MovNat and Methode Naturelle in Seattle, Washington

I arrived at Seattle's airport and called Tyson Cecka, who said he was waiting outside and to give him a call when I got my bag. So I waited. For about fifty minutes. I finally saw my bag coming down the conveyor belt... when someone else grabbed it! See the pictures in the first “Where's Zac” entry for reference, but my bag is pretty easy to identify, and not easy to mix up with someone else's. I started running to intercept them... when I recognized who it was! It was Jesse “Hardcoretraceur” from New York, just with no hair! We went outside and I hopped in the car. Matt Perry from California, Ryan Ford from Colorado, and Tyson Cecka were already inside. After Jesse and I hopped in, I noticed Jereme Sanders from Texas jammed into the trunk.

We headed back to Tyson's house and spent the afternoon jamming at Gasworks Park, an old gas refinery station that they converted into essentially a playground. We crashed that night, and then headed off the next morning in a rented MiniCooper to Bellingham, Washington to visit with Rafe Kelly.

Rafe is a traceur, but he also trains MovNat (an update to Methode Naturelle). We arrived at his house late in the afternoon, and headed to Whatcom Falls, a huge park with some really awesome trails. We asked Rafe to run us through a Movnat style workout, so we could learn more about it. He explained to us that Movnat was all about replicating Natural Movement. The twelve core parts of MovNat are walking, running, jumping, climbing, quadrupedal movement, balancing, swimming, lifting, carrying, throwing, catching, and defending. Combining these ten real-life activities into a single methodology trains you to be a truly well rounded athlete. Unlike programs that focus on strength and conditioning to get you ready for an activity or sport, in MovNat, performing the activity or sport IS the strength and conditioning.

For our warmup, we started off running around a field. There are many ways to run however – forwards, backwards, sideways, rotating, sprinting, jogging. We went from one to another seamlessly, and alternated often. We then progressed into walking movements. This is something I always found confusing – I figured walking was walking. First, we just walked. But then we had to try and move as silently as possible. We then tried to walk, staying as low as possible, then switched it up and pretended to step over something very tall. Next, we combined the two. Pretend you have to step over something very tall, and then crouch and waddle under something very short, and then repeat. We transitioned into QM, and did a lot of QM variations, but also added in some crawling (forwards, left, right, backwards, rolling to the sides) on our elbows and knees which isn't done too often in a lot of Parkour warmups. Standing up into a fighting stance, we practiced bouncing, sliding back, forth, and to the sides, and some punches and crosses. This pretty much wrapped up the warmup, and then we moved onto the workout.

Throughout the workout, we moved pretty much constantly. Running through the trails in the woods, balancing on fallen treetrunks and handrails as we went. Several times Rafe had us stop, pick up a rock (a large rock) and we ran with it, passing it off whenever Rafe called out “Pass!” We eventually stopped along the trail, and then practiced lifting. This is very different than lifting weights. When doing a clean and jerk (weight starts on the ground, you pull it up and push it over your head) with a barbell, you have a good hold on the bar and the weight is evenly distributed on the two sides. With a rock, you have to fight to find a decent place to put your hands, the weight is uneven, and we had no idea how heavy it was. Everyone lifted the rock over their head several times, then we played some passing games (just passing the rock down a line). We continued our run, stopping to flip some logs (like telephone poles) and climb up a rock face. We wrapped up the day by finding a big pool of water nxt to some cliff faces about 30 feet up... so we jumped off. A bunch of times.

It was a very educational experience, and I think MovNat something that everyone should try to incorporate into their training. I know when I go back to school, I'll be looking for some rocks to carry around.

Madison, Wisconsin

I'm going to start posting a story from most of the places I visit. I'm going to start out with Madison, Wisconsin:

Alissa (Muse_of_Fire) and I were in the car, driving to a daycamp for pre-teen boys and girls in Madison. This was the first day we were working with Girls, Inc (the group that runs this camp), and we had absolutely no idea what to expect. We didn't know whether we'd be working with boys, girls, or both. We didn't know what kind of facilities we had to work with, or how many people we'd have to work with.

