Post by Dai2 on Apr 28, 2008 17:13:49 GMT -5
Written by Shae Perkins:
I arrive at the campus at about 9:30; I'm completely lost. After some searching around, I finally come across a bunch of K-Swiss banners and big dudes in blue trainers jumping around. This obviously being it, I bolt out of the car and run over there.
All kinds of fan girl, I timidly walk over to the Tribe guys and introduce myself. To my surprise they’re actually really nice and open to conversation.
None of my fellow HoustonPK guys had shown up yet, so I mostly just walked back and forth looking at all the stuff I was soon going to climb over, under, and through. There was a large tower type thing probably hitting up at 18ft, 2 smaller towers about 14/15ft, another wall reaching about 11ft (good for wall running) equipped with a ledge and a surrounding rail, a pair of parallel bars center stage, and one more lonesome rail in the corner. This setup was awesome!
All of a sudden Mark Toorock starts the demonstration. It’s one thing to see these guys on YouTube videos, but it’s another to see Demon, Tyson Cecka, Levi, Skipper, and Frosti jumping around in real life. Their movements were flawless. Every flip, vault, turn, twist, jump, step, was seemingly impeccable. Making 12ft wall runs in no effort, gainers at ease, and all that crazy stuff that just made me jealous.
Soon after that I see about 10-15 Houston PK people pour out from over some stairs. We’re all jumping like little girls: crying, hugging, passing out--- ok not really, but we did hand out shirts, and shake hands in a very manly way.
After everyone gets acquainted, we make our way to a booth that’s handing out some really spiffy K-Swiss shoes. At first I was a little skeptical about trying "specialized Parkour shoes." Mainly because of some controversy about “prostituting the art” with media, equipment, etc. making it unnatural--- as I've heard it said. That soon vanishes as I slip them on and see that they’ve definitely been touched by some PK god. The grip, stability, cushion, and ahhh! They’re great! And they’re just a low, low price of 100 bucks. Better start saving.
Sometime after we had all shown up, a nice girl walks up to me and asks if there was anyone in high school. I say yes and ask why. She retorts that she needs some people to do an interview for ABC. My jaw drops, there is no way I could pass up an opportunity to talk Parkour on tv.
She takes me over to the interviewer guys who is going to…well, interview me, and then it kind of hit me what I was actually doing. I sort of got stage fright, but after the questions started flying, I just recruited my theatre skills and tried not to say anything not smart like. abclocal.go.com/ktrk/media?id=6048362
The next 4 or so hours are kind of a blur and most of this stuff won’t be chronological, so bear with me.
We started to drill and get a bunch of tips from The Tribe. For instance, we worked on cat leaps for a good 20-30 minutes, over and over again. We all tried some nice wall-runs and pop vaults, there were some vaulting stations, and some warm-up stuff goin’ on here and there. After about 45 minutes of all that, structure soon gave way to the pure essence of short attention spans. We had handstands, back flips, muscle-ups, ridiculous underbars, and any other movement you could think of going on all at the same time. I was kind of funny to see Demon, Tyson, and all The Tribe running around helping everyone non-stop.
Personally I respected The Tribe, not only for their impressive skills, but they were really all cool guys. I specifically remember stopping to eat some lunch and looking over to see Ryan (Demon) standing at the edge of the field helping one girl with a simple side vault. He actually took the time to stop what he was doing and help, just because he’s a cool guy.
There were many occasions when Levi and Skipper helped me with this quite bothersome wall run. And no matter how many times I didn’t get it, all they had was good advice as to how to get it a little higher. It was encouraging to try and try again, and even though I never got it, their “teachings” did get my fingers over an 11ft wall. Also I can’t wait to see that Ninja Warrior episode Levi is in!
Frosti. Honestly what can I even say about this guy? We had some radio station playing there to get some advertisement and they played some really cheesy, definitely not PK music. I heard Hollaback Girl one too many times, we had Pussycat Dolls, and even some country music. Then we had some good ol’ Michael Jackson. Frosti climbs on top of the 18ft tower and with a mixture of the robot, the Charlie Brown, and some strange PK break dancing stuff, he dances like there was no tomorrow. I doesn’t matter if every person in every car sees him for miles, he’s gotta dance! Asides all that he was a very bueno traceur who had an impressive arsenal of flips and PK movements.
