I am a Quadruped.

Note: This essay includes hypertext, that is linked to the world-wide-web.

Prologue

I am told now, that when I crawled before I learned to walk I never used my knees. Even then I moved on the palms of my hands and the souls of my feet. However, I do not remember that phase.

The first moment I remember returning to being a quadruped after that phase was October Twenty-Zero-Nine. A friend of mine had showed me a film. We then went fo a walk in the forest. We had been scoffing “ha 4 miles inst that far.” Then we tried about 100 meters each. It kicked out asses

At the first Parkour Horizons practice I went to I fell in love with quadrupedal movement.

On my Birthday in Twenty-Ten, I did my first “big crawl. I planed to go out for two hours of crawling. In Forty-Five minutes I covered a distance I can walk in nine. I then had to rest for fifteen minutes and was able to crawl another three hundred meters before calling it and walking home. In total I crawled about one-thousand meters that day.

 Martin-Luther-King-Day Twenty-Eleven I crawled eleven-hundred meters. The ground was bitter cold that day I wore thin gloves that dissolved near the fingertips.

In the past month I have started training my crawling. The distances I once thought were lager are sizable still, but I do those distances on a regular basis now. I am trying to crawl more and more in front of people; in public spaces and at high traffic hours.

Epilogue

On my birthday twenty eleven I crawled two-thousand-three-hundred meters because I was turning twenty-three. Later, in the months of December and January I started taking steps to become a complete quadruped. However, it would be another six months before a consistent regimen was possible. In all of the month of July Twenty-Twelve I took less that one hundred bipedal steps.

For the last several years I have walked up right only three quarters of the time. Every three months or so I return to quadrupedie full time. This year, twenty-twenty-one, I just learned I will be a father soon. I have said the joke for years, but I want my children to have to learn to walk bipedal to go to school. Kids learn by observation. If most of what I child see is quadrupedie, perhaps they might take longer learning bipedal locomotion. I just want to raise an army of super people.

Citation

Demon's Drills. (Jan 14, 2009). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzzXHm14Bgg

. Inteamtraceur. (Aug 18, 2007). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umvvlP508wc

Parkour Horizons Team. (Sept 1 2011). http://parkourhorizons.org/

Theodore Gorman. (Jan 17, 2011). http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150124256081830&set=a.10150102541916830.309314.538711829&type=1&theater

Theodore Gorman. (August 2 2011). http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10150328472796830&id=538711829

Book Review: The Moments Between

I read The Moments Between today. It was amazing. The photography was unreal. Andy has this ability to capture movement in a still medium without loosing any of the dramatic magnificence of the action.

I was talking to the book at different points. Laughing with Blane, Thomas and Andy many times. Scoffing in amazement at the things that they do. In the first 20 pages or so they lift a car into a parking spot. If asked before I might have said that Blane could toss a tank if he really needed to, but I would have been being sarcastic. 

I am looking at a map now to try to figure out where they went. I am also considering getting an old beater car and driving it around in some sort of Parkour adventure. Sadly I have about 110 dollars to my name and I remind you the dollar is weak now. No beater is that cheep.

I feel like I had a really inspiring training session with Blane, Thomas and Andy today. It’s that well written. There was a scene described where they were breaking a jump. Blane has helped me do the same at events here in Ohio. The way Andy talked about it brought back all the emotion from that experience.

As a final thought, I want to go out into the world and find new people to train with. These sorts of people that are described in this book. These familiar strangers, who we have shared a million experiences with but never met. We all know the fear before a jump that is just on the edge of our ability. The excitement of achieving that jump and the satisfaction of doing it three times. I have attended several international Parkour events, but they have all been with in 25 miles of my house. This book has made me want to venture out and find these familiar strangers on their own turf and train with them.

I highly recommend getting a copy of The Moments Between and reading it soon. 

Balanced in the Moment

Today I tried adding some new variations to a classic: railing balancing. The new elements were rain and night. I have done some balancing after dark, but always avoid it in the wet. I found a rail about 40 feet long by my elementary school. The first trip down in back in my vibrams went fine, but after about 4 steps in my trainers I nearly racked myself.

What I was noticing most about my self when trying to do this was that my mind would not stay with the action. I do this a lot, think of the future when I am in the moment. I was thinking mostly about telling people about this experience in the future. However, I was missing the experience because I was thinking about telling these people about the experience. Or I was thinking about writing this blog entry and the crafty ways I would compare balancing on the rail to balancing in the moment.

The best way I found to stay with the moment was actually by reflecting on rail walking. When walking on a rail you don’t actually “walk,” you transition from balancing on the left foot to balancing on the right. If you try to balance on two feet at once you cannot counter the weight of the upper body. In the same way if I let my mind wander, but still keep it in the moment it helped. I would focus on more than one thing all happening around and within me, my breath, the rail ahead of me, the sounds of traffic and rain. Then I would transition not moving from foot to foot, but moving from moment to moment. Finding new things to keep me there, the shadow I made as I wiggled trying to stay up, the feeling of the metal below my foot, my breath. In all meditation they say to focus on the breath and I found this very helpful.

I have not have mastered Zen meditation, being totally absorbed in the moment. But I took my first step.

