Similarly they will often make a distinction between when they 'played' at Parkour and when they 'got serious' and the structure began.
11 months ago after the passion was ignited and an idea for a once a week bit of Parkour fitness turned to an obsession, the desire to improve exploded and I began to get ambitious. Phrases like 'be able to do', 'achieve', 'get good' filled my vocabulary. I relished conditioning to agony as it felt like a passion that intense could only be aserved through a baptism of fire and I wished it could be more intense...to suffer everyday so I could be sure of 'getting there'...to my ambition. I was frequently scared, then high from adrenaline....and babbling like a idiot. Its a wonder all the people who i trained with then and who I now consider friends managed to put up with it.
In place of the single mindedness is now opposition to the struggle and a little also to the structure. The part of my life where i played was brief...I quickly got into dance...very structured and became a teenage girl...self censoring and cautious. Play itself is often inherently structured anyway motivated by intrinsic goals rather than external ones. So now i find that although I keep counting the months i'm not trying to keep track of the path so rigidly and just seeing where it goes.
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