North Carolina and Table Rock

I got to the train station in Georgia at 7:30pm, Tuesday the 5th. I arrived in Burlington, North Carolina at 10:00am, Wednesday the 6th. It was a looong train ride. I saw TK17/Duncan waiting for me as the train pulled up, I recognized him from his Pilgrimage video. We all got introduced, and then headed to IHOP for breakfast (my first meal in almost 15 hours). Most of Wednesday was spent resting, and I led a small training session at UNC – Chapel Hill that evening showcasing some of the different training methods I'd learned on my trip. The real adventure of North Carolina happened Thursday, though.

We left around 9am from Duncan's house in three cars. The plan was to rendezvous with two other people, and then go hiking all day at Table Rock, a huge series of mountains and rocks, with a valley containing the “North Carolina Wall.” The trip started off well enough, and then we hit a bump.

Two of the cars were already full, the third car had enough room for the two extra passengers we were picking up. The third car also happened to develop a transmission problem that prevented it from shifting out of second gear. This pretty much makes it an adventure to get out of your neighborhood. We parked it at a Dairy Cream off of the highway, and reconsolidated passengers, then headed to pick up the two extra people.

They were waiting in a parking lot of a strip mall, and as we pulled up we realized a new problem. Since the car broke down, we now had 9 seats and 11 people. I spent the next 3 hours of our journey to Table Rock in the trunk of a Honda Element.



Only one person knows how to get there, and he's in the other car. After about two and a half hours, we start to question whether or not this place exists, because we see no tables, rocks, or mountains that look like either. We finally start seeing signs of the mountain, and we begin our ascent. For a while, the paved road was steep and winding as we head up the mountain, but then it turned into more of a dust road than a dirt one. Driving up and down this winding dirt road created a massive dust cloud behind us, obscuring vision. Again, after about a half an hour we started to question if we were actually headed anywhere in particular, or just out for a nice drive.



Finally, we arrived at a parking lot, and saw a sign for “Table Rock Trail.” We made it to the trail! We piled out of the car, which was completely covered in dust at this point, and started out our hike. Several people decided to do it barefoot, so I join them, kicking off my shoes, tying the laces together and slinging them over my shoulder. We reached several photo-op spots, using a bit of creative climbing and Parkour to get on top of boulders. Almost every time it seemed like we had reached the top of the mountain and everything else was descending, but every time we kept going further and every time the view got more and more spectacular.

At one point, our first real view of the valley, there was a rock-peninsula about 100 feet ahead and parallel to of us. Duncan and two other traceurs climbed down the rock face we were resting on, traversed their way through the brush and thorns, and then climbed out to it. It must have been a fantastic view, with nothing obstructing their vision. We continued the climb, and after getting distracted probably fifteen times by interesting Parkour spots or climbing walls, we eventually made it to the end. This was definitely the best view of the entire hike. We were out on a corner of a cliff with the entire valley stretched to our right, and another set of mountains reaching up to our left. We stayed there for probably twenty minutes, just taking in the sights. From valleys to falcons, it was nature at its finest.

It was also dinner time. We'd been out hiking for close to four hours, with a four hour drive before that. We were famished! So before starting the trek down the mountain, we broke open a cooler in the trunk of the other car and got to work on our picnic! It was a great picnic, with turkey, ham, assorted fruits and vegetables, bread and some cookies for desert. After eating, we piled back into the cars, I got back into my trunk, and we were comin' back down the mountain. I almost immediately curled up in the trunk of the Honda Element and passed out. (and let me tell you, waking up in the trunk of a Honda Element is probably one of the strangest things you'll ever experience).

A quick stop at Dairy Queen to pick up the car (and for ice cream), and we headed back to Duncan's house to pass out. I left the next morning for home, and I definitely think that the hike was a fantastic way to end my summer adventure.

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!

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:

Summer Trip Details *Updated with bloglink*

So it's been a little while since the last update. Whoops. I just wanted to fill everyone in a little on some more details about this summer:

I have a couple of goals for my trip.
First, obviously I want to meet traceurs and traceuses from all over the country. I want to share training techniques and stories with people who are more, and less, experienced than I. I've trained with a lot of different people, and I think that I can share quite a bit of knowledge with the people I visit. That being said, I hope to learn just as much from all of the traceurs and traceuses that I meet on my trip.

