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Parkour: Tic tac to Kong (how to clear steps)

Run at a set of steps. Jump up, kick off a wall, leap higher, and land near the top. Lean forward and throw your arms down on the top step and propel your body upwards, clearing the steps in a full run.

This is what I learned to do today...

Definitely a welcome break from all the rolling and rolling and rolling we did last week (all good stuff, but refining technique rather than learning new techniques, so no blogging).

I showed up to class a little bent - I had eaten a couple apples today and let's just say they didn't sit so well. During the warmup and most of the class I had pretty bad cramps, deinitely unpleasant.

Warmup x3:
1 lap (4 blocks)
10 pop ups onto a 2+ foot high box
20s handstand
3 wall runs ea leg

In a crazy way I would normally think that is an easy warmup (and it is now), but my cramps made this hell. Ugh.

After we were done, Rob and Salil led the class out to a library near the park, which had two sets of wide steps with walls on each side. The first set was 9 steps, the second 7, separated by about ten feet.

To start off, Rob had us all attempt to get to the top of the steps as fast as we could. Since I play on steps a lot (remember my first parkour picture?), I formed a cunning plan and waited at the end of the line.

Every person in front of me ran or jumped straight up the steps as fast as they could. When my turn came, I instead ran at an angle and jumped off the wall and up to the 7th step and sprinted the last while Rob yelled "dammit Pete you cheater!"

Haha. Apparently the point of this exercise was for Rob to point out that everyone's route was ineffiecient and I spoiled it! Instead, I did exactly what we spent the rest of the class practicing - tic tacking off walls to run steps.

I had no problems and really pushed and enjoyed being pushed. I was consistently and easily nailing the 7th step with good form while everyone else struggled with four or five. Rob started pushing me, making me string together sets of tic tacs on the first set if stairs then the second (I was the only one who tried this).

It was exhausting yet incredibly fulfilling. Salil at one point said "I guess we found your mutant power" and Rob pushed me to the next level by showing me how to land and move forward into a kong vault to clear the remaining steps. Absolutely wicked.

Near the end of the class Rob had us all go for max height. Cameron suddenly figured it out and started consistently landing the seventh step while everyone else was still hitting four or five. I was able to bring my jump up to.8 with ease, and even Rob couldn't beat 8! Good stuff.

Really fulfilling class. I might try going back there tomorrow with my camera and a tripod, see if I can get some pics.

On a side note, I wore my ex officio cargos for parkour and was really happy with them! They held up well.

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