Thanks Dave for very astute comments.:.)
I feel a little bit like apologising to anyone reading the blog. Yes the blog was never promised to be upbeat but instead a tracing of the process of committing to Parkour and working hard at it. The blog was going to be both a document of that process and a place to reflect. But however necessary it was as part of the process of learning i feel sorry for all the time spent......
moaning!
I think if you love Parkour it can be a potentially complex relationship if you let it be. And yes i do agree that as Dave suggested if the love for it wanes the fears take a stronger grip and the physical resitance to pain, to challenge, to healing grows. But also what I love is also moving in every sense and Parkour comes with a potentially much higher price to pay than dance practise does and so i recognise now that although no one wants, or indeed sets out to tear a ligament or break a bone not only we it stop me doing Parkour but it would stop me dancing which is an incredibly rewarding healing exciting activity that i get to do everyday. The thought of gambling with it, or taking lightly the gift that it is being able to properly rip up space and time through you blood and bones is why i first became hesitant as well.
But i feel im back. Watching the Interview with Stephane Documentary reminded me of my first feelings encountering training. That Parkour was something exceptional, exceptionally beautiful yet exceptionally everyday, something exceptionally hard but yet also simple. Watching that night in Vauxhall its great to see it from the outside, you dont remember the pain only that there was pain! each day not doing it is like forgetting to live that day.
I feel that if i questioned should i do Parkour i didn't commit to it...there should be no question. I see now that i am unlikely at least for now to train in the way the french traceurs seemed to and trying to replicate what i thought that meant didn't really always benefit me. But the principles remain the same strong body strong spirit, an obligation to play, generosity and community, following your own journey.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Not a bedtime story.
hullo?......................!
HULLOOOOO..................?
anyone out there?...!!!
golly gosh its cold its dark its february and i have been away a long time.
(unfortunately im not able to train/play/sit for longer than 5 minutes/turn my head to the right most days from chronic back pain which seems to be the love child of multiple abusive parents namely; landing on concrete, sleeping all but on the floor, too much huge rucksack carrying when i was nomadic, lifting scaffolding and staging for my theatre job, and lifting kids in my teaching circus job. Add to that a centre that never got strong again after disengaging from shock during my fall last february, some hard core muscle tightening conditionning unbalanced by just as zealous stretching and then add in some cold weather and a new job teaching a technique that is nototorious for its impact on the body....i find myself in a new phase shall we say. My rehabilition began in earnest this friday after previously only dabbling with various treatments and rest. I am attempting to reboot coupling weekly acupuncture, physio and massage with 4 days total inactivity and painkillers, building up first with pilates and yoga,then long after that maybe a run, a hop, or maybe even a skip and a jump.....this is the most inactive i think i have ever been but im sure its good for me)
the mental parkour never ends...the downside being that each succsessive blog reads less like fascinating tail of physical adventure and more like a therapy session :.(!
However,i feel i have found something worth blogging about after a little walk tonight and im going to share that with you however pyscho babble it may sound rather than more moaning about injury. Tonight, I found another good little spot for training whilst walking. Actually its more of a stretch than a spot, a perfect training regime laid outfrom a to z running alongside the river covering everything from gentle rail balancing, a selection of precisions, some trees, walls, miscellaneuos creative oddities and rounded of with a monolithic wall run and nemesis level precision of the 'one day ...one day' kind. As ever its very exciting to find a training ground, a bit like finding a tenner on the floor; a spot of luck that you can look forward to enjoying later. But just as quickly the fear decided to tag along on my virtual journey.As I imagined playing on each patch the question 'can i do that?' was loaded through the circuit board and came back with no clear answer. I felt the fear and the uneasiness at the thought of facing up to uncertain challenges and started wishing i could make the feeling go away.
