New York Parkour Jam - 2008

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

Star Tre-I mean Parkour Generations

On February 14th, Dan Edwardes, Stephane Vigroux, Chris Keighley, and Julie Angel came down to Central Park for a day-long workshop. Artem, Charlie and I showed up at Heckscher Park (an area in Central Park) around 10AM, and there were already a good 20 or 30 people there. We warmed up, did some small balance and precision drills for a while, until around 11. A group of four people walked up to us, and one spoke in a British accent "So.. are you guys Traceurs?"

After a (long) series of introductions, we hung around Heckscher for a bit longer, waiting for more people to show up, and then the day began.

We began with some light joint work: neck, shoulder, elbow, knee and ankle stretching. We then went for a short jog forwards, backwards, and to both sides. We slowed to a stop then Dan dropped to his hands and feet, and began to QM around the area we had just jogged. At about the halfway point, we continued QMing backwards.

Then we ran into our first problem. The Park Police decided that what we were doing 'could endanger the kids (of which there weren't any around...)' and 'adults weren't allowed to play in the park.' So we asked them nicely where we could train, and they directed us towards a baseball field. So we moved there.

After doing some (read: a lot) of squat work, we went back to some more QM. This time, we were doing a couple different levels of sideways QM. We started by just moving left and right in the QM position. We later incorporated leg lifts, both holding it still and moving the leg up and down, into the workout. About this time we ran into problem number 2. The Park Police came by and decided that we were "risking the children" again (keep in mind, this was a fenced in field, and there were no kids in sight, let alone on this side of the fence.)

So we moved a ways away to a muddy hill, where we did some push up work. We started with a 10-second pushup. They made us do a ton of variations on pushups: going down, and then moving our upper bodies in circles, putting our weight on our left arm, went down, shifted to the right, and pressing up, going into the down position, then rolling back onto our elbows, back to the hands, and up, what I call "dive bomber pushups" where you start in a ^ shape, and go down, leading with your head, and then arch you back up, and retrace going back.

Then we put them all together. Between the crazy types of pushups and the freezing mud, it was pretty hard. Almost everyone had to take a rest break, and a lot of people dropped out entirely before the end. The Parkour Generations guys though not only forged on, but were talking, teaching, and encouraging us the entire time. It was truly inspirational what they were capable of. While we were weeping and trying to keep up, they told us that this is their standard warmup that everyone, men, women, young and old, go through at their Academy.

Please check your ego at the door.

Stephane took over at this point - leading us across the street to do some precision/confidence building work. There was probably a 9 foot gap between two curbs (a pedestrian walkway). He had us leap on one foot to the center of the walkway, and then precision to the other curb, all in one motion. It was a very interesting drill, designed not to work on maximum distance, but on the landing and nailing it every time.

After a while, Stephane led us on a "Follow the Leader" style adventure through the giant rocks in Central Park. A lot of precision work, and also a lot of bouldering and rock climbing, which was enjoyable. Stephane was a very interesting person to follow, his movements were so natural it was... unnatural.

After the Follow the Leader session was over, we pretty much spread out and worked on random drills on our own, or inspired by the Parkour Generations guys. Around 1230, we decided to split into three groups, one lead by each representative from PKG.

My group followed Stephane through the woods of Central Park. A lot of forest-parkour here: climbing through, around, over, and under trees, scaling pretty tall rock walls, and more. There was one rock wall, perhaps 20 feet tall, that we were climbing.

Stephane decided to do it without hands.

We eventually regrouped back near Heckscher, and then broke and headed to Whole Foods for lunch. Afterwards, we resumed training on the rocks, and then we migrated to different parts of Central Park for the rest of the day. We got kicked out of a few more places, which is unfortunate, but there were about 60 of us at that point, so it makes sense.

The British have a very interesting take on Parkour. The V-day workshop focused very intensely on precisions and climbing, and far less than a lot of people would have expected on vaults. (Although to be fair, I'm sure they are equally ridiculously good at those, the environment just did not clalf or it.) I did not learn much to improve my technique, I don't really think that was the goal, and if that's all you got out of it then I think you wasted a lot of time.

