Let gravity do its job

Hey guys, it has been a while for yet again school has been my no. 1 priority.

We had school a couple of weeks ago on Saturday and because the teachers wanted us students to be motivated, we had the chance to design and have our own workshops. Naturally I and a couple of my fellow traceurs decides to have a parkour workshop.

In fact it was one of our first teaching experiences with parkour and taken that to regard it went a lot more better than what we had thought.
We had two workshops in total: one assigned for the upper secondary students and the other for the comprehensive school. Both workshops were quite different from each other, even though both were successful. The first one was more of a jam like training session whereas the latter was more based on teaching.

While we were planning the workshops we had two main problems: how to describe parkour and were to start the training. One of the major factors was also the fact that we didn't know their physical capabilities nor their level of body control. Thus our structure for the lessons was rather loose so that we could adapt to the situation and to their abilities and wishes. This turned out to be a great idea, because for instance in the first group were a couple of boys who were already quite experienced with parkour. 

Another major problem was whether to teach them some specific moves with names or to let them movey the way they feel natural. 

If taken into regard that this was one of our first teaching experiences, I could say that it was a succé, and I had the impression that the people who attended our workshops really enjoyed them, though I am not 100% convinced whether they did get the right picture of parkour.

Jus d'orange

It has been a while... again. I am at the moment trying to find a better balance n my life, and hopefully I'll be able to write more.

Btw, I published a video, for I realized that it has been almost five years since the last one :D.

A Generic update

Once again it has been to long since I last wrote. This time it has been the lack of time rather than the lack of ideas that have restricted me to share my thoughts. Much has happened since the last time I wrote, for instance I am nowadays vice-chairman of the Finnish Parkour Association. With my training everything is not going as well. As a consequence of the coming matriculation exams I haven't had the change to train in over a week! I can not imagine how I have got into a situation like this. I really hope that I will find some time in the future because it is one of my main problems at the moment.

The first thing that will hopefully ease my stress is the fact that I am moving back to Olari during the upcoming weekend. Basically this means that my time used to travel to and from school decreases from two hours to twenty minutes, at least that should give me some time, although I will probably use most of that time to sleep for my brains do not get enough time to process all of the information they are getting.

Making a strict timetable is the second thing I am trying to focus on. During my six years of training I have had countless tries to make a working agenda, all of them have failed. Yet I gave hoped every time that I will do something better compared to the last time, and this time I really believe that my upcoming agenda will be successful. On the other hand, that is what I say every time I have a new idea on how to schedule my doings.

I personally am not a big fan of training schedules that are to strict. I have tried to follow them in the past but they have never got good result. Neither have those which have been to loose. These kind of training regimes work well for me when I have a lot of spare time for example during holidays. But since I am nowadays sacrificing almost all of my time for schoolwork I really have to get a grip of myself and insert exact slots during the week when I will concentrate only on training and the wellbeing of my body. I will start slowly, because in the past I have usually had programs like: From this day onwards I will stretch every evening and go for a jog every morning. Obviously these haven't been either really successful, because the change has been to big.

So from next week forth I will insert two training sessions of about an hour, plus I'm going to make space for one evening when I will concentrate on stretching and also one morning when I will go jogging Furthermore I have planned to start a weekly jam here in Espoo so I have to find the best slot for it to. I hope that this is not to much of a change, and I will adapt it with the situation and tell to you about my progress.

One With Nature

Almost immediately after my and Mila's InterRail I was already on my way to new adventures this time in a little more natural way of moving, walking. It is already a tradition that every summer I and several friends, mostly traceurs, spend a couple of days solely walking. In my opinion this is one of the best forms of parkour, to really get from one place to the other by just using your own body. Although there aren't as many physical obstacles as we usually face in our day-to-day training, the mental obstacles are a lot more demanding. I guess that you could not call walking distances like this efficient at all, but it gives you a better understanding of your own limits and possibilities. It does also give a nice boost to your self confidence.

In the past we have usually walked from Espoo to our summer cottage, which is about 72 km in distance. The first time we walked this was four years ago. I was then still 14 so we were not so conscious neither about our bodies nor our capabilities. The result was that we walked about 50 kilometers straight ahead until we were so exhausted and in pain that we could not walk anymore. The next year we were older, stronger and most important smarter and we managed to walk the whole distance in two days. Last year we where already confident enough to try to walk the whole distance in 24h. It took us 22h and really sore legs but we made it.

This year we decided to make it a bit more harder: to walk from Turku to our summer cottage, which is around 105 km. Our goal was to walk the whole distance in three days: 35 km during the first, 40 km during the second and around 30 km during the last day.