For some reason i started to remember a time when i was very young and incredibly scared of the dark. I used to wake up at night, begin to feel uneasy maybe by a goblin shaped slump of dressing gown or creak of floorboards that sounded like intruders footsteps and quickly become paralysed. I could barely summon the courage to call out across the house for my mum and when i did it came out as the smallest, inaudible whimper of a M...ummmm!. The logic i remembered running with was if the spirits hear im afraid they will come for me. And if i hide the fear i will be safe.
Later on and much older i realised the logic that if evil did exist and could fed off my fear to the point where it manifest and hurt me then i was the one 'creating' the evil and the fear by feeding it and that the upside was that i could also make it go away. As a 5 year old fear was inside and i would make it real by letting it live outside me. Conversely as an adult (sort of :.)) the fear feels very much in the world around me and making it go away is the the reverse process of trying to hide it from being inside. The railings are just as innocuous as the dressing gown but the fear still feels like shit.
The similarity with both tiny me and (increasingly larger cake eating) me now is that in both scenarios i would go from feeling safe and happy to vunerable and threatened simply by the question 'what if?' thrown out to the lions of a very active imagination. Previously the idea of finding your boundaries and challenging yourself seemed to me to go lke this;
normal life mostly comfortable, seek out challenges, they tell you about your boundaries when you come up against the fear that guards them. With this in mind Parkour equalled;
its scary dont dont it!
its scary but maybe you can do it anyway?
its scary but you can do it anyway and it feels amazing
its scary so do it,
go find something scary cause you can
go find someting scary cause you should
go find...geez im exhausted.
But actually even without this fear seeking we are testing ourselves all the time; throwing up test questions and then answering them against past, present and future events, forming a neural net than sustains the 'I'. If the answer is truthful it is also often mixed and rarely has the certainity which feels so comforting. Frustratingly I feel constantly trapped by this taunting question that i compulsively ask myself which is ' am i afraid of this?' and in that i give the vampire the invitation to come in, get into bed with me and f*"k me up. The reason this is so annoying is that i was drawn to Parkour as a way to feel free and now engaging with it makes me feel the opposite. But having a walk tonight i thought this; every time my brain sends out the question am i scared? what its actually asking is for feedback for the flipside question it cares about most which is 'are you free?'
and to that question the answer is a certain yes.
and i feel much better.
x
HULLOOOOO..................?
anyone out there?...!!!
golly gosh its cold its dark its february and i have been away a long time.
(unfortunately im not able to train/play/sit for longer than 5 minutes/turn my head to the right most days from chronic back pain which seems to be the love child of multiple abusive parents namely; landing on concrete, sleeping all but on the floor, too much huge rucksack carrying when i was nomadic, lifting scaffolding and staging for my theatre job, and lifting kids in my teaching circus job. Add to that a centre that never got strong again after disengaging from shock during my fall last february, some hard core muscle tightening conditionning unbalanced by just as zealous stretching and then add in some cold weather and a new job teaching a technique that is nototorious for its impact on the body....i find myself in a new phase shall we say. My rehabilition began in earnest this friday after previously only dabbling with various treatments and rest. I am attempting to reboot coupling weekly acupuncture, physio and massage with 4 days total inactivity and painkillers, building up first with pilates and yoga,then long after that maybe a run, a hop, or maybe even a skip and a jump.....this is the most inactive i think i have ever been but im sure its good for me)
the mental parkour never ends...the downside being that each succsessive blog reads less like fascinating tail of physical adventure and more like a therapy session :.(!
However,i feel i have found something worth blogging about after a little walk tonight and im going to share that with you however pyscho babble it may sound rather than more moaning about injury. Tonight, I found another good little spot for training whilst walking. Actually its more of a stretch than a spot, a perfect training regime laid outfrom a to z running alongside the river covering everything from gentle rail balancing, a selection of precisions, some trees, walls, miscellaneuos creative oddities and rounded of with a monolithic wall run and nemesis level precision of the 'one day ...one day' kind. As ever its very exciting to find a training ground, a bit like finding a tenner on the floor; a spot of luck that you can look forward to enjoying later. But just as quickly the fear decided to tag along on my virtual journey.As I imagined playing on each patch the question 'can i do that?' was loaded through the circuit board and came back with no clear answer. I felt the fear and the uneasiness at the thought of facing up to uncertain challenges and started wishing i could make the feeling go away.