The night before, Alissa, Chad (her training partner), and I had dinner and planned out what we were going to do the next day. It took about two hours, and due to The Game (if you say certain words, you have to do 10 pushups), there were pretty constant distractions - but we finally worked out a rough lesson plan. We would start with a Julie Angel video, give a brief talk about Parkour, then, boys or girls, we were going to focus heavily on games.

We pull up to the driveway and get out of the car. We examine the Kennedy Heights Community Center, it's pretty much just a big temp building. There's a wooden fence outside for balancing, and a playground around the back. The director of the camp came out to meet us, introduced us to the girls, and we were on our own! There were eight girls, I'd say age 12 to 14. Long story short, they were not impressed by our pep talk, or by the Julie Angel video. Looking back, we probably needed something a bit more action oriented.

Once we got them outside though, we started to play some warmup games. Alissa started by having them all run in place, and then drop into the landing position whenever she said drop. We did some side QM, and did some other fun warmup activities. We wanted to start off with a game, so I ran a game of QM Redlight/Greenlight. Went to the fence to do some partner balancing drills, and then we played a balance game. Two people would stand about arms length apart, and try to push each other over without moving their feet. The first person who's feet moved, lost. We then played a finger jousting game, and then I taught precisions.

This was the only thing "taught" and "drilled" all day. Later on in Seattle, Rafe Kelly brought up the point that children and adults learn differently. Children are very "lets go go go stop talking and let me do it!" Adults have goals, they want to see progressions, and they want a specific set of steps to get to their goals. When teaching children, at least in the beginning, drilling something will only drive them away. It bores them, and they do not understand why it must be done. I felt it was necessary, however, to "drill" precisions, just for a little bit. We used one end of a sidewalk to another, so it was maybe two feet. I had them jump twice, and then I taught them something new.

First I just had them jump. Then I taught them about jumping in an arc, instead of straight to it. I had them jump two more times with this in mind, then I taught them about landing on the balls of the feet. Jump two more times, and then I taught them about bending their legs and compressing. Jump two more times, and that was it. I feel like this was the best way to introduce them to all the necessary concepts. I didn't want to drown them in information, or have them just standing around listening too long, but they needed to know those three basic concepts. It worked well, too. They didn't get bored, and they had fun with it.

As soon as we were done the lesson, the girls got to learn about some practical applications during a game of PDQ. It was a little bit bigger than optimal (8 girls, the director, Alissa, Chad, myself), but it was still a lot of fun, and some of the girls really got into it!

PDQ was the last game and activity of the day, and we gave them a quick pep talk, and then left. When the girls started, they were pretty typical pre-teen girls. Completely uninterested and unengaged. By the end, they were running and jumping around, talking and laughing and having fun.

I heard back from Alissa yesterday, who just had the second meeting. Apparently, I'm the cute one, because all the girls were asking where I was and when I'd be back. Which is cool....

Kinda. :)

Chicago Parkour Jam

This is the video for the Chicago jam from June 28th. Over 75 people showed up, representing everywhere from Washington, Texas, Virginia, and everywhere in between.

New York Parkour Jam - 2008

NYPK (New York Parkour) had their annual jam the 20-22nd of June. Here's the video!

Pittsburgh Jam Video

Here's the video I cut together for the Pittsburgh "PKFR International" Jam.

An Apology, a Promise, and a Video.

So, I've been neglecting this blog a little bit. I feel bad, but I've been quite busy. I left June 6th for my cross country trip, and since then I've been in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Bloomfield, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, New York, New York, Columbus, Ohio, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois. Tomorrow I leave for Madison, Wisconsin.

Everyone I've stayed with so far has been awesome, and the people I've met have been awesomer. I haven't, however, had a lot of time. I have a to-do list that's about 37 entries long, and sadly updating my blog is not at the top... For each of the major jams I've been to, I've written a summary and edited together a 3-5 minute video. I've been working on several other really great projects too, and I'll be announcing or releasing those fairly shortly.

I have to go to bed now, I'm totally worn out from Chicago. But long story short: I apologize for not updating more, and I promise I'll be updating more often. Over the next few days I'll be posting links to the videos of the major jams here, so check back often!

If you want to follow my trip more closely, you can check out Where's Zac? on www.AmericanParkour.com. I'm posting my write ups and videos there for the whole Parkour community to see.

For now, the Philly video:

Testing a new way to display images

(B)East Coast, represent! (Click on the image)