Second, one of my larger goals. I am going to record this entire trip on video. I am going to edit it all together into a documentary, sort of a "This is how America Trains" kind of thing. I'll be taking a lot of footage, and I'll be releasing smaller "jam coverage" media peices throughout my trip through American Parkour, but look for a longer documentary at the end of August or beginning of September.

The current itinerary of major jams follows. Note, I may be arriving the night before, the morning of, or sometime during the day of these dates, depending on bus schedules:

*Saturday, June 7th - Philly Jam II
*Friday, June 13th through Sunday June 15th - PKFR International Pittsburgh Jam
*Friday, June 20th through Sunday June 22nd - PKNY (New Jersey and NYC)
Monday, June 23rd through Tuesday, June 24th - Columbus, Ohio
Wednesday, June 25th through Friday, June 27th - Ann Arbor, Michigan
*Saturday, June 28th through Sunday, June 29th - Chicago Jam
Monday, June 30th through Wednesday, July 2nd - Madison, Wisconsin
Thursday, July 3rd through Friday, July 4th - Minneapolis, Minnesota
Saturday, July 5th through Wednesday, July 9th - Seattle, Washington
Thursday, July 10th through Tuesday, July 15th - San Fransisco, California
Wednesday, July 16th through Thursday, July 17th - Phoenix, Arizona
Friday, July 18th through Tuesday, July 22nd - Denver, Colorado
*Wednesday, July 23rd through Tuesday, July 29th - San Antonio, Texas
Tuesday, July 29th through Wednesday, July 30th - Tampa, Florida
Thursday, July 31st through Friday, August 1st - Miami, Florida
Saturday, August 2nd - Athens, Georgia
Sunday, August 3rd through Tuesday, August 5th - Charlotte, North Carolina
Wednesday, August 6th through Friday, August 8th - Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Saturday, August 9th - back home to Severna Park, Maryland!

*'s denote "National Jams"

I hope to meet as many people along this trip as possible. I plan on putting together an email list to keep people informed of how and what I'm doing (if you want to be on it, comment on this post!), and I'll be making regular posts on American Parkour detailing more of the Parkour oriented aspects of my trip. You can find a lot of the pictures, videos, and bloggings here, or you can go to American Parkour, go to the top-menu item "Where's Zac" and see the listing there.

If you'd like to contact me about my trip, or you're interested in meeting me somewhere along the way, send me an email at zaccohn@gmail.com and let me know! I'm sure we can work something out.

Spring Break? More like Spring Active.

My titles really are lame sometimes...

So I am recently returned to Rochester from RIT's Spring Break. I went back home to Maryland with my roommate Charlie. Our break was incredibly fun and exciting, and anything but relaxing.

We got back on Wednesday and were treated to some of my sister's fine cooking, and Thursday we woke up nice and early and headed to Primal Fitness, the Parkour gym in Washington DC, for the day!

Primal was, as always, awesome. We arrived around 11am and spent a few hour hanging out with Mark. We talked about Parkour and future plans, I accidentally interrupted a video capture that had been taking hours to complete, and we helped out around the gym a little bit. Lunch time rolled around and we grabbed some Chinese food, ate Mark's, and played with his dogs (SO ADORABLE). By the time we got back to the gym, it was time for the evening workouts and Parkour classes. During the Crossfit Workout, we met up with Steven Low and fooled around a bit, and eventually ended up doing weighted pull-ups. We started light (bodyweight + 40lbs), and kept increasing to our max. I died at about 80lbs, Steve managed to knock out an incredible 115lbs - which is practically as much as he weighs!

The Crossfitter's started to clear out, and then it was time for the Parkour class. While I was helping some beginners with their kongs, Charlie and the rest of the class was working on more advanced Kong techniques, primarily double kong's and kong to cats. I popped by and gave it a few tries. It appears I have an issue misjudging the distance I travel when doing a kong, because I had some fairly epic bails while trying to cat. I think I'm going to work on my kong to precisions more to fix this.

