If someone were taking score, the count would be Primal Fitness Parkour Bootcamp 3, Jami 0. My soreness is much like last week’s which is a good sign, but boot camp still kicked the ever loving shit out of me. We did jump lunges and push-ups, sets of ten each, for ten minutes as our conditioning exercise and while I made it through all twelve sets of jump lunges, the push-ups totally spanked me.

Tonight we learned how to do a “Tic Tac.” This skill allows you to jump up to a high obstacle, say a four foot wall, using a shorter obstacle or wall. We started by learning our cadence by jogging a few laps and touching one foot to an obstacle without breaking stride. Then we did some crescent kicks which would allow us to change direction after kicking off our first obstacle. And then, on to Tic Tacs. We ran at a four foot block, planted a foot (we started with the right side), and kicked off at an angle landing beautifully like a frog on our feet on a mat. And this is where years of martial arts training took over.

You see, after about twenty or so years of martial arts training, I have no fear of hitting the deck which, depending on your perspective, may or may not be a good thing. The first few times I did a Tic Tac, my forward momentum carried me into a roll. Apparently, this is a good thing, but completely unnecessary for a four foot obstacle.

Turns out I was planting my foot too high and just driving my body straight down at an angle. If you start lower, you can actually jump higher. Once I changed my foot placement, I was flying through the air like a crazy monkey.

I’m having way too much fun getting the shit kicked out of me. Can’t wait for next week!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 11:46 pm and is filed under Parkour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.