Pine Grove Parkour - June 14 - 20, 2014

These past two weeks I had the chance to do some interesting and fun things with my Parkour training, the highlight of which was the chance to do Parkour for the first time in the wilderness.

So, let us begin.

Saturday June 14, 2014

June 14 or as I shall call it, "The Day of First Wild" was the first time since I began learning Parkour way back in April of 2013, that I had the chance to do Parkour in the wild, if you can call the area surrounding a developed campground the wild.

The second weekend in June is an annual camping trip that a group of work colleagues have been doing for at least the past 10 years, and this year we decided to go to the Pine Grove campground that is about an hour W.S.W. (west south west is the half-way point on a compass that occurs between SW and W, see the graphic below) of Calgary on highway 1 then highway 68. It was a nice weekend where the sun was shining when it mattered and raining when it didn't matter. I got to break out my tent and sleeping bag and enjoy sleeping in the fresh mountain air.

Obtained: http://amoskeagrowing.org/Images/compass_rose.png, June 20, 2014

On the Saturday June 14 a few of the people in the group went for a walk and I went with them. We hadn't gotten far when I saw this shallow valley that had been created by the river when it had flooded, and what was sticking out of this little valley but a solitary mound of dirt that was about 3 meters (10 feet) away from the edge of what I shall call the mainland. Upon seeing this mound of dirt the first thought that popped into my head was "I wonder if I can jump that?" I voiced this question of mine to the people I was walking with and proceeded to prepare for my first jump of the day, and by prepared I mean I took my jacket off.

After removing my jacket I lined myself up for a running jump and showed that gap whose boss. Upon landing though, I realized how slippery grass can become when you are doing a running jump after it has just rained. I had my feet slip out from underneath me and landed on my butt. I did not slide off the mound but I was close to it.

After seeing me do this one of the guys I was walking with, named Jon, said that he wanted to go get his iPad so that he could take a video of me doing the jump. (You can find the videos here and here). This time I made sure to warm up my muscles so that I would be able to do the jump while at my peak performance. When he came back he brought an audience with him, which added a little bit of stress to doing the jump correctly and awesomely, but knowing that I could clear the gap because I had already done the jump successfully took away that stress and I went for the jump two more times.

As you can see from the two videos my next two jumps were much more successful than the first jump, even though on my third jump part of the mound gave away when I landed on it causing me to land on my knees instead of my feet. Do you want to watch the videos now?

When we got back to camp Jon went about showing everyone what I had done and being generally very excited about what I had shown him, which in turn made me happy having someone be impressed by what I can do.

That is what I did over the weekend, the next thing I did that was Parkour related came on Wednesday June 18.

Wednesday June 18, 2014

On Wednesday I went to Mount Royal University to get a massage at the practicum clinic. Now there are probably many of you thinking "A massage, that isn't Parkour related!" Well, you’re not completely wrong. But it is related in a small way, at least for me there is, let me explain.

When I do Parkour I want to always do better, and always improve, and be able to do things that I have never done before. To be able to do this I need to be operating at my peak performance, in strength, flexibility, and reflexes. When your muscles don’t want to operate properly because there are knots the size of golf balls (I’m not joking there, that is how big they told me they were) in your back, neck and forearms that cause you pain when you try to do certain things, you are not operating at your peak performance.

So in order to allow my body to operate at its highest level of performance, I went to get a couple of massages at the MRU Practicum Clinic. The massages are all done by students, so none of them are pros but of the two times that I went there I got a massage that was okay the first time, and a massage that was awesome the second, and I am more than willing to pay $30 per massage for that.

The person who did this massage was a guy named Philippe, he did a very good job, he was a very professional individual, and was able to easily use his weight to apply more or less pressure. Which is something that a lot of massage therapists in training struggle with. The fact that he does MMA, which I found out during a conversation we had during the massage, probably helped in that field.

So I had a very positive experience getting my second massage, EVER! My back feels better and my muscles are more willing to respond to movements, now I just need to make sure that I take care of my back so that I don’t have to go back all the time.

I am going to leave you all with a quote again, I think that I am going to make this something that I do for every post, so if you have a favorite quote or one that you think is good send me an email using the contact form with the subject “Quote”.

Anywhere here is the quote.

“In the end we only regret the chances we didn’t take.”

Now, apparently this is found in the book “The Guardian” by Nicholas Sparks, at least that is what the internet told me, but after searching through the copy of the book that I found on Google books, I can’t say that it is from that book because I couldn’t find it doing a text search.

Regardless of who said this the point it is making is still true. How many chances have you not taken, and then when you look back at them later in life you wish you could go back and take them. I know that I have had a number of opportunities in my life that I haven’t taken, and it makes me sad that I didn’t take those opportunities. This said, there is no point in letting that get me down, or letting myself fall apart because of the mistakes I have made, because at the end of the day I can honestly say that I have learned more from my failures than from my successes. I saw this happen in school when I did a question wrong, I remembered it; I see this happen in Parkour, when I do a move wrong, I remember what I did wrong and how I can correct it; and I see this in life, when I make a mistake, I remember that mistake and desire to never repeat it again. Life is a time to learn don’t waste it, remember every mistake is a chance to learn something new.

That is all for now later everyone.

– Nathan