That was Thursday, the first day of my break! Stay tuned tomorrow for an outline of Friday. Sadly, I didn't take many (if any) pictures over the break. I was a bit too busy training to carry around a camera. Here's a picture halfway through a kong to cat though, which is what we were working on at Primal:




Also, don't forget to check out my new video, PK Vision! See yesterday's post, or use this link

PK Vision

Wow, a lot has happened since I last updated. Sorry for the long break. I'm planning on updating much more frequently, hopefully once a day - even if it's just with a picture or a video.

Speaking of videos, last week I went back home to Severna Park, MD with my roommate Charlie, and filmed a video for Brian "Doc Akh" Belida's "Mid-Atlantic Monthly Member Movie" project. Found below!



Link to youtube version of Zac "Happydud" Cohn's PK Vision

A bit of history on the name: The phrase "PK Vision" is what some people call your shift in how you observe your environment once you've been training for a while. You start to see possibilities everywhere, whereas before you just saw a table, or a wall.

Study time now, but I'll be updating tomorrow probably about my Spring Break, and all the fun that was had.

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.

Goals for Break: Take 2

Winter/Christmas Break is upon us, and with this break comes another set of goals. (Some ALREADY accomplished by the time I made this post!)

• Wallflips. (Already learned. I can do them in the gym, I want to practice there a little bit more before I try them outside, but they're pretty easy.)
  
• Layout from height. (Already learned! I would like to practice these a bit more, but I am really, really confident in them, so I could probably do them outside right now.)
  
• Sideflips. (Already learned! Kind of. They need a lot more practice in the gym. The landing is.. sparradic at best, and I have too much rotation in the wrong directions.)
  
• Handstands. Getting better, but I still can't hold it solidly for any decent length of time.
  
• 540 kick. Again, getting better. I can land them more reliably and correctly now, but still want more work.
  
• Frontflips. This is a maybe. If I'm doing really well with all my other goals, I'll start learning and practicing the basics of a frontflip.
  

In other news, about half of NYPK is coming down on January 2nd and 3rd to visit. The plan is to have some people drive and meet at my house, and others take a bus to DC, then we're going to spend the day at Primal and various spots around DC, perhaps Silver Spring? Then that night, we're going to come back to my house and crash, and then go to AACC to train the next day, and perhaps Emilias or Xtreme Acro (gymnastics gyms) to train for a bit, then they leave. It should be pretty awesome, expecting upwards of 10 people, plus all the guys I train with here in Severna Park.

I can't wait! This is going to be a good break.

Goals and Presentations

Well, I didn't complete all of my goals, but I did a decent job. I ended up going on a self-imposed week of rest first week of break, because my body was just self-destructing from overuse. After the week, I felt FANTASTIC though, and training resumed, and it resumed hard. Tuesday I trained with Doc Akh in Westminster, at McDaniels, and then we went to Acro (gymnastics gym) and I helped him teach his Parkour class. Wednesday was training at AACC with Disciple, Thursday I went down to Primal Fitness to play with Disciple and take their Advanced Parkour class.

And then Friday. I got at text from hardcoretraceur at about 8PM, telling me he was coming down to DC (He lives near NYC) with Kasper (who was staying with him, and lives in the Bahamas). Long story short, I drove down to DC at 4AM to pick him up from the bus, we came back to my house and crashed for a few hours. After breakfast, we met up with nickm, Ben Horn, and Disciple to train at AACC, and then we went to Primal to build things, hang out, go through a few Crossfit workouts, a Parkour open gym, and then we slept there. The next morning, we trained at Primal for most of the day again. So anyawy, things I accomplished:

GOALS/ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

• Hold a handstand - AND CONTROL IT - for a solid 6 seconds. - I didn't do as much handstand work as I would have liked, but I was able to hold a handstand for a good 4 or 5 seconds, although I had to use the wall to get up.
  
• Hold a bent-knees flag for 5 seconds. - Did not have time to work on this.
  
• Land my back tucks on my feet, consistently. - Figured out the main reason I'm screwing up. (Bringing knees and shoulders together, instead of knees to shoulders.) They're getting consistently better, so I'd say goal pretty much accomplished.
  
• Learn how to do a 540 roundhouse, at least well enough to teach it to someone else in Rochester. - My 540 is pretty good, though the landing needs more practice. I'd give it a Mission Accomplished.
  
• Start learning wall flips. - Did not have time to work on these.
  

