Training Spirit

A while back I was lucky enough to head down to London to attend the "Rendezvous II" advent - staged by the Parkourcoaching team (http://www.parkourcoaching.com/). With the entire Parkour coaching team including many familiar French faces acting as coaches, it was a day to be remembered! At the end of the session everyone settled down to have a little Q&A session with the French Traceurs. It was at the end of this, that Laurant ask the attending Traceurs; Why do they train Parkour? (You can see this in more detail at - http://www.parkourgenerations.com/videos.php)

I've been meaning for a while to write a post on why I named this blog "Train for Today" and to explain some of the reasons why I practice Parkour. With Laurant's question still in my mind, and the new year quickly approaching. Now seemed a good time to do this! This blog name might of not been the clearest of choices but it does represents some of my views on my training and why I've trained in the past.

I come from Anstey, a village in Leicestershire that borders on the edge of the country side. It's not that far from Leicester and pretty close to a large country park. As I've grown up surrounded by the natural landscape, being dragged through mud by my dogs around the local fields has always been part of the daily routine. It may sound odd, but when your used to walking on your own in the countryside, it can become strangely liberating. For that hour or two you become disconnected from society and are alone with your thoughts. I've always lacked confidence and I found it hard to express myself when I was younger. I guess it was a kind of escape-ism, but I still find it is refreshing to be out in the fresh air and open spaces, with no rules or regulations, no people to think about, no need to worry over how you act or look to the outside world. In contrast, I found the city to be the complete opposite, restricting and stifling. Back at the start of 2004, when I was first discovering Parkour. It was this sense of freedom that I found reflected in the discipline that appealed to me the most.

It was part of the reason I named this blog "train for today". Just to enjoy the moment and what is happening now. Not to say that I don't plan for the future or set myself goals but I think it's important for me not to get completely rapped up in that and keep that child like curiosity to explore, experiment, joke and play.

In the early days, my first sessions were with Blane. I remember being so nervous the first time I talked to him on MSN! He had come into the Parkour world with four years of Karate experience. I think he already well understood the benefits of conditioning and hard training. Where as I had no idea, in fact I almost had no sporting experience at all. I was excited and determined to learn but as a "non-competitive" discipline I didn't understand what I was progressing for. As for conditioning, I thought the idea of set routines and set repetitions of mundane exercises was the reverse of that sense of "freedom" I was looking for. I believed that it was enough just to go outside and play but in reality I was only playing at Parkour.

Of course I wanted to progress and after a while I became so frustrated with every thing that I couldn't do, I turned to conditioning as a way too achieve these goals. I actually noticed the other day that I still have Blane's original workout routine he gave me stuck on my wall! Since then, my knowledge and my passion for conditioning has grown. I now know the benefits of a creative workout and have much more knowledge of exercises and fitness. My workouts are constantly varying based on how my body and mind are feeling. Many of my conditioning sessions are outdoors, working with the environment and battling against the elements with much more relevance to Parkour.

The sense of achievement and satisfaction that a tough workout brings will always leave me on a high, and the long term benefits to my Parkour are obvious to me. Yet the most important thing that I've learnt is that if I want achieve anything worth while in life it takes hard work. In Parkour I try to keep a constant balance of work and play. In reality that sense of "freedom" that I was searching for is simply a state of mind. It is something that you carry with you inside, and it has to be earned and forged from experience.

Using Parkour to prepare for worst case scenarios or extreme advents was something that was complete new to me. It wasn't something that I thought about until I was well into training. It's true that Parkour might save your life one day or the life of someone you care about. Although it's more likely that the physical or mental skills that you develop from Parkour will help you in no end of other situations where you don't directly use Parkour. The quote Georges Hebert - "Too be strong, too be useful." (If your not familiar with Georges Hebert - check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_H%C3%A9bert) In this mind set - Parkour is not a complete discipline on it's own and skills such as first aid and survival techniques are also relevant. (The latter I have a lot of interest in but as yet very little actual skill!) In truth, I practice Parkour more as a way of life than a great preparation for the future, but it is something that I always bare in mind.

I know I am not the most skilled person out there by a long way, so maybe I'm not the person who should be writing all this. I could be out training after all. Yet, this is important to me and through this I hope order the haze of my mind and strengthen my will whilst sharing my motivations with my friends.

Thinking back to the few Hell Nights that I could attend at Leicester uni, as by this time I was studying in Nottingham. I can well remember the group of us, around six or seven sweating and suffering in the cold and dark of the winter evenings. The sight of our breath as we dragged our bodies and minds around one or two laps of the conditioning circuit. We moved from one strength challenge to the next, it almost seemed like there was some unseen electric energy in the air. Sitting on the last bus home I would be covered in dirt and crap, exhausted. But there was always the unmistakable feeling of satisfaction and pride in what we had achieved that night. Some of my most enjoyable and fulfilling moments in Parkour where when training with the other Leicester guys. The Lisses trip is another perfect example, where we came close to training 60 hrs in one week! It was amazing to be in Lisses, but it was the people I was with who made that trip what it was.

Recently, I've tended to train a lot more on my own and I think a few of the Leicester guys have been doing the same. There is very little organisation within the Leicester Parkour scene at the moment, but I know everyone will be working there asses off come the new year. I would just like to remind everyone that we all need other people in what ever we do, for support and encouragement. Even when training alone, we need to know that we have friends out there and they are working hard too. So to all the guys I'd just like to say hey, keep up the good work and we'll train soon!

I was inspired to write this after re-reading the post on Thomas' blog - Memories of Early Parkour Experiences :-

http://thomadventures.blogspot.com/2007/05/memories-of-early-parkour-experiences.html

I just find it impossible to read that post and not become fired up and ready to train. To me it captures the spirit of what Parkour should be about, and so, in the future I'm aiming to distance my mind from everything I consider negative, from all the bullshit and bitching on forums and so on. My goal in the new year will be to cultivate that training spirit. Whether on my own or in a group has yet to be seen (Leicester or otherwise). But to cultivate that feeling, that the few of us are working hard and doing everything we can to improve, and that is something special. Maybe 10,000 Traceurs across the UK will all be doing the same, connected through the Internet it can seem like these great achievements are just too mundane. But I can't let that into my mind, I can only focus on my own world, the people I can talk too and see with my own eyes and what I can create through my own effort.

I'll finish off with a quote from Thomas' blog that I mentioned earlier :-

"Just a bunch of friends with holes in their clothes and dirt on their hands, training their asses off together with the best spirit" - This is what I am aiming for.