For some reason i started to remember a time when i was very young and incredibly scared of the dark. I used to wake up at night, begin to feel uneasy maybe by a goblin shaped slump of dressing gown or creak of floorboards that sounded like intruders footsteps and quickly become paralysed. I could barely summon the courage to call out across the house for my mum and when i did it came out as the smallest, inaudible whimper of a M...ummmm!. The logic i remembered running with was if the spirits hear im afraid they will come for me. And if i hide the fear i will be safe.
Later on and much older i realised the logic that if evil did exist and could fed off my fear to the point where it manifest and hurt me then i was the one 'creating' the evil and the fear by feeding it and that the upside was that i could also make it go away. As a 5 year old fear was inside and i would make it real by letting it live outside me. Conversely as an adult (sort of :.)) the fear feels very much in the world around me and making it go away is the the reverse process of trying to hide it from being inside. The railings are just as innocuous as the dressing gown but the fear still feels like shit.
The similarity with both tiny me and (increasingly larger cake eating) me now is that in both scenarios i would go from feeling safe and happy to vunerable and threatened simply by the question 'what if?' thrown out to the lions of a very active imagination. Previously the idea of finding your boundaries and challenging yourself seemed to me to go lke this;
normal life mostly comfortable, seek out challenges, they tell you about your boundaries when you come up against the fear that guards them. With this in mind Parkour equalled;
its scary dont dont it!
its scary but maybe you can do it anyway?
its scary but you can do it anyway and it feels amazing
its scary so do it,
go find something scary cause you can
go find someting scary cause you should
go find...geez im exhausted.
But actually even without this fear seeking we are testing ourselves all the time; throwing up test questions and then answering them against past, present and future events, forming a neural net than sustains the 'I'. If the answer is truthful it is also often mixed and rarely has the certainity which feels so comforting. Frustratingly I feel constantly trapped by this taunting question that i compulsively ask myself which is ' am i afraid of this?' and in that i give the vampire the invitation to come in, get into bed with me and f*"k me up. The reason this is so annoying is that i was drawn to Parkour as a way to feel free and now engaging with it makes me feel the opposite. But having a walk tonight i thought this; every time my brain sends out the question am i scared? what its actually asking is for feedback for the flipside question it cares about most which is 'are you free?'
and to that question the answer is a certain yes.
and i feel much better.
x
Monday, January 19, 2009
Snow
As a New Years Resolution ( to stop me being a fruit and nutcake) I have started meditating when i wake up and before i go to bed and the image that keeps recurring in my head as i do it is of a huge snowdrift getting deeper and deeper under a layer of silently falling snow. This image connects me with the idea of being empty, which feels really rather freeing and lovely. It does not in anyway connect me with the urge to write a blog!. However, as this blog represents a commitment to document the process of learning Parkour, i will try to write about where i'm at. Inevitably it will connect to Parkour ......everything usually does..... Parkour is everything.
There is such a blizzard of ideas working their way though my life that I haven't known how to start writing this blog, or where to go from here. Being practical; reflections on Thomas' post about Women's Training on Girlparkour.com could be a good start, one of many topics of discussion during the Parkour 'In Person' Forum (written up on http://www.britishparkour.org.uk/index.php?name=Content_6) would be another. Comments on a Somatics workshop i took seem an interesting addition to cover in a post and a very teary and then hugely triumphant moment doing a straddle vault in an acro class nearly 22 years after i was first paralyzed by fear and decided to never ever risk doing it it could add some fire to my verbal meanderings and blaze a heartwarming trail to more sucsess fuelled uplifting blogs of 2009. My NLP (neurolinguistic programming) session about my vault phobia could be a blog in itself but to be honest whilst it brought alot of intellectual and emotional clarity, i still really dont know what happened...
and this brings me to the heart of it....