Others:

• I am a lot more comfortable with my Kong to Cat now, as well as my Kong to precision.
  
• Started training on some trees. There are some trees that are hotspots by themselves...
  
• I think I finished getting all the footage I need for Countdown (movie I'm working on with Ben Corwin). We should have it finished by Christmas.
  

In other news, I don't think I ever posted a link to the presentation I gave to Campus Safety. You can find the Power Point presentation here. This does not include what I said, which really is the important part, but it is mostly just a list of topics I covered. Feel free to edit and use this for your own purposes, just give credit where credit is due if asked.

Also, RIT Parkour now has their own subforum on American Parkour. You can find it here. So if you go to RIT or are from Rochester, or just want more information about our training plans, swing on by!

RIT Training Video - Fall 2007

Sunday, we decided to make a training video. It became a 13 hour ordeal... but it is done! 4 hours of filming, (about 2 hours of eating,) and then a 7 hour marathon editing session... but I think it turned out really well.

Unfortunately, there were only four of us on Sunday, so the video doesn't give an accurate representation of the usual group, but there was still a good variety of skill levels present. Charlie and Artem are still relatively new, Joe had a decent amount of experience, but has never really trained with anyone else, and Zac (me) has been training for almost 2 years.

In Mid-Atlantic news, Primal Fitness (the Parkour Gym in DC) has moved! Only about a mile, it's just the next subway station down from where it was before. They have moved to a bigger location, and now offer more classes. If you're ever down in the area, I HIGHLY recommend you check them out. Mark and Jessie (the owners) are really great guys, and their Parkour classes are great for beginners and advanced traceurs alike.



Youtube version of the RIT Parkour Training 2007 video.

Well I've had my Phil...ly

Artem, Charlie and I travelled down to Philadelphia this past weekend for a jam at Drexel University. It was quite awesome. Pretty good turnout, had people from NYC/NJ, Rochester, Buffalo, Philly, and even Baltimore, MD.

We got to Philly at about 2AM on Saturday morning, and promptly went to sleep. We woke up at 8:30 to meet the rest of the tracuers coming in and we started jamming! We began at 30th Street Station doing some precisions on Jersey Barriers until the K9 unit showed up... After that we met up with M1l3s from NYPK - he was running 10 miles for the Step Up to Fight Diabetes charity event. Then it was a full day of walking, from Drexel's campus, to Temple, UPenn, Central City/City Hall, Philadelphia Museum of Art (where the stair scene from Rocky was filmed), and more. Saturday night, people headed back to Drexel to go to sleep, except for Jessie, Pyro, Blaarg and I. We decided to try and train all night long. We may not have ended up training all night, but we were out in Philly all night, and it was really awesome. We did SO much walking and we were exhausted, but spending the entire night in a foreign city is definitely a cool experience.

Sunday was spent doing a little bit more training at the Museum, where we had three or four groups of people come up to us and ask us what we were doing. We demonstrated, and taught, some pretty basic precisions, and then we got our pictures taken. After that, we were all very tired, and we started the 6 hour drive back home.

Thanks to everyone for making this an awesome Jam!


In other news, I'm in the middle of reorganizing all of my pictures and videos. Here's a new link to a (probably) temporary Picasa page with two albums (one for pictures, one for videos). Most are fairly new (a lot are from Philly infact, so if you want to see some of the pictures and videos from there, check it out!). Hopefully more will be added soon!

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).

What I learned at NYPK

I wrote this on the train leaving hardcoretraceur's house at 4:45 in the morning the Monday after NYPK. Some of these are inside jokes/references, others are more universal:

What I learned at NYPK
-Why hardcoretraceur is so hardcore. Or at least stupid. (The shoulder/dragging thing)
-Why 3-day jams are both a horrible, and fantastic, idea.
-No matter how perfectly things are planned, and how many redundancies are in place, things will still get screwed up. Tough luck. Figure it out and keep on moving.
-Accidents and pain happen: It is how one responds to these that matters.
-'Nam was "crappy." (Crazy vet on the light rail)
-"Don't get high, go do something." (Crazy vet again)
-There is something to be learned from _everyone_, regardless of skill, politics, or path.
-Be strong to be useful.
-Running with the pack is better than staying with the flock.
-Make no excuses not to train to your limit.
-In order to break the apple, you must first break yourself.
-Pyro's shoulder looks like Ravioli. It isn't supposed to, however.
-What you put in is what you get out.
-When discussing which is worse, slavery or the Holocaust, check for cameras.
-With a positive mind, one can have an iron will.
-There is always something you can train.
-Anyone who suffers from friends who don't support their love for parkour, but train anyway, deserves some serious respect.
-Drama, while it should have been left at High School, often isn't.
-Try to leave Drama in high school anyway.
-Stop talking and move.
-And my last quote, which I've decided is my new personal motto: Once you hit rock bottom, start chiselling.

