Eye of the Sloth

It's training time - my general fitness took a proverbial beating from the demons of stress, work, and take-out cuisine last term, and I'm just now starting to rectify that. (Of course, there's no snow here, so I'll have to settle for Cali sun and SF fog. Woe is me.) To that end, I'm making a commitment to hit the gym at least tri-weekly; encouragement (and light berating, if that's more your style) is, er, encouraged. I'm hoping to make it out to some of the SFPK meets as well. Naturally, I'll be concocting my own personal brand of inspiration - if this cryptic remark has you puzzled (as well it should) you'll just have to keep posted for more details!

Brute Force Attack

Somewhere back near the beginning of this term, I set myself a goal. Today, I made some very definite progress towards that goal by completing three (non-consecutive, alas) muscle-ups on one of the bars at OGC. Of course, I'm sticking to the wording of the goal, which means this only counts as one in a row; that said, they take a fair amount of dedication to build up to, so I'm quite proud of myself right now!

Mediaglyphic Evidence

Well, not quite - but here's the Montreal session video. The more I train, the longer the path ahead...

Ow, My Hands

 

A few of us here in Ottawa (well, only three) hit up Montreal this last weekend to get a session in with some of the local traceurs. The Stade Olympique (less than fondly referred to as the "Big O", both for its shape and for the enormous debt incurred from its construction) is unsightly to most - and an absolute paradise for skateboarders, BMXers, and traceurs of all skill levels. The photos are up here.

In other news: if you haven't done so already, check out Pretty Lights. Who says you can't give away the music PWYC-style and make a good run of things? Oh, right - these thugs do.

Ouch.

Twisted my ankle last night at OGC - I pulled off a monkey vault over one of their balance beams, only to have my right foot make a supremely graceful landing in the weak spot between two mats. Oops. Of course, one might contend that this sort of thing is bound to happen when you leap, vault, and climb over everything in sight for fun. I don't disagree - minor scrapes, bruises, and sprains are relatively commonplace in parkour. Major injuries, however, are not; these usually result from trying to show off or exceeding one's limits.

Parkour is NOT a rooftop sport. I repeat: it's NOT a rooftop sport.

Unfortunately, the more spectacular manoeuvres garner the most press, with the inevitable result that teenagers court serious injury and death jumping roof gaps because they think it's parkour. It's not. Every single experienced traceur that I've spoken with says the same thing. It reminds me of the rules from our CTF games on the University of Waterloo campus:

"Don't cheat! If you get hurt, you're cheating. If you're cheating, you're likely to get hurt."

So - don't cheat on your training! The people you see leaping between buildings - and making it, every time - have the confidence, power, and consistency that come from years of diligent practice.

(As an aside: I see that there is a good level for demand for starting an informal CTF league in Waterloo. I'm game - if nobody creates this group before I get back to campus, I'll do it myself. In the meantime, there's always Manhunt.)

And One Reason To Love It

It's biking season! For the first time yesterday, I eschewed four wheels for two in my semi-weekly Westboro adventures, thereby bringing a whole new level of pain to this morning's post-gym-session awakening. For what it's worth, it's heartening to see at least a half-decent network of bike lanes.

Another good thing: every time I head to a gym session or outdoor meet, I see new faces. This bodes well for the parkour community here in Ottawa - personally, I'd like to see it survive forever, well past the next wave of graduations. As inspiration, I'll post a video: Stephane Vigroux on parkour. Memorable quote:

"None of the founders supported the previous 'World Freerun Championship'. None of us support this. Let's make it clear."

Wise words from one of parkour's most skilled practitioners, and a strong indicator that the community aspect of parkour may very well survive the hype brewing around it. Let's hope it can. No - let's make it that way, each and every last one of us.

Life on Film

Well, not quite - but I have started uploading my photos here. (Yes, my other account still exists.) So far, the Parkour album contains nary but a couple of shots of the OGC gym floor and various downtown Ottawa hotspots; I have yet to grab any action shots, which may disappoint those of you expecting to see photographic evidence of my accumulating injuries. I haven't quite started living by my camera yet, and routinely forget to bring it along for photo-worthy events. Hopefully the act of keeping this blog will change that!

Other than that: I'm back in Ottawa, this time with a bike, a djembe, and a mostly-finished computer in tow. If I ever figure out how to use all three concurrently, I'll let you know. (Maybe if I strap the tower to my rear pannier rack with bungee cords and excessive amounts of duct tape...)

On a More Personal Note

My posts have been fairly tech/rant-heavy over the last while, so I figured I'd take a breather and bring everyone up to date on, well, me.

I've been madly posting to the PKCC sessions and regional talk, doing my part to help revive the Ottawa parkour scene. Yesterday, fainjoe (one of the PKCC regulars) and I paid a visit to the Ottawa Gymnastics Centre for their open gym session; apparently this is where all the traceurs are hiding, and no wonder - there's plenty of equipment and floor space to play around with. I'm confident that we can turn this into a cohesive and highly active group again. In the meantime, I'll be hitting up OGC and Vertical Reality (thanks for the tip, fainjoe!) as much as possible, aiming for my (possibly foolhardy) term goal of 5 consecutive muscle-ups.

Aside from that, I've been trying to knock all those menial but necessary items off my to-do list - things like filing taxes (in both the US and Canada!), making sure I can graduate on time (despite my propensity for taking the hardest classes possible), and finally firing off some essential emails. Not so exciting, but it will be nice once I have these weights off my shoulder.

I did manage to come up with a decent approach to my current project at NRC. I could tell you what it is, but - well, you know.

I'll be in Indiana for the last weekend in April - prepare your lynch mobs now, Hoosiers! As we Canadian pirates say, ehhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Monkeying Around

I finally got in touch with PKCC, Ottawa's local parkour community. One of their members is trying to get a weekly group conditioning session going, which is definitely A Good Thing; the harsh and prolonged Ottawa winter puts a damper on most regular outdoor activity, save perhaps for the occasional bit of vigorous snow-trudging.

On my goals list for this term: do 5 muscle-ups in a row. My training has been less than dedicated over the last couple of years, and this seems like a good benchmark to start with.

That said, I'm slightly disappointed to find that PKCC is nowhere near as active or cohesive as the group in Toronto. I'm hoping that the Ottawa scene will pick up again once this frigid pallor lifts. Until then, I've got some serious conditioning to do.