Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Parkour sucks

Oh my goodness, I want to die. My head hurts. And that's nothing. Tomorrow, my whole body will be completely stiff.

Tonight, I foolishly allowed my classmate, Sally, to convince me to attend a "beginner's" course on parkour. I've known of parkour for a while, since I lived in France, so when Sally said she was trying it, I was intrigued. The people running it were like drill sargeants. They'd shout at you if you couldn't hold a stretch. They started with an insane warm-up session. Around a large rectangular part of the gym, we had to run forwards, sideways, and backwards (no big deal), then hop the whole way with our feet together, then crawl the whole way on our hands and feet, then do several push-ups, then walk the whole way on our hands and feet like monkeys, then special monkey push-ups, etc. I gave up after a while.

Then came the fun part of doing somersaults and jumping over obstacles. We started by running at and up a wall. I was not good at this. You're supposed to run at the wall, then put one foot up on the wall to vault yourself upwards. There was no vaulting for me. Jumping over things was fun, but I sucked at it. I think I chicken out and don't get the momentum to clear the thing, so I kind of inchworm over it.

Towards the end of all this jumping and sumersaulting, the fire alarm went off and we were forced to leave the building. Temperatures are just above freezing here in London, so it was a bit cold, but that didn't matter because the drill sargeants made us jump up the stairs (feet together, body low to the ground) and climb up the stairs backwards on our hands and knees. Then they made us crouch down, jump, and land back in crouching position. We were let back into the building, but not before my leg muscles turned to mush.

Once back in the building, we had "warm-down" which was really like a yoga session (but more brutal). I stopped going to yoga because the woman mentioned doing hand stands and I freaked out, but now I think yoga, hand stands and all, is a walk in the park. I'll do any other sport or exercise routine, just please don't make me go back to parkour! Who needs to climb walls or jump fences anyway? Not me! Jazzercise. That's the sport for me.

9 comments:

  1. If a spy is chasing you, you will need parkour. Trust me on this. Did your friend enjoy it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is SO COOL! I can't believe you even tried it. That's awesome.

    And I agree, you would definitely need it if a spy or bad guy was chasing you.

    But, don't feel bad that you got roughed up a bit. Daniel Craig had to get reconstructive surgery during the filming of this last Bond movie, because he did some of his own stunts. Consider yourself lucky that your nose is still intact.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh my goodness. I read the wikipedia page first, then read your blog. That's hilarious! And completely absurd. Can we do that when I'm there? I want a cool story of what crazy things this drill sergeant made me do, too! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I took a class about a year and a half ago: http://www.43things.com/entries/view/2271680

    It was kind of cool, since I enjoy climbing on things, but I decided it wasn't really the sport for me, either.

    ReplyDelete
  5. In one of my acting classes last year, we did "tiger leaps" over our professor, which basically means that we jumped over him while he was standing and then landed in a somersault on the other side. It was intense, and SOOOO much fun!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am picturing all five feet of you scaling a 10-foot wall :D

    ReplyDelete
  7. haha, you crazy girl! when I get there, we will find some nice, relaxing, philosophical, pacifist Indians to do yoga with!;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. If you don't like parkour, it doesn't mean that parkour sucks. Think about it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. fuck u and die fuckhole! and ur lover is cheating on u!! hahahaha

    ReplyDelete