The place of "Go Big or Go Home" in Parkour.

In short, there is no place for the extreme sports "Go Big or Go Home" attitude in Parkour.

When I started "parkour," (i put that in quotes because of the following) I really didn't know what it was all about. I just saw the techniques, I saw the videos, and I went out and did some really stupid stuff that could have seriously injured me. For a little while (and really, a VERY little while) the group I train with were all about "Go big or go home."

I realized, pretty quickly (thankfully), that this was not what parkour was about. It isn't "Go big or go home." It isn't the X-Games. It's not about "jumping off of s%@*." I was damn lucky I didn't break both my legs. As it is, I bashed my hip on a screwed up precision (though that wasn't a "go big" thing, it was just sandy and I didn't check my surfaces (ANOTHER lesson learned)), and to this day a year and a half later, it still gets sore if I lay on it for too long.

Don't trust me on this. Don't blindly take my word for truth, or lies. Read. Read the articles stickied on the .Net forums. Read the articles on APK. Read the articles on NYPK, Colorado PK, any of the other matured community sites (meaning not www.ihartpkandjumpingoffastuff.com). Read and THINK about it, ponder it, meditate on it - whatever on it - until you realize WHY parkour is not about "go big or go home."

I think too quickly seasoned traceurs tell new people that big drops aren't what it's all about, but they don't give any reasons (other than the obvious health/safety reasons which a lot of people apparently don't care about.)

In a thread I was reading recently, a new guy was saying he was drilling 10 foot drops - great. Now you know you can do it if you have to. What's the point in doing something THAT risky over and over and over again until you get hurt?

A traceur named Hardcoretraceur, whom I really respect, said something at the NYPK07 jam: Someone pointed to a roof and said "Could you jump from that?"
He replied "Yes, but I don't want to."
Hardcoretraceur believes, and I agree with him, that the best way to train for drops is to do drops. Which means while squats and pistols and whatever else helps condition the legs, nothing conditions them for drops like doing drops. But he, and I, want to be doing parkour when we're 30. 40. 50. We value our knees, so we stay ground-level. There's no reason to practice jumping off of buildings. If you ever need to, if you train hard enough with low drops, you'll probably be able to make a few big drops without a problem. But if you train a ton of high drops, the damage you're doing is going to prevent you from doing ANYTHING pretty quickly.

So please, anyone who is still of the "Go big or go home" attitude: Don't change because I tell you to. Or because M2 tells you to, or Sebastian, or eZ, or David Belle. But do LISTEN to us. Take our advice. The advice of people who have been in your position. And then do your own reading, your own thinking, and keep searching until you find the path to the same conclusion we found.

Zackie Chan, Bruce Leo, and Matt Damon walk into a bar

Parkour was good today. The group is quite impressive, really.

Today (9.22.07):
*Worked on wall passes. People are getting much better, but most people are still using their elbows.
*Introduced people to a wider variety of vaults. Taught people kongs and speed vaults, then demonstrated dashes, double kongs, dive kongs, among a few others. A surprising amount of people got the kong down today. And most of the people who didn't will have it next time, I'm sure.
*Did some simple precisions onto a rock, demonstrated how to properly come down on an obstacle, especially if it isn't nice and flat (like a rock.. isn't.)
*Moved onto the gates. I did a short demo of how techniques can be strung together. I was hoping to get a turn vault to underbar down, but it was too high for a decent turnvault. People drilled underbars, prepping them for later underbar practice.
*Precisions onto the stairs. 
*Practiced some aerials and one handed cartwheels. I ended up doing some sort of bastardized one handed front handspring roundoff.
*We lost a few people here, but then gained a few people. We headed down to the SLC and worked on some taller wall passes, and then it got interesting. Hit the jump, as they say, for more details.
*We drilled underbars next, hard. We went to the Bookstore, where they have a slanted double rail. I was working on increasing the height on my jump to underbar, and I discovered I need to work on my reverse underbar, because I can't figure out how to come out of it without a broken spine.
*We finished up with precisions and rolls at the Kodak quad. I didn't work on my max-distance precision, just a few shorter ones. I tried a running precision, but couldn't get the... precise.. part down. Kept overshooting.

