miami fav #107 / miami freerunning and parkour academy
my friend, pierre, being awesome yet again, asked me if i would be up for doing a parkour lesson. ‘a what lesson?’ ‘a parkour lesson.’ ‘no, really, a what lesson?’ ‘this.’ ‘a lesson on how to be james bond?’ ‘for the love of god, megan…’ well, i was close. parkour is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one’s path by adapting one’s movements to the environment. freerunning is adding theatrics to that, using freedom of movement and creativity, like flips and spins. therefore, the miami freerunning and parkour academy teaches you how to get from a to b and overcome any obstacles, with a lot of flair. duh. of course i want to do this. the day we went, we made it in time to watch the end of the intermediate class. basically, for a full 15-30 minutes, we watched people catapult themselves off of a vault onto a wall and into a back flip landing back onto the vault and then running full speed over thigh-high blocks, ending with another flip and sticking a perfect landing every time. dizzy yet? we also watched them do running starts towards a wall that they then ran up - defying gravity - and practiced flipping off of. well, i certainly wasn’t going to be doing any of that today, but i thoroughly enjoyed watching strapping young men do it. what we did do, however, seemed small in comparison and yet impossible. it was hard. but i liked it [insert ‘that’s what she said’ joke here]. we practiced the basics. and one should never underestimate the basics. we learned how to land and roll safely. and we jumped. a lot. like, more jumping i’ve ever done in my life and many different ways then i knew jumping was even possible. jumping by kicking-off of something, jumping with your knees bent, with them not bent, with a running start, without a running start, with one foot… [omg] the list goes on. by the way, jumping makes you sweat. and reaaaalllly sore the next day. what makes the whole thing even more magical (besides the overly gorgeous guys teaching it; who are also professional freerunners and get paid to show off their skills around the world; and make you want to ask - ‘can we clone you?’) is that it is in doral in the middle of a cluster of warehouses. i don’t know. it just seemed like the perfect fit. very dangerous. very james bond. =)
shout out to my beautiful friend danielle pricken for the last photo (and the miami favs logo). you are my hero.
