Free-running: like parkour, but with more flips and acrobatics and not so focused on the "efficiency" part.
So I went to my first parkour class last week and BOY HOWDY was it tiring! It was probably the most intense workout of my life. I don't know if you have figured it out yet, but I am definitely NOT a regular exerciser. The most exercise I've gotten since I arrived in London is probably lugging my groceries four blocks home. But then of course I figured out a bus route that cut that distance to half a block, and there went my exercise. haha.
However, for the longest time, I have been really interested in parkour. When I saw my first clip of "Urban Ninja" on Youtube, I freaked out. 'I CAN BE A REAL LIFE NINJA!!!' People were flipping off the roofs of buildings, scrambling up walls, climbing fences, jumping over railings. I know it's a little bit racist, but I thought 'I'm Asian, so I have to be able to do this.'
Well, I am proud to say that I have, and it is awesome. It took me about 45 minutes to commute to the gym where class was held. I was going all by my lonesome and was afraid that I would get lost, but luckily for me, the gym was actually within sight of the tube stop. Yay! I was actually really early, and class didn't start until about 15 minutes after the posted start time because of some sort of miscommunication where the teachers couldn't get the keys to open the storage closets and get the equipment. Still, I was super really a lot glad that I wasn't the only girl in the class. As far as I could tell the class was actually about 1/3 girls, and one of them was also named Rebecca. (We high fived and became BFFs. lol)
Class started with stretching. I took a yoga class last semester, so all of that was pretty familiar with me and I've always prided myself on being rather flexible to make up for the fact that I had almost no strength or stamina. And then we started warming up. Holy. Cheese-on-a-stick. The stuff we did was absolutely crazy! Every single exercise was either crouching down or on all fours. We did this with almost no breaks. We couldn't stand up to stretch. For like, 20 minutes. I lasted maybe 15 before I had to stop because I thought I was going to hyperventilate. I joined in again at the very end so I wouldn't feel like a big fat wuss, but still. I felt like a big fat wuss.
After the warm up, things got better. I still felt like a pile of cooked noodles, but now we were going to actually learn something. And we did! I managed to learn how to vault over an obstacle and only tripped twice. Eventually you're supposed to be able to do it without the use of your hands, but that was way too advanced (and scary) for me. I also learned how to 'tic-tac.' That's the actual name of the move and it looks like this:
At the end this dude in the video does a cat leap, which I also learned. All in all, I ended up falling less than a dozen times and I'm pretty sure I bruised the three smallest toes on my left foot from landing on them funny. But it was so amazing to have actually accomplished something. Sure, I sucked at all the moves, but I had the basics down and it was definitely a good start. After class I had to make the 45 minute journey home, and I was poooooooooooooooped! I was so tired that I actually considered not taking a shower, even though I'd sweated like a pig. I did eventually somehow shower and make it to bed, but boy, I was sore for the next few days. It took me about five days to fully recover, but I was so looking forward to the next class.
Unfortunately I had to skip last week's freerunning session because I'd fallen behind on homework, but I'm definitely making it to the next one. I'll try to take pictures and maybe even some video to put up later. :)
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