We all had had a good share of falls that we just pushed through, because there was no way we were missing this; but I think the award for bravery should go to Tyson Cecka. If I remember correctly, he was playing with a mat and the parallel bars; he jumped at it wrong and fell. He stood up and his finger was dislocated at the middle joint. Mark and other Tribe members ran over with the paramedic. The EMT asked if Tyson wanted him to pop it into place and wrap it for him. Nope. Tyson took his finger in his hand, snapped it back into place and continued with the day. Now that’s a man for you.
After lunch, the day was beginning to wrap and we had a little chat. These guys were awesome; they didn’t’ just know how to do movements, they were gurus on why and how we should train.
We talked about how repetition is good, but you shouldn't take it too far. All you're doing by repeating a big jump you're not quite ready for, is increasing your chances each time to cause injury, due to fatigue or just sheer probability. You need to build layer upon layer of smaller things that slowly decrease those risks. An example: Frosti said he would rather jump off a 4 foot ledge than make a huge cat leap 20 times because the cat leap has a higher chance of him getting hurt, and he wants to train to a safer level.
We talked about conditioning, focus, the idea behind everything, how we train, why we train--- these guys knew there stuff.
It started approaching 4:00 and I was trying to get in those last moments of awesomeness, as was everyone else, when Mark said he wanted a picture. First of everyone, then The Tribe, then just HoustonPK, then of the Tribe and HoustonPk. Desmund gets a great idea of giving Mark one of our HoustonPk shirts. Let me tell you: you don’t know how cool it was to see Mark Toorok, the APK guy, wearing a HoustonPK shirt. As if that wasn't enough, the last performance of the day (Skipper's aunt arrived late and wanted to see the show) was performed with Mark Toorock wearing a Houston Parkour shirt. Awesome.
Well 4:00 finally reared it ugly head and I said “see ya” to all the Houston guys, and didn’t even think about saying bye to the Tribe. Well they wouldn’t allow that and pulled me over. We all shook hands, Mark and the guys met my dad (which was kind of weird), and then we all said bye and left.
Honestly the worst part about this was leaving. Oh well, we learned a lot and hopefully we can take it home and train with it.
I arrive at the campus at about 9:30; I'm completely lost. After some searching around, I finally come across a bunch of K-Swiss banners and big dudes in blue trainers jumping around. This obviously being it, I bolt out of the car and run over there.
All kinds of fan girl, I timidly walk over to the Tribe guys and introduce myself. To my surprise they’re actually really nice and open to conversation.
None of my fellow HoustonPK guys had shown up yet, so I mostly just walked back and forth looking at all the stuff I was soon going to climb over, under, and through. There was a large tower type thing probably hitting up at 18ft, 2 smaller towers about 14/15ft, another wall reaching about 11ft (good for wall running) equipped with a ledge and a surrounding rail, a pair of parallel bars center stage, and one more lonesome rail in the corner. This setup was awesome!
All of a sudden Mark Toorock starts the demonstration. It’s one thing to see these guys on YouTube videos, but it’s another to see Demon, Tyson Cecka, Levi, Skipper, and Frosti jumping around in real life. Their movements were flawless. Every flip, vault, turn, twist, jump, step, was seemingly impeccable. Making 12ft wall runs in no effort, gainers at ease, and all that crazy stuff that just made me jealous.
Soon after that I see about 10-15 Houston PK people pour out from over some stairs. We’re all jumping like little girls: crying, hugging, passing out--- ok not really, but we did hand out shirts, and shake hands in a very manly way.
After everyone gets acquainted, we make our way to a booth that’s handing out some really spiffy K-Swiss shoes. At first I was a little skeptical about trying "specialized Parkour shoes." Mainly because of some controversy about “prostituting the art” with media, equipment, etc. making it unnatural--- as I've heard it said. That soon vanishes as I slip them on and see that they’ve definitely been touched by some PK god. The grip, stability, cushion, and ahhh! They’re great! And they’re just a low, low price of 100 bucks. Better start saving.
Sometime after we had all shown up, a nice girl walks up to me and asks if there was anyone in high school. I say yes and ask why. She retorts that she needs some people to do an interview for ABC. My jaw drops, there is no way I could pass up an opportunity to talk Parkour on tv.
