Angry Zen Minion Devin Wolfe writes in with news that Channing Tatum of Step Up 2 The Streets fame will star in a drama featuring Parkour for New Line sometime next year. Tatum and a partner use their Parkour jutsu to steal shit.

More Parkour on the big screen? Yay! More Channing Tatum? Um… I guess? You know, I don’t need much of a story to be impressed with people wall running or jumping over cars so who knows. This could be a lot of fun.

[Via Variety]

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Wow!

Reader Johannes Oksanen sent over this E3 trailer for Mirror’s Edge, that awesome first person parkour game that everyone’s talking about. Holy shit balls does that look awesome!

If you will recall, my brief experience with parkour screwed up my drawing wrist for a few good months. Well, this game takes care of that. All the fun of parkour minus the painful wrist injuries! You get to do things that I would never have the balls to do in real life. Leaping off a building to grab onto an helicopter? Wall running to kick a guy with a shot gun? Jumping from roof top to grab onto a drain pipe on the side of a building? All very impressive. All too insane to actually do in real life. But you get to do all that crazy shit in the game!

I think there’s some murder plot or something and you’re being framed and stuff, but who cares. You get to jump off buildings without actually jumping off buildings. I’m sold!

[Via Mirror’s Edge]

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Bet you’ll never guess who fucked up their drawing arm tonight at parkour! LOLZ!

I completely missed last week’s sessions because I was taking a personal survey of local hospital standards (see, I use humor to deflect personal anguish) so I was fully prepared to get my ass kicked up and down the Primal Fitness gym. And sure enough, it was rightly kicked!

Today’s new skill is called “cat leaps.” Mastering this skill will allow us to perform “top outs” which will in turn allow us to impress all the ladies with our mad YouTube skills. To perform a cat leap, you jump at a wall feet first (in this case a five foot block), make contact with the wall, grab on the top ledge with your fingers (no palms!), and let you butt hang low below your feets which are now tucked in. When you hang there, you look like a cat hanging from a curtain. It’s essential to not grab the ledge with your whole hand as I found out after trying four of five of these when my right wrist decided to see what it would feel like to be in two different places at once. Fucking OUCH!

As I type this, it’s starting to throb, reminding me that I should head directly to the freezer now before I meet up with my brother, his wife, and the new baby. They’ve come in from Redmond, WA to visit dad. So it’s off to ice I go!

Oh, and by now you should all know that I highly recommend Primal Fitness. If you live in the Metro area, it’s a great gym for learning parkour and in general. They also have an olympic weight lifting class that looks like it kicks serious ass. If you want to get in shape in a damn hurry, this is the place. Never been to a Gold’s before, but I dare say Primal Fitness will get you there faster.

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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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Slow news week so I’ll just talk about pain!

This week started week 2 of parkour bootcamp at Primal Fitness. I’m happy to report that although there is indeed pain, this is a good sort of pain. Last week’s pain was the “hey you fucking old fuck! What the fuck do you think you’re doing” type of pain. This week’s pain is the “welcome back! And why haven’t you exercised properly for the last three years?” kind of pain. And it feels great! This is how I used to feel after karate class back in the old days. Hmmm… kinda sounds like I’m trying to get my youth back somehow.

We had one unfortunate casualty. One of our traceurs-in-training cramped up from the waist to his neck. His entire upper frame just seized up on him and he was cradling his hands like a penguin. The trainers said it was probably a potassium deficiency and sent someone out to get him some Gatorade.

Note to self, eat infinite bananas on parkour day.

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If you’ve been following my twitter, you know that I’ve signed up for a parkour bootcamp at Primal Fitness. Tonight was my first class. Obviously, I am not dead for I am typing this. But I’m damn near close.

For a few months now, I’ve been attempting to get in to some sort of shape. I had done martial arts since the age of six but stopped a few years back because I just got tired of the organization. Since then, I’ve let myself get horribly out of shape.

I’ve wanted to do parkour and capoeira for the longest time and I just happened to find a local gym that teaches parkour that was featured in the local paper. So I signed up. Like I said, I’ve been trying to exercise for a few months now. I figured that the parkour boot camp would kick my ass, but not too bad. I’ve been working out. Half way through tonight, my body suddenly decided to remind me that long distance running endurance is not the same as “jump on a two by four and balance on a thin plank while throwing and catching a honking big heavy medicine ball” endurance. Right before the last exercise, I felt horribly dizzy. Got some water and somehow made it through the ball tossing.

I had a blast! I totally needed this kick in the ass and I’m looking forward to finishing up the boot camp. I plan on practicing between now and the next class so I can build up some of that aerobic endurance so I don’t fall on my ass next time.

Oh, and I’m feeling it right now which means tomorrow is going to suck hard. HAHA!

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