I don't really know whats happening with me? ....
either inside or outside in the world...
mostly i notice so many words!
words on forums, in person, with friends, traceurs, dancers,acrobats,healers, physio, teachers, experts, children, family, with this blog.....
and so much movement!
repitious training; up the wall down the wall, pirouettes, downward dogs, straight jumps, warm ups cool downs, dancing in clubs, in the living room, in the street, spinal curls, press ups, rugs jogs, railbalances...and hours and hours every day traversing this crazy city.
As traceurs we study our movement, we listen, we train, we seek out experiences, we judge without being able to help it, we share, we make 'informed' decisions about our lifestyle, our training, our goals...but i look at everything i have learned and its nothing. absolutely nothing...the moment i got over the vault that i had built up to have a world of significance that it didnt have i didn't use anything i had 'learned'. There was really no rational reason why i could'nt do this simple thing (but that didn't make it any less of a prison) and so it took someone i really trust saying to me..well then if its not rational, the only thing you can do is just run at it.which was profundly true enough that it cut through my bullshit and i did it. How often do we bring all of ourselves to a movement...to a moment?...and how often does it feel exactly the same as bringing nothing of ourselves with us?
I have been struck by how so much of your life is played out subconciously and on top of the momentum of previous thoughts, actions, or accidents. I live where i live from a chain of events that started 10 years ago when i decided to be a dancer, i broke my hand because of a tiny split second sub concious decision to act one way rather than another. I love the idea of momentum in Parkour, i love how it feels, i love the idea that it can propel me through life like a human cannonball. But right now i feel like learning about movement from stillness, and from emptiness.
So im not blogging till February.
xxxx
There is such a blizzard of ideas working their way though my life that I haven't known how to start writing this blog, or where to go from here. Being practical; reflections on Thomas' post about Women's Training on Girlparkour.com could be a good start, one of many topics of discussion during the Parkour 'In Person' Forum (written up on http://www.britishparkour.org.uk/index.php?name=Content_6) would be another. Comments on a Somatics workshop i took seem an interesting addition to cover in a post and a very teary and then hugely triumphant moment doing a straddle vault in an acro class nearly 22 years after i was first paralyzed by fear and decided to never ever risk doing it it could add some fire to my verbal meanderings and blaze a heartwarming trail to more sucsess fuelled uplifting blogs of 2009. My NLP (neurolinguistic programming) session about my vault phobia could be a blog in itself but to be honest whilst it brought alot of intellectual and emotional clarity, i still really dont know what happened...
and this brings me to the heart of it....
I don't really know whats happening with me? ....
either inside or outside in the world...
mostly i notice so many words!
words on forums, in person, with friends, traceurs, dancers,acrobats,healers, physio, teachers, experts, children, family, with this blog.....
and so much movement!
repitious training; up the wall down the wall, pirouettes, downward dogs, straight jumps, warm ups cool downs, dancing in clubs, in the living room, in the street, spinal curls, press ups, rugs jogs, railbalances...and hours and hours every day traversing this crazy city.
As traceurs we study our movement, we listen, we train, we seek out experiences, we judge without being able to help it, we share, we make 'informed' decisions about our lifestyle, our training, our goals...but i look at everything i have learned and its nothing. absolutely nothing...the moment i got over the vault that i had built up to have a world of significance that it didnt have i didn't use anything i had 'learned'. There was really no rational reason why i could'nt do this simple thing (but that didn't make it any less of a prison) and so it took someone i really trust saying to me..well then if its not rational, the only thing you can do is just run at it.which was profundly true enough that it cut through my bullshit and i did it. How often do we bring all of ourselves to a movement...to a moment?...and how often does it feel exactly the same as bringing nothing of ourselves with us?