She takes me over to the interviewer guys who is going to…well, interview me, and then it kind of hit me what I was actually doing. I sort of got stage fright, but after the questions started flying, I just recruited my theatre skills and tried not to say anything not smart like. abclocal.go.com/ktrk/media?id=6048362
The next 4 or so hours are kind of a blur and most of this stuff won’t be chronological, so bear with me.
We started to drill and get a bunch of tips from The Tribe. For instance, we worked on cat leaps for a good 20-30 minutes, over and over again. We all tried some nice wall-runs and pop vaults, there were some vaulting stations, and some warm-up stuff goin’ on here and there. After about 45 minutes of all that, structure soon gave way to the pure essence of short attention spans. We had handstands, back flips, muscle-ups, ridiculous underbars, and any other movement you could think of going on all at the same time. I was kind of funny to see Demon, Tyson, and all The Tribe running around helping everyone non-stop.
Personally I respected The Tribe, not only for their impressive skills, but they were really all cool guys. I specifically remember stopping to eat some lunch and looking over to see Ryan (Demon) standing at the edge of the field helping one girl with a simple side vault. He actually took the time to stop what he was doing and help, just because he’s a cool guy.
There were many occasions when Levi and Skipper helped me with this quite bothersome wall run. And no matter how many times I didn’t get it, all they had was good advice as to how to get it a little higher. It was encouraging to try and try again, and even though I never got it, their “teachings” did get my fingers over an 11ft wall. Also I can’t wait to see that Ninja Warrior episode Levi is in!
Frosti. Honestly what can I even say about this guy? We had some radio station playing there to get some advertisement and they played some really cheesy, definitely not PK music. I heard Hollaback Girl one too many times, we had Pussycat Dolls, and even some country music. Then we had some good ol’ Michael Jackson. Frosti climbs on top of the 18ft tower and with a mixture of the robot, the Charlie Brown, and some strange PK break dancing stuff, he dances like there was no tomorrow. I doesn’t matter if every person in every car sees him for miles, he’s gotta dance! Asides all that he was a very bueno traceur who had an impressive arsenal of flips and PK movements.
We all had had a good share of falls that we just pushed through, because there was no way we were missing this; but I think the award for bravery should go to Tyson Cecka. If I remember correctly, he was playing with a mat and the parallel bars; he jumped at it wrong and fell. He stood up and his finger was dislocated at the middle joint. Mark and other Tribe members ran over with the paramedic. The EMT asked if Tyson wanted him to pop it into place and wrap it for him. Nope. Tyson took his finger in his hand, snapped it back into place and continued with the day. Now that’s a man for you.
After lunch, the day was beginning to wrap and we had a little chat. These guys were awesome; they didn’t’ just know how to do movements, they were gurus on why and how we should train.
We talked about how repetition is good, but you shouldn't take it too far. All you're doing by repeating a big jump you're not quite ready for, is increasing your chances each time to cause injury, due to fatigue or just sheer probability. You need to build layer upon layer of smaller things that slowly decrease those risks. An example: Frosti said he would rather jump off a 4 foot ledge than make a huge cat leap 20 times because the cat leap has a higher chance of him getting hurt, and he wants to train to a safer level.
We talked about conditioning, focus, the idea behind everything, how we train, why we train--- these guys knew there stuff.
It started approaching 4:00 and I was trying to get in those last moments of awesomeness, as was everyone else, when Mark said he wanted a picture. First of everyone, then The Tribe, then just HoustonPK, then of the Tribe and HoustonPk. Desmund gets a great idea of giving Mark one of our HoustonPk shirts. Let me tell you: you don’t know how cool it was to see Mark Toorok, the APK guy, wearing a HoustonPK shirt. As if that wasn't enough, the last performance of the day (Skipper's aunt arrived late and wanted to see the show) was performed with Mark Toorock wearing a Houston Parkour shirt. Awesome.
Well 4:00 finally reared it ugly head and I said “see ya” to all the Houston guys, and didn’t even think about saying bye to the Tribe. Well they wouldn’t allow that and pulled me over. We all shook hands, Mark and the guys met my dad (which was kind of weird), and then we all said bye and left.
Honestly the worst part about this was leaving. Oh well, we learned a lot and hopefully we can take it home and train with it.