Superhero training

Don't be fooled. It hurts! This is like Batman-training not "get bit by a radioactive spider in the lab" training.

So yesterday I tagged along with Allistair, his lady-friend and some other cronies for a fun-filled day of ass-kickery around the UCLA campus. It was Day 1 for most of us, except Allistair who hit up a training session last Thursday. And what were we doing?

Parkour.

"WTF is that? That sounds gay." you say. To which I say "Well, it's French, so it probably is, but it's AWESOME. And you're homophobic."

OK, anyway, the nutshell version of Parkour is bouncing around like a monkey. Up walls over & under railing, vaulting off of trash cans, bouncing up one wall (or tree) onto another. The reality of it is that after you do this for a few hours, EVERY MUSCLE IN YOUR BODY HURTS. Except my hands, oddly enough. Those just hurt because I scraped them trying to get over a damn wall. I was the only one who couldn't make it over, but that's cuz I gots no vertical leap. I have to work on that. I have taken for granted that just because I'm tall enough to reach most things, I didn't feel the need to learn to jump.



The group yesterday was rather large and every once in a while a cop car would cruise by and we were joking that if we were a gang, our big skill would be running away like cockroaches. which would be good if your main income was purse-snatching.

If you saw the last James Bond movie, the guy (Sebastien Foucan) in the chase scene at the beginning helped create freerunning, which is influenced by Parkour.



Anyway, the day was bad-ass and I'm definitely psyched for drills this Thursday, but considering all of the little muscles I need and the flexibility to get my feet higher than my knees, I might have to take up yoga as well.

Anyway, if I can actually stick to this, then I'll be well on my way to being a super-hero. There's no fighting techniques, so since I have a membership to the local shooting range, I'll just shoot people instead. Then run away up a wall.

But once I am a superhero, I'll need a theme song.