I have been struck by how so much of your life is played out subconciously and on top of the momentum of previous thoughts, actions, or accidents. I live where i live from a chain of events that started 10 years ago when i decided to be a dancer, i broke my hand because of a tiny split second sub concious decision to act one way rather than another. I love the idea of momentum in Parkour, i love how it feels, i love the idea that it can propel me through life like a human cannonball. But right now i feel like learning about movement from stillness, and from emptiness.
So im not blogging till February.
xxxx
Monday, January 5, 2009
Obstacles
How is training going you ask?
so what's new?.......and what's old?
Training in snow is certainly new even though they were only baby flakes. Today was my second pk playdate of the year and me and Blue Lou Boyle and the soon to be departing Mr South Africa went to Vauxhall for a few hours. There were some familiar moments; still nervous of the left side slide monkey, still nervous of anything in fact that could catch my feet and send me head first, nothing new here. But there were also moments that were new..smoothing out wall runs to the point where they were pretty nice, lighter than they have ever been, my first rail to rail precision higher than a few feet, and better still it took less than a few minutes to get on with it rather than hours. It was a similar story on Saturday for my first PK venture out of 2009 for a Jam in Latimer Road, smoothing out things, a new ease with other movements, new faces (new to me anyhow but clearly not new to parkour) but with it more well intentioned feedback from people who dont know me, same old same old.
I struggle with this partly because, as someone who looks beginner and is also female, I tend to get quite alot of 'tips'. It seems that a majority of Pk folk, generous and enthusiastic as is characteristic, see me moving, see where I could do it better and tell me how. In all honesty rarely is this useful, partly as there is an assumption made; maybe im doing it a certain way on purpose, maybe its a injury, maybe I am moving with the same aim they are and what they just witnessed was actually a mini triumph for me or just an investigation. This then leads into a conversation (maybe I should just ignore?) to say thanks but and then justify which then sounds like an excuse. And involves talking more, which im already good at and moving less...which isnt the point. On the other hand comments when people say what they see and then the possible implications of that but hold the advice e.g 'you are reaching out with your arms after your legs and that might slow you down' are extremely helpful as they add information to the pot but not judgement. So me being an irritable grouchbag isnt new (:.)!) but my confidence in sticking to working through things the way I desire is, as is the patience to work simply, even though it looks spectacularly unimpressive, and trust in the building blocks im establishing.
Another new thought sprang out of this issue of getting comments from others and for that im grateful, (I would be also grateful if anyone else has thoughts on giving and taking comments...), and this is it,
One of the joys of Parkour is of having the solution to the obstacle and applying it effectively, a solution that you earnt the right to enjoy even more as there was a time when it when you didnt have it as a resource and had to rely on less options. Even now after a gazillion trillion steps good old walking can be enjoyable, its a movement option that we had to learn and movement is always inherent enjoyable (maybe because movement=change=life=good!). Now when someone is pushing for me ( or I push myself) to do something which I find really hard and is so many evolutionary steps away from my current abilities that I can't build a bridge to it, im no longer finding solutions to the obstacles, im instead facing more yet obstacles. Maybe to some this is the point of parkour: finding obstacles in order to solve them, maybe this was once how I saw Parkour, maybe tommorrow it will be the way I see Parkour. Right now I see Parkour as movement than solves rather than searches for obstacles, the more solutions the better. I think life presents enough problems without going looking for them and a challenge that is too hard becomes a problem rather than a gift. I'm interested to see if I do a 180 regarding that mind womble especially as tommorrow i'm going to do something very new and see an NLP practioner about my fear of foot catching, pavement eating,and various other fears related to vaults....definate insight to be gained here as the trade off to my current perspective is maybe not leaving room for incredible feats and huge leaps of understanding. My last NLP session gave me the courage to walk on across hot coals so it will be interesting what a change of state could bring.
