Monday, April 13, 2009

So today I decided to go out and do some parkour training. I've previously tried a few things to get back into the swing of it but noticed I was really lacking in confidence.

I was out for two hours today and visited two locations. beside the college is a park called McDonald park. Most of this is just grass, where I do sprint training but local amateur football team Arbroath Harp play here and have a clubhouse. The outside of the clubhouse offers a small set of obstacles which I use. I mostly practiced foot placement and motion here. Single standing jumps where I pay attention to where and how heavy I land, trying to land as quietly as possible on the tips of my toes and also recovering my balance quickly.



I then moved across the path after about an hour to try a kong to cat over the metal barriers that are put in place to slow down cyclists. I have never tried this before but I believed I could do it so decided to film my first couple of attempts.



After this video I noticed I was getting frustrated so decided to stop before I got annoyed with myself and ended up getting hurt. In case you cannot see it in the video, I kept missing it with my right foot, a if I was mentally holding it back for some reason. I know I can do this so before the week is out I'll practice it more and film myself getting it right.

The second spot I went to is the car park for local council building Bruce House. They have recently repainted and renovated this car park due to Tesco opening and more people seeing it so I now have some more obstacles, which were fun.

I firstly played with balance and tried to walk the full length of one of the handrails on all fours, managing to get most of the way before I slipped. Next I moved to small yellow rails which have recently been erected and then grinded by skaters! They are quite thin and curved which made it a good challenge. Excuse my wild flailing arms in this clip!



Next I decided to play around with various vaults, trying to figure out which one was most efficient from different approach angles and basically just playing with my movement, trying out various things. This was the most fun part of the session. On more than on occasion I laughed out loud at myself for trying things which blatantly weren't going to work.



Finally, I went round the corner to practice climb ups on a wall which I've decided to call my nemesis. I can beat it but it is challenging and always makes me happy when I get to the top. I'm not sure how high it is but it is maybe just bigger than double my size which would make it just over 12ft. I have to kick off and up in order to even reach the top. I can make this almost every time I try so I can practice getting faster, better technique etc. No pics or vids but will be soon.

All in all, a good day.

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