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Monday, March 20th, 2006 04:08 pm
Saturday I went to the parkour jam on the UW campus organized by the local group. It was pretty cool, and I think I'll go back. Nice people, very welcoming to a n00b. I -- obviously -- sucked, but I think I could get better. Running and jumping have never been my strong points, and it would be nice to change that. Plus, it just looks cool. I made some progress very carefully feeling out my vaulting limits and refreshing my forward rolls from aikido, but the running killed me. Oh well. Next time I'll go to one of the Freeway Park jams instead. It's hard to imagine a more perfect place for doing this kind of thing.

Sunday I woke up and could barely walk. All those jumping type muscles in my upper thigh were on strike and not interested in mediation. So I did the sensible thing: spend the day helping [livejournal.com profile] xmurf and [livejournal.com profile] adularia move. Hours of carrying heavy things up and down stairs. The fact that ascending and descending stairs uses the very same muscles busy denouncing me as a running-dog for the system made for a very long day.

Today I'm at work, trying not to move very much. Sitting is good. Standing is okay. Walking on level surfaces is... tolerable. Anything in between has a big OUT OF ORDER sign on it. In neon. Flashing. At least it's only muscle pain, I guess.
Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 05:25 am (UTC)
That looks really neat, but I'm totally not up for it.

By all means, work your way up to it, but in the meanwhile, is there a kind of activity that captures the spirit of Parkour while getting you exercise but not totally killing you? And if you find such a Parkour-lite activity, could you let me know?

I have determined for myself that the more a fitness training program resembles a video game, the more I'll like it. I'm especially fond of squash, which I should play more, and I spend half an hour today tossing a tennis ball against a wall in various interesting ways, which turned out to be a really nice workout. If I try to hit each of the cinderblocks within a region without dropping the ball, is that moving from Pong to Breakout? Is Parkour to Super Mario Brothers as racquet sports are to Pong?
Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 06:51 pm (UTC)
I have determined for myself that the more a fitness training program resembles a video game, the more I'll like it.

DDR, my friend. DDR is for you.
Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 08:51 pm (UTC)
No, it has to resemble the inside of a video game. In my limited experience of watching other people play it, DDR does not resemble a video game to me because there are no objects in space.