Lastly, the best thing that is getting old?; practising Pk ! .....i'm starting to get a process of training that feels familiar, a stock of moves that feel familiar and i grow ever fonder of the ever familiar faces that i get to meet through my Pk trails.
Happy New Year everybody!!
xx
so what's new?.......and what's old?
Training in snow is certainly new even though they were only baby flakes. Today was my second pk playdate of the year and me and Blue Lou Boyle and the soon to be departing Mr South Africa went to Vauxhall for a few hours. There were some familiar moments; still nervous of the left side slide monkey, still nervous of anything in fact that could catch my feet and send me head first, nothing new here. But there were also moments that were new..smoothing out wall runs to the point where they were pretty nice, lighter than they have ever been, my first rail to rail precision higher than a few feet, and better still it took less than a few minutes to get on with it rather than hours. It was a similar story on Saturday for my first PK venture out of 2009 for a Jam in Latimer Road, smoothing out things, a new ease with other movements, new faces (new to me anyhow but clearly not new to parkour) but with it more well intentioned feedback from people who dont know me, same old same old.
I struggle with this partly because, as someone who looks beginner and is also female, I tend to get quite alot of 'tips'. It seems that a majority of Pk folk, generous and enthusiastic as is characteristic, see me moving, see where I could do it better and tell me how. In all honesty rarely is this useful, partly as there is an assumption made; maybe im doing it a certain way on purpose, maybe its a injury, maybe I am moving with the same aim they are and what they just witnessed was actually a mini triumph for me or just an investigation. This then leads into a conversation (maybe I should just ignore?) to say thanks but and then justify which then sounds like an excuse. And involves talking more, which im already good at and moving less...which isnt the point. On the other hand comments when people say what they see and then the possible implications of that but hold the advice e.g 'you are reaching out with your arms after your legs and that might slow you down' are extremely helpful as they add information to the pot but not judgement. So me being an irritable grouchbag isnt new (:.)!) but my confidence in sticking to working through things the way I desire is, as is the patience to work simply, even though it looks spectacularly unimpressive, and trust in the building blocks im establishing.
Another new thought sprang out of this issue of getting comments from others and for that im grateful, (I would be also grateful if anyone else has thoughts on giving and taking comments...), and this is it,
One of the joys of Parkour is of having the solution to the obstacle and applying it effectively, a solution that you earnt the right to enjoy even more as there was a time when it when you didnt have it as a resource and had to rely on less options. Even now after a gazillion trillion steps good old walking can be enjoyable, its a movement option that we had to learn and movement is always inherent enjoyable (maybe because movement=change=life=good!). Now when someone is pushing for me ( or I push myself) to do something which I find really hard and is so many evolutionary steps away from my current abilities that I can't build a bridge to it, im no longer finding solutions to the obstacles, im instead facing more yet obstacles. Maybe to some this is the point of parkour: finding obstacles in order to solve them, maybe this was once how I saw Parkour, maybe tommorrow it will be the way I see Parkour. Right now I see Parkour as movement than solves rather than searches for obstacles, the more solutions the better. I think life presents enough problems without going looking for them and a challenge that is too hard becomes a problem rather than a gift. I'm interested to see if I do a 180 regarding that mind womble especially as tommorrow i'm going to do something very new and see an NLP practioner about my fear of foot catching, pavement eating,and various other fears related to vaults....definate insight to be gained here as the trade off to my current perspective is maybe not leaving room for incredible feats and huge leaps of understanding. My last NLP session gave me the courage to walk on across hot coals so it will be interesting what a change of state could bring.
Lastly, the best thing that is getting old?; practising Pk ! .....i'm starting to get a process of training that feels familiar, a stock of moves that feel familiar and i grow ever fonder of the ever familiar faces that i get to meet through my Pk trails.
Happy New Year everybody!!
xx
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Christmas Day
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
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 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.:.)
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