Committing to Fear

The only way to truly progress is by facing your fear. Early in my Parkour training I hooked my feet on a monkey vault. After that, I was afraid to monkey vault on rails for almost a year. Last night, I finally faced my fear and attacked the monkey-on-rails. It wasn’t my physical ability that was holding me back; it was fear.

Fear can paralyze us. The most success I have had dealing with fear happens when I pick something that scares me visualize success and execute. Committing your self like this is not easy, but it’s the only way. Another key I have found that helps in commitment is to find things that make you feel a little safer.

Do things that scares you every chance you get. This does not mean do something stupid every chance you get, some things are scary for good reason. Those reasons are that we lack the strength or experience to perform a maneuver. However, we all have things that are in our capabilities, but are just outside our comfort zone. The only way to improve therefore is to get comfortable working outside your comfort zone.

Today, I will go to that same rail that I face planted on a year ago and monkey vault it. 

The Indefinable

Every chance I get I will talk to people about Parkour. Therefore I find myself trying to explain exactly what it is that I mean by “Parkour.” I try to express that Parkour is more than running, jumping, climbing things, but keep it short enough not to bore people. I usually say something like this:

Parkour is a holistic discipline, a system of movement similar to martial arts or dance. Parkour teaches you to move within an urban or natural environment. The majority of the training focuses on rigorous conditioning. The goal of this conditioning is to prepare our bodies for the taxing nature of the movement. In the simplest of terms the movement consists of running, jumping and climbing to overcome obstacles in your path.

However, the above definition gives the impression that Parkour is only a system of movement; this is a common misconception. I first heard from Andy Pearson of Parkour Generations that “Parkour is being the best possible version of yourself.” This means that Parkour is a lifestyle and its principles can be exemplified in any action one undertakes.

That definition I can say in about 60 seconds. It’s not the greatest definition, but it hits the main points. Mainly that the training is rigorous, the movement is dynamic and creative, but there is also an intellectual side. At the end, I use Andy Pearson’s definition though I don’t fully agree with it.

I always strive to be the best possible version of myself and Parkour is only one of many ways that I do that.

Self Defense and the Defense of Others

A few months ago my mother and I were talking about my Parkour practice. She observed that the way I was talking about Parkour was similar to the way I talked about my martial arts practice when I started it. She then went on to ask me “If you had to choose, which would you do Parkour or martial arts?”

Without a moment’s hesitation I said “Martial arts.”  This decision is not biased on one being more fun or a better work out. The reason I gave then is the same I will share now. If my mother and I were hanging out, like we were that day, and someone tried to mug us, Parkour is simply not an option.

Most any situation where I am in danger running from a fight doesn’t bother me. I would much rather risk looking like a coward than risk getting hurt or seriously hurting someone else. Even if I think I could win a fight, there are too many variables. The opponent could have a concealed weapon, have far more training than I guessed or even just get lucky. Even if I am the luck one that day and end up putting the guy in traction, courts are unpredictable. The best way to win a fight is not to get in one.

However, if I am in a situation where not only I am in danger, but also other “innocents” are as well, running is not an option for me. Parkour is a wonderful discipline for self-defense. However, I believe if you goal is to increase you utility, as is mine, it must be balanced with a discipline for the defense of others. 

The Desire to Teach

The first night of the Labor Day weekend event 2010 I had gone with Stephane Vigroux to train. After a run through OSU campus and some conditioning drills he told us we were going to do “fear drills.” He wanted us to split up and find something that was just beyond what we were comfortable with. He didn’t want us to do it yet just find something.

 After, some deliberation I found a rail with an 8 or 9 foot drop on the far side. We came back together and Stephane gave us more instruction. As a group we would go to each persons challenge. That person would get into position and the have three seconds to execute the maneuver. Then they would repeat this three times. I somehow ended up going last, after seeing these more advanced guys doing big flashy things I was beginning to think my little turn vault was inadequate, but they have always scared me.

I approached the bar and immediately locked up in my head. My goal was to execute the movement without a step on the rail. The lack of control that comes from purely vaulting the object, with no step, still surprise me to this day. I made the attempt but did a step vault. I told Stephane that this was not my goal, he told me something that I will never forget. I’m paraphrasing, it was a long time ago, but he told me to step away from the bar, don’t even look at it. Close your eyes, picture in your mind doing the vault. Then turn to the rail, open your eyes and do it. And I did it, three, not beautiful, but stepless turn vaults none the less. When I was done Stephane pulled me aside for a second as we were going to stretch down and he told me that when he had stared training, turn vaults scared him too. That was perhaps the biggest confidence boost I can imagine, being told by someone who you idolize that they once were in your shoes.

The moment I knew I wanted to teach Parkour was in the first week after that event. A friend of mine had been away for a while and had just started back at Horizons. He had been working on palm spins for a while but had never done them on a flat wall. I can’t do a palm spin at all, but I could see the same look of fear taking over his mind. So I told him “turn around, don’t even look at the wall, close your eyes, picture yourself doing this palm spin, then turn back take a deep breath and do it.” and he did it, I told him to do it two more times to be sure he had this palm spin, which he did beautifully. Helping my friend overcome that little bit of fear made me know that teaching Parkour is something I want to do for the rest of my life. The things I have learned in the last year or so of training have changed my life and I want nothing more than to spread that to anyone I can.