This is a follow up to my post yesterday about my first explorations with parkour.
I got really great feedback and that encouraged me to write about it again. I’m definitely no expert yet, but I’m reporting directly from my experiences as I enter a new territory that seems to promise me a whole new universe of learning and inspiration. It feels important to record some of these thoughts while they are fresh.
I’ve been very gratified by the response to the first post, and if you didn’t see it, I hope you’ll look at it before continuing to read this one. Meanwhile, one experienced traceur sent me a terrific video that really gets inside of the mind of how this game is played and I think it adds a new dimension to what I’m trying to explain here, especially for others like me, who are new to parkour. (Look for the link at the bottom of this article)
But first, I want to report on my second day of solo explorations, because I had some more fun experiences and insights, even being the beginner that I am!
Here’s some of what I discovered this morning:
A surface doesn’t always need to be under you to support you . . .
Anyone who has seen crazy traceurs running sideways on walls on YouTube already knows this, but here’s how I learned the lesson directly: I was at the playground again and decided to run up a slide. Given the angle, the slickness, and the moisture on the bottom of my boots from the snow everywhere, it didn’t go so well!
But I was pretty sure that those guys and gals on YouTube would have done it, so I tried to think of it another way. The first thing I realized is I simply had to be fast. But even as I worked with speed, the next two attempts were fails and I went slipping backwards and down.
But then as I looked at the slide, my attention was drawn to the raised edges that serve as guard rails for the kids. The next time I went up, I wedged my feet in sideways in the corners of the slide, meaning I had to also push myself a little left and right as I went. A little more progress.
The final piece was to identify a railing at the top of the slide to leap towards for a hand hold since there was no way I could stop part way up and rely on my feet not to slip back. Two attempts later I made it to the top of the slide and then celebrated by sliding back down on my butt, the “old school” way . . .
I climbed a tree – by mistake!
Having mostly practiced jumps, I decided to start looking for things to grab with my hands. At first I tried to grab things to climb upwards, but at a certain point, I just starting to test “what can I grab?!” That took me away from only aiming for things that were strictly overhead, meaning that after jumping and grabbing, my momentum and body weight took me in all kinds of new directions.
So, there was a tree, on a bit of a slope, and tree branch. I jumped and grabbed and then my legs were swinging way out in front of me, threatening to pull fingers away from their grip. Luckily, I saw (surprise) the tree! So I just put my feet on the trunk and pushed my hands on the branch and suddenly . . . I was in the tree! Having cleared the hurdle of the trunk, now in the branches, it was a simple thing to go from one branch to the next and go further up.
I looked down at the earth below and enjoyed the feeling. When the hell was the last time I climbed a tree? I couldn’t remember!
OK, it was inevitable, I took my first real fall this morning.
It wasn’t bad, but I definitely just lost control and went down! All that moisture again . . . I hopped up onto part of the playground equipment and when I landed it was just like a banana peel under my feet. I fell backwards, very fast, my feet slipping out from under me. But I didn’t hit my head – I stuck my elbows out behind me. The left elbow was banged pretty good, but I determined quickly that nothing was damaged, so I decided to keep moving.
Turned out to be no . . . big . . . deal!
(Then there was the time back in college when I was walking about in a fog and did a similar banana peel thing at the top of a staircase . . . I did hit my head that time, on the top step – and then on every one of the next 20 steps down to the next floor! That one sucked a lot more . . . glad I’m working on my movement these days!)
Rolling . . .
I’m not ready for super-high or long jumps yet, but I was just trying to imagine the idea a bit. One thing I knew from the videos was that a key thing to do in landing a jump from a height is to not try to kill your momentum all at once, but, instead, keep moving. One of the main ways traceurs do that is by rolling.
Oh, I thought, I should practice my rolling . . . then my next thought: but it’s cold and snowy and I’ll get all wet and dirty! In other words, I might as well have said, “forget this parkour thing, it’s not civilized!”
Hmm, well, anyways, I’m glad to report that I snapped out of it a couple of seconds later and I can still give people my business card (which says “move like a child again”) without feeling like a hypocrite!
Just another imaginary limitation – in this case, like many others, tied to ideas of social correctness.
Testing . . .
On my way home, I got curious about a high fence I saw. Could I climb it? Not today, I knew, I was tired. But I found myself drawn to it anyway. I didn’t even really realize what I was doing at first, but I just had to touch it, just to know.
Know what?
Oh, I saw that this fence was not well anchored at all. No, let me find a different fence to mess with! Only afterwards did I realize what this touching the fence was all about. I realized how this practice was now drawing me into a new and more intimate relationship to my surrounding environment.
The evolving self-image . . .
Finally, the Feldenkrais practitioner inside of me was happy to discover that all this action and playing around had brought me a new sense of my own body. We all carry certain habitual patterns of tension, overworking some of our muscles, underutilizing others, and this is what a Feldenkrais teacher can draw your attention to in a class or private session. Awareness of the pattern is the first key to letting it go.
I’m no different than everyone else, and often feel stresses and strains that I can’t so easily release. And that’s probably why I found all day that it was easier to place my hands on a bench to my left and swing my legs over it to the right, rather than the reverse. But I worked on both things and afterwards, I found that my awareness had been refreshed. My pattern hadn’t disappeared, but I was looking at it from different angles now and I had new ideas for ways to make little shifts inside myself. Some of those little shifts were suddenly making a real difference for me.
Hey, cool! I don’t always have to lie on the floor and move slow to know my body better. I can also do it by running around outside!
I’m coughing and sneezing at the moment and it’s cold outside so that might mess up my plan to go out and practice again tomorrow morning. But I doubt it. I’m having too much fun!
– – –
If I don’t end up going, I’ll probably end up seeing a few more videos for inspiration. Here’s the one I mentioned already – it really illustrates how this practice can grow a path towards a greater feeling of freedom in your life.
I think that feeling is what is what is really drawing me in right now!
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