What I learned from Parkour Generations was an incredible amount about potential. I already knew the importance of conditioning, but what they do every day blows me out of the water. What they were physically capable of astounded and inspired me. I'm already re-evaluating my training, and planning out how I'm going to change both how I train, and how I train others.

Parkour Generations is planning on coming back to America soon, so if at all possible, attend one of their workshops. It is 150% worth it.

Unforunately, I was a little bit busy to get many pictures, but I did snag a picture of each of our visitors. I'll be posting those a bit later tonight.

[edit - HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN? At the end of they day, Parkou Generations led us through a "warmdown." I put that in quotes because the only similarity it had to a warm down was that by the end, I was very warm, and wanted to sit down for a very long time. They ran us through an ab workout where the rest position was balancing on your butt with your legs folded against you chest. The second rest position was laying on the ground, shoulders and feet off the ground. Everything when we weren't resting was... a lot worse.

After the "warmdown," we went to find a place where we could all talk. We ended up at the upstairs room of Wendy's. We had a loose Q&A session that lasted almost two hours. Everyone asked questions and listened as the PKG guys spoke on topics ranging from their favorite food (cashews) to what Parkour meant to them. Then they asked us for advice - what do we think would help the growing American community the most? Advice ranged from more tutorial videos to articles giving ideas and specifics about warmups and and warmdowns.

I don't know how I forgot about that when I was typing this originally! It was probably the best part.

New York Parkour Goes Primal

On Wednesday, January 2nd, I hosted a group of traceurs from New York and New Jersey who bussed and drove down to visit Primal Fitness and the DC scene. Chris "Phreaknite" Salvato (spelling) is moving to Colorado soon, and wanted to visit Primal before he left. So over the course of a few weeks, we planned out and organized the trip. In the end, nine traceurs came down and joined Travis Noble, who was down visiting Primal from Michigan, and RandomPKGuy (RPG) and I for a really great jam.

It started at 10:30 when I picked up Jesse “Hardcoretraceur” from the bus station in Baltimore. We came back to my house, cleaned up a bit, and then I (almost) taught him to juggle while waiting for everyone else to arrive. We heard Vert and Arfel yelling as they got out of the car, and so we met them at the door, along with Pheaknite, Pyro, and Ish. My roommates from school, Artem and Charlie "ChadManX", arrived shortly later. We hung out in the basement until it was time to go to Xtreme Acro and Cheer, a nearby gymnastics gym. We called M1L3S, who was still en-route, and had him meet us there. We piled into cars and drove an hour to Acro to meet up with Travis and RPG.

Much fun was had at Acro! Wallflips, backtucks, layouts, frontflips, diverolls, trampolines, butterfly kicks, and more. We ended up staying about 30 minutes past when we were supposed to, and then packed in the car and came back to my house. The twelve of us promptly ordered 7 pizzas, and finished them off in about as many minutes. The rest of the night was pretty low key, the highlight being Jesse giving himself quite the shiner after running into a pole in my woods while playing Predator versus Prey (Aliens!).

The next morning Charlie and I got up at 6:45 and started making pancakes. Artem soon joined us in our endeavor, and Happydud's Emporium of Pancakes was moving along at full steam ahead! 64 pancakes, 1 box of pancake mix, 7 eggs, 5 cups of milk, a dash of olive oil, and one failed batch of pancakes later, everyone was up and eating pancakes, cereal, fruit, yogurt, and anything else we could find in the house. We managed, amazingly, to get out the door by 9:00AM (I did NOT think this was possible) and we headed to Primal Fitness, the main attraction.

After some creative convoying, we got to Primal as Jesse “Gearsighted” Woody, Steve Low, Leonn, and Britney were setting up a projector. We projected a big PRIMAL FITNESS onto the far wall, traced it, and then painted it in red. Other things got painted throughout the day as well, like the spiderweb, and a recreation of a Banksy. As far as the Parkour went, it was pretty awesome, as always. Leonn and Travis ran a really good warmup, which actually gave me a lot of ideas of what I want to incorporate into my standard warmup. Skipper stopped by, and the training continued throughout the entire day. The room was rearranged every few minutes to create new obstacle combinations and to drill different techniques. Later in the afternoon, Mark decided to run us through a workout.

