Sunday, August 20, 2006

Parkour Infiltrating Mainstream Society!!


The red headed tyrant of prime time tv, Anne Robinson, almost made me choke on my afternoon tea and biscuits by asking a question I thought I'd never hear, and had me jumping and screaming at my tv:

Q: The French extreme sport Free running, founded by David Belle, which consists of jumping across rooftops, is more commonly known as what: Park Life or Parkour?


The woman then asked if it could be repeated and then answered Park Life. hahaha

Cable...

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Mogli...Back in Black!!!


For the first time in two years all four Saiyans have been in the same place at the same time. Our man Mogli has been back in the LDN with a whole lotta new Austrian tricks up his sleeve. No sooner had he touched down, we bundled him and his girl "Karin" into a car bound for Broadfizzle, Edgware. We gave him a minute or two to drop his stuff off and get his pk shoes on before chucking him in a the deep end for a massive gathering of the "Edgware collective".
All of our dudes (both tracer and civilian) along with Dale and Cecil of SBC, down especially from uni, our students and every local kid with any interest in Parkour, came along to welcome home the fourth Saiyan!

After some well deserved rest we headed down to our favourite park to do a little tree practise or so we thought until Mo decided to raise the bar and unleashed some awesome tree combinations that left the rest of us at ground level scratching our heads. He demolished all the challenges we set him and even did some we'd been puzzling over for ages. This got the rest of us trying our hardest to save our pride and by the end of the day we we're tearing the trees up along with our hands just trying to keep up. Mo's time in leafy Salzburg has definitely paid off!

No Saiyan visit to LDN would be complete without heading to GP Hood, a favourite spot of ours and home to Daffy. This was a good chance to show Mogli all the spots we'd found since
he'd left. After working on a few runs we realised we had lost Karin in the ghetto! lol. We climbed up to vantage point to see her attracting a lot of attention from the locals, so we sent Moz to the rescue and retreated to a chick friendly area. lol


Of course we took a trip down memory lane as we headed up to Waterloo, a place we hadn't been in at least a couple of months and Mogli hadn’t been to in years. It was quite a sour surprise for the EuroSaiyan who hadn't seen the deconstruction of such an iconic spot for us, however after some reminiscing we headed over to Jubilee gardens to meet our man Jason of SinClan, who is now a giant!! (Seriously the man has beefed up). We then spent the day doing a lot of power training and trying to stealth around security. The days highlights we're Jason's strength training techniques, Cable's rope balancing in the playground, Mogli's massive cat (arm jump) from a wall to a tree and back, and Blue's Lee Ryan coming over to us with his super hot girl to tell us how much he loved parkour, or "that jumping thing" as he put it. And shook Blake and Daffy's hand for a massive monkey (sdc) to precision. He then spent a while watching us train. I think we may see some Parkour in his next ballad video.


On the complete flip side of the coin, we took a well deserved rest from Practise and headed into central for a night of mischief...lol nuff said!!




The two weeks flew by and it was the last day before we knew it. Everyone knew this was the last time all four of us would practise together for a while so everyone wanted to push and challenge each other. We realised one Saiyans' strength is another’s' weakness which encouraged us to work on aspects of Parkour we might otherwise neglect. The day kicked off in Broadfizzy when Mogli spotted a cool run that started at ground level, up onto a wall, a cat (arm jump) into a tree then as quickly as you can through the tree before the Saiyan behind squashed you, and then a descent down to ground level. This got everyone fired up so by the time we hit the town Daffy found some cool precisions and a sweet gap jump. We only had enough time to do a few underbars and pull-throughs and some other bar related techniques that don't need a name, when London's finest turned up to catch some "daytime burglars". We we're expecting the usual authoritarian over zealous approach but it turned out they we're quite understanding and some what fans of Parkour and actually stuck around for a bit to pick up some pursuit tactics, lol. After they left Moses brought out the big guns and nailed a jump he'd had his eye on all week. It was a near level to level roof gap from a raised step and over a rail just before you landed. It's the kind of jump tracers dream about, you have to give it your full commitment, but once you know have the height to clear the rail, it's a smooth flight. It took a while for the rest of us to gather the courage to step up, but once we did, we worked into a sweet run and gave Daffy the drive to do a big, awkward precision onto a tiny landing space. All in all a fucking excellent day made all the better by the excited squeal Cable made while flying over the über gap. :D

As with all good things, Mogli's trip had to come to an end so reluctantly, with cut hands and swollen feet we rolled back home to spend the last night with the Saiyan extended family for a lazy, hazy night on the hill. ;-)

Mogli is now back in Austria recovering for an intense two weeks touring round Germany with the PAWA.de team. Good luck to them all and we'll keep you updated.

Ps big thanks to Karin for everything and remember... "Everybody look at the moon"