A Tribute to the Dark Knight

Without a doubt the greatest of all traceurs to walk the earth...nay, the greatest of all mortal men to walk the earth! His incalculable dexterity, stealthiness, mad ups, and all around awesome are truly an inspiration to not just the free runners among us, but to all mankind...
It is Batman that all men aspire to become, whether they realize it or not. Batman is the reason Chuck Norris wakes up screaming at night.
statistically speaking, more American males claim to have a man-crush on Christian Bale than any other actor in history. ever.
90% of men in America claim to experience goose bumps just by hearing the phrase "I am Vengeance, I am the night, I am Batman". The other 10% claims to be gay...
May the Dark Knight continue to inspire us to fight evil, jump off buildings, look awesome, and bring justice to the Gotham city that resides within each of our hearts...forever and ever Amen.

The story of how I became a ruthless criminal

that's right kids, it's story time!

or rather, it's the time for me to vent about a highly annoying, but somewhat humorous situation...

once upon a time...(like this morning) me and mike, and his younger cousin went down to USC... we roamed around happily for about three solid hours... then around lunchtime, we found this parking garage, about five stories high, and it had a wall with a 3 inch ledge every 3 feet up... with mulch at the bottom, which made for both fun climbing and fun drops. but it was not to be...

for when i was about half-way up the side, i looked down and to my horror and annoyance i saw a security officer pull off the road and get out... my initial reaction was to get down as fast as possible, so i jumped but was so perturbed by the security guard's rapid approach and grim visage that i kinda freaked and screwed up the roll and rolled onto my head...

luckily any pain or embarrassment that i might have otherwise felt at that moment was forgotten as the officer began interrogating us. she was a female and thereby trying humorously hard to be intimidating and professional "take your hands out of your pockets sir." haha... not meant in any kind of sexist way...it was just funny is all...i'm sure she's a wonderful person deep down...

but as we began to try to calm her down and explain what we were doing, FOUR OTHER COP CARS PULL UP!! so now we're surrounded by i think 6 officers...ready to taser the pants off us at a moments notice... once all her "backup" arrived, the woman was a little bit more civil...
so now i began giving an explanation of parkour, selling it as a discipline and emphasizing the fact that we were training. and mike is going for the "we're just having fun and we're really good kids and not vandals and yes everything your saying is right, so please don't arrest us"=)

haha....and then the situation was worsened by the fact that we weren't even students at USC and apparently we weren't even supposed to be on campus without an escort??? what. the. poo.

so they chewed us out for a while, and took down our names and birth dates and said we were on "campus probation" and couldn't be on campus without an "escort". so now USC is closed to us... which is tragic. because it really had some of the best pk spots in the city.

guh...it's exactly this "I'm a skateboarder, arrest me!" mentality that we try so hard to avoid...and they have to go freakin out on us like that. FIVE COP CARS! it was a new experience, i've never been surrounded by five cop cars before. come on guys! surely you have something more important to do! go arrest some druggies or J-walkers or something...it's USC, everybody else is stoned and high, and they come after the innocent Bible College Students...yeah i know...way to represent. aach....whatev.

mike and i consoled ourselves afterwards by imagining how incredibly easily we could have escaped if we had wanted to...
and how! mwahaha....

ok, i have sufficiently vented...

THE END

PS: mom, if you happen to read this, it's no biggie...really...:)

PSS: on a really really ridiculously random sidenote... i also happened to scrape my stomach climbing up a rail, and it's like a perfect bar-code! haha...

Philosophy: random musings...

Parkour is my drug.
It occurs to me that I've always used it as a form of escapism. When I'm training, I can leave it all behind, whatever kind of stress I happen to be under at the time, be it mental, emotional, academic, etc.

I can honestly say that even when my life seems really screwed up at the time, when I'm parkouring, i don't know it... i suppose it's because when you're hanging by your fingertips two or three stories off the ground it's hard to remember life's other struggles;-)

Essentially, parkour has allowed me to maintain my sanity on many occasions when i probably would have otherwise lost it. It gives me a chance to focus all my energy, both physically and mentally. I can lose myself in it. i can get outside of the confines of my mind. it's just me, and God, and the urban jungle...and that's how we like it.

Update: curses...

Training for me has slowed down considerably, one, i strained my abs or something last night, which makes just walking challenging enough, and two, i'm taking it easy as i'm hoping against hope that my leg will somehow heal. the doctor said i needed to stay off it (parkour-wise) for 2 or 3 weeks...but right now that's impossible, after a year of training by myself, *sniff, sniff...* i've finally generated some momentum here at CIU. Mike is really taking off, which only serves to further inspire me...The ministry idea is slowly materializing, and i'm trying to pull together a training course on campus that we can run every couple days. I can't stop now. uhuh...
I forgot how much it helps to have people with you! last night we went out and i pulled off some perfect palm spins, and increased my kong distance considerably. i just wish i could take drops, but my leg hurts too much to consider that.
blast.
still excited though...
if time allows, (between writing essays etc) we're going out again tomorrow night.