The warmup: 3 rounds: 25x20lbs sumo-deadlift high-pulls, 1 lap of QM, 1 lap “uncomfortably high stepping” (stepping through a line of 3 to 4 foot boxes), 10 decline pushups.

I'm still convinced that Crossfit style “warmups” are equivilent to the workouts that some people usually get.

After the warmup, we got to the workout. Mark yells “Okay, who's ready for 3 minutes of conditioning?” I respond sarcastically “Only 3 minutes? This should be easy!” We went back to the line of eight 3 to 4 foot plyometric boxes and lined up.

The workout: 3 minutes, as many rounds through as you can. Two footed jump from the ground to the top of the first box. Jump from box to the ground. Jump from the ground to the next box. Rinse, wipe hands on pants, repeat. It was pretty hellish. By the end of the third minute, my legs felt like lead.

Afterwards, we ran through some jumping and landing drills designed to facilitate the ease of continued running after a landing, without stumbling, slowing down, putting your hands down, etc. We were supposed to start at one speed and accelerate throughout the course. We started by running and jumping off of different sized plyo-boxes, and then we eventually built up to running, jumping onto one box, jumping to a higher box, and then leaping to the ground and resume running without ever slowing down. We then modified to it getting over the second box the fastest way for you. For some people, this was a kong, for others, it was stepping on it and jumping, still others speed vaulted it or just leaped straight over it. It was a fascinating thing to watch: to see four different people could pass over the box in four completely different ways, and each path was the most efficient for them. It was a great example of how there is never one correct way to do something, and how what works for one person may not work for another.

In the end, everyone eventually went their separate ways and headed back home. Everyone had a fantastic time, and the jam just reaffirmed something I see traceurs from different places training together. Despite being from DC, Brooklyn, Michigan, or anywhere in between, despite some people having never met before, or others only having met once or twice, traceurs can come together and instantly become best of friends. We may come from different communities geographically, but we're all one big community when it comes to Parkour.

Only 363 days left to train...

Artem, Bryce and I ran the Urbanathlon in NYC this past weekend. It was pretty great.

We drove down to Artem's house in New Jersey, dropped some stuff off, and then took a train to NYC. We got to the gym to pick up our registration packets at 7:40, and saw Jessie/Hardcoretraceur, X, and M1l3s there. We hung out outside the gym for a while, then split ways and headed towards Artem's grandparents house in Brooklyn.

All I can say is: Goddamn can Russians cook. And goddamn DO Russians cook. We must have eaten two or three meals in the... 2 hours we were there and not sleeping.

Got to sleep at 11:30, then woke up at 3:30 to hop on the train to Manhattan. We all got to our places with varying degrees of fail (Artem took the express train by accident, the train I needed was closed so I had to walk, Bryce missed one of his trains), and then the race began! Artem ran the first leg of the race, and did quite well, running a 22 minute 5k, including the time it took to pass the obstacles (Jersey barriers, climbing through tubes). He passed me the timing chip, and I took off. Passed my obstacles with absolutely no difficulty. I was actually a little bit disappointed in how easy they were (Scaffolding maze, Marine hurdles). I passed off to Bryce, who took off up the 52 flights of stairs in World Trade Center Building 7. He completed those in 13 minutes. Absolutely amazing. We actually missed him on the way down, because we didn't expect him to do them that quickly.

We all met up again at the finish line, where Jessie and I took to playing with the taxis hurdles and the 8ft wall climb. We got a nice shot of us simultaneously konging the taxis (I actually slipped and had to roll on the concrete, which worked out well), and then we flew over the wall, much to the surprise of the marines milling about.

Afterwards, the six of us met up with Pyro and Exo, and we went to central park to play Ultimate Frisbee. Then our team went back to NJ, ate about thirty pounds of Russian food, and then passed out.

It was a great weekend. Next year, we're running it all solo. And actually training for it a lot more (broken bones are not conducive to training).