Okay. Now for the story. So as we were training at the (second) wall pass spot, I had noticed a lot of security across the field. (They were setting up/getting ready for a concert tonight) As we began to walk away, I noticed a security guard on an intercept course. I led the group and we kept on walking, when he called out "Hey guys, can I talk with you for a sec." I looked over at him, and pleasantly as I could (while I was thinking "crap crap crap") said "Sure, no problem."

Basically, he gave the usual, albiet humourous, speech about if we start climbing, and then smash our face in and lose all our teeth, not ONLY will the girls not find 
us attractive anymore, but he'll have to call and explain what happened to our mothers. He then asked us what we were doing. I briefly explained parkour (kind of like obstacle coursing, except using just whatever is around. People walk up and see a wall that they have to go around, we see an obstacle to move over.), and said that while I totally understand your reluctance, we didn't just start with this. We started with much smaller walls, and we practiced safe ways to land and fall, and basically that training safely is paramount. After I reiterated this in several different ways, and pointed out that I was just teaching several people the proper way to land, he kind of nodded and I think he understood. He then said, "Alright well.. just be safe." and then I introduced myself, he introduced himself, and we parted on good terms.

I'm actually planning on emailing him and thanking him for his understanding, and then inviting him and a few other members of campus safety out to see what we do. I think this is the best course of action. I'm hoping it will show that we're safe and responsible enough to alert them to what is going on, and what we're doing, and perhaps even let them participate, if they want.

I think the funniest part of the whole thing was when he was semi-lecturing us, and he was telling us to "think outside the box" (i suppose in terms of safety/what other people are responsible for). I just giggled (silently, to myself) and thought about how we actually WERE thinking outside the box.

More details to come in the saga of Campus Safety and RIT Parkour.

Episode VI: Return of the Zac-i

Today was great. Woke up a bit late, which wasn't so good, but from there I went slacklining, took a calc test, then went to Taekwondo. Donning my sparring gear once more (first time in ~3 months) was a near religious experience. Had 5 matches, 2 against white belts, 1 red belt, and two black belts. I was very impressed with (everyone, but especially) the black belts. Looks like there's going to be some seriously kickass sparring matches this year. I've lost a bit of my speed and flexibility, but I think I mostly just need to knock the rust off of me and I'll be back in the groove.

Invented a new "takedown" today... accidentally. As one of the 
blackbelts was coming up for a roundhouse to the head, I was  doing a spinning hook kick. My leg wrapped around his, and my spinning inertia took us to the ground. We both rolled away and got up quickly, but it was very interesting. And then the other blackbelt match was one of the best matches I've ever had. We were both tired, we had 30 seconds, and we were both going 110%.  I quoted Casablanca, "... I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Definitely good times.

Headed to the Commons for food (Food is always good) and we were trying to explain parkour to someone. Then I saw a gate I had passed at least 4 times a day, every day, all of last year. I saw it with new eyes, and yelled "Impromptu demonstration!" That's my new favorite spot on campus. It's these two trapezoidal shaped gates that are chained together in the middle, so cars can't drive past them. Except it's fantastic for kongs, side vaults, underbars, kong/turn vaults to underbars,  QM, and so much else. Definitely going to be there.. a lot.

Then food. Then as I was riding my bike out, I saw the same group of people a bit infront of me (a bunch of these people are coming to my new weekly (or more often) Parkour jams) jumping onto a random rock on the grass. So then I decided to test out my hand (cast had just come off). Lets just say I felt exquisite. I found a picnic table, and was demonstrating kongs, dive
 kongs, speed vaults, dashes, precisions, and anything else I could think of. 

It felt so good to be back in the game. Tomorrow (first 'weekly' 
jam without my cast) is going to be so awesome. Expect a post about it.