Update: Downtown and Finley Park

I'm not sure what you would call this, ^ some strange variation on a flag I guess. But I can probably hold it for a good 10 seconds now. Must just be practice and balance, because I don't think my upper-body strength has improved that significantly...
The past couple weeks have been excellent. A lot of guys here at school are getting into parkour, so I've been able to get downtown three or four times. Mainly we're still just wandering around looking for spots. ---> This was a pretty cool parking garage we explored, had some nice places for dismounts etc once my leg heals up. grrr... yeah, i've got shin splints in my left leg, so i'm avoiding high impact drops for a few weeks, hoping it'll heal... Got some great vaults in by the post office though-->
I trained with Mike one night, he's pretty excited about it, and he's in great enough shape from being in the military that he can easily keep pace with me, which is really nice He also has way more common sense than me, so he probably kept us from doing stuff we shouldn't be doing;-) Then last night I went down there with Caleb and Dave, did some balancing and wall runs in Finley, -->
Plus we also found the most amazing spot ever. A collection of roofs that can be reached by Jackie Jan'ing up a 20' alleyway. I really want to go back and play on it some. It had some fantastic spots to do roof jumps etc... On a side note, Chris Miller is really interested in using Parkour as a witnessing opportunity, and i've already seen its effectiveness... so we'll see how that goes. I'm also hoping to hook up with guys at USC sometime soon. w00t.

Cat leaps in Finley park

Update: USC

The past couple days i've been able to get down to Downtown Columbia and the USC campus, which has been glorious. what i wouldn't give to be able to go there whenever i wanted instead of just once every few weeks....i'm losing my mind, being this close to all that, and not being able to get there!

i worked on kongs mainly tonight. they've improved lately, i can clear a good 4 or 5 feet now, but they still need work, i have a hard time getting horizontal.

cat leaps are coming along great though, i finally found a spot and pulled some 180 cats on some pillars. nice to know i can do it...

Oh yeah, note to self: check the landing surface before you kong over a wall! i thought there was a sidewalk, but realized in midair that it was actually a set of stairs going down to the basement level! it could've been bad...

the calcium deposits in my left leg are becoming a terrible problem, any time i make a drop, the pain just shoots up my leg, and keeps hurting for a few hours. i'm hoping to find some vitamins or something to help this problem.

PS i got this photo (props to my sister!) published on Urban Freeflow photo of the month for the US. w00t.
http://urbanfreeflow.com/pics_of_the_month/jan2008/pics_of_the_month.htm

Philosophy

I felt a need to give some explanation for this discipline that I have given my heart to. So that those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about when I say “parkour”, will have some frame of reference. And so when you see me doing weird “off the wall” (no pun intended) stuff, you’ll understand why.
(Plus I just felt like writing and figured I’d write about this. So I will now attempt to cut loose and waxeth eloquent…laugh at me if you feel so inclined...:-p

First and foremost, parkour is freedom. Freedom of movement, and freedom from some of the limitations imposed on us by society. Essentially, to practice the discipline of parkour, is to unchained your soul from the sidewalk.

The average person will stroll down the street, admiring the beauty of a city from a safe distance. A parkourist on the other hand, experiences the city on a much more intimate level. He really lives in another world entirely, he sees paths no one else sees.

For a practitioner of parkour, the city becomes far more. People use the term “concrete jungle” loosely, but that is truly what it becomes. Suddenly, a simple chain-link fence is no longer an annoying obstacle, it becomes a thrilling challenge to be met and overcome in any number of ways. Something as ordinary and commonplace as a parking garage can become the most exciting thing in the world.

If life is a chess board, then in terms of movement, the average man remains a mere pawn, moving down the row in one direction, one square at a time, or at best, a rook. A skilled parkourist however, is more in line with the queen, having the ability to move freely in any direction regardless of obstacles. A parkour practitioner relies on training and technique, coupled with primal, animal instinct to overcome these obstacles.

This is more than just an “extreme sport”. A sport can be left out on the field, or on the court. Parkour follows you everywhere you go. It’s a new means of transportation that becomes branded onto your mind, leaving you unable to view the world in the same light. Which is both a gift and a curse…

And yes, I know I should be doing something “normal” like playing football or basketball or something, but… I’m a self-proclaimed geek, and as such, am repulsed by such things. So when I discovered Parkour, I instantly fell in love with it, which is why I’ve given so much of time, effort, and blood, to this unorthodox art. Though I cannot claim to have achieved any great proficiency yet, it’s what I love.

So, when you see me randomly throwing myself off roofs, or balancing on rails, or climbing up walls, feel free to think i'm weird, or that I need a life, or just need to grow up, just please, please, please, don't think i'm just trying to "show off", (something i so despise) I'm just having fun, so just... smile and nod...and hand me a bandaid...'k?
;-)