Our route was really simple: we would take route 110 from Turku and continue it for about a 100 km when we would turn to a smaller road and walk a bit under 8 km and we would be at our summer cottage. A good friend of mine, who is a scout and is not afraid to bring forth his opinions has frequently criticized us that we are completely nuts to walk such distances only on the side of a single road. It is true that from time to time it gets quite bring just walking and walking the same road, long after there isn't anything to speak about and everybody is just silently staring to the ground.

One could say that the way we begun our journey ruined the whole point of us walking, because we first took the train from Helsinki to Turku. And soon we were already on the road. The first day went really easily, because there was a road for pedestrians for the first 20 km, so we had to walk only 15 km. During the first day we were all still enthusiastic enough to speak most of the time. There wasn't even any difficulties in finding a place to sleep. Since the sky was completely cloudless I didn't find it necessary to sleep under my cagoule.

The second day I woke up frozen solid, for the night had been freezing, or at least as freezing as a night can get in the summer. A good thing was that we were all clever enough to stretch in the evening before we went to sleep, so we were quite good to start our second day of walking. During the second day, it did get really monotonous. The road was really straight, and from time to time we could still see behind us the place were we had been over an hour ago. We would walk for an hour and rest for 15 minutes and continue this cycle until we would arrive in Salo, a small city right in the middle of our route. During the last hours before Salo we all got into a meditative like state in which no one would talk. Every one just stared at the ground or into the distance and move one leg in front of the other. Luckily we arrived in Salo when the day was at its hottest, so we decided to take an extended rest and wait until it got a bit cooler.

Lady Fortuna wasn't on our side for it didn't get any cooler after lunch. The only difference was that now the sun was shining right into our necks instead of shining right into our faces, I'm not sure which one is worse. We all had our makeshift ways to get us protected but each of us where burned by the end of the day. Even Antti, who claimed that he has never been burned in his entire life did have a red area on his neck. In the evening we where able to find an even better place to sleep. This time we did build a tent so that we all would be warmer in the morning.

From time to time we looked like we were stolen from a post-apocalyptic desert bandit gang.

In the morning I wasn't cold, but my legs were already getting a bit sore. But there wasn't any other option than continuing. It is quite ironical that the only time we had to turn from our road to a smaller road we  turned at a wrong crossroad, causing us to walk in the dense woods for about a kilometer. After all we did manage to get to the right road, although our speed was not anymore as fast as it had been in the beginning, so it felt like there were still kilometers and kilometers ahead although we were almost at the end. Before getting to our summer cottage we had to go to the grocery store, because seven men who have all walked over 100 km are quite hungry.

Eventually we did get to our summer cottage, we were all exhausted although I had a strange feeling. It seemed like 100 km in three days didn't offer me enough challenge if we compare to last years' 72 km in one day. I wouldn't say that it was easy, but I would have something more challenging. Thus I already started to plan my next adventure, which will probably be at its earliest in the spring next year.

Although I did not feel physically challenged, I still felt that it was a good way to bring relativness to my mind. For aeons we humans have transported themselves by only using their bodies. For us living in a post-modern or post-post-modern society it is good from time to time to appreciate the things we have.  

 After spending three days walking a distance that one could go in an hour by car, you start strangely to appreciate the fact that we have other ways of transporting ourselves, leaving time for perhaps more important issues.

InterRail part 3: Lisses

I had a wonderful chance to spent one day of our InterRail by training in Lisses and Evry, which is quite surprising for we had a really tight schedule during our journey.

For those who do not know what I'm talking about Lisses and Evry are the birthplaces of parkour and nowadays almost a Mecca for many traceurs. I have to admit that my journey to Lisses did open my eyes in many ways. Before our journey I had read on several message boards that one should need a guide to find all of the most famous spots. I didn't have the change to contact any local practitioners so my only option was to discover by myself what Lisses and Evry had to offer and suprisingly everything was really easy to find.

To get to Lisses I took the RER train from Paris to Evry Courcouronnes. And with my makeshift map drawn in my notebook I was able to navigate myself to la Dame du Lac. It did feel quite unbelievable to experience all the spots, especially la Dame du Lac after seeing it in so many videos, I needed a couple of minutes just to realize that I truly was in Lisses.

After sitting by the Dame du Lac for a while I followed my intuition and started to walk in a completely random direction. For a while I already thought that I was lost until I run up with the escaliers of the local gym. Then I turned around and saw the school, and right next to it was the famous cat-to-cat spot and the other famous white buildings again featured in numerous videos. I was quite shocked how close to each other all of the spots were, they were almost literally next to each other. I was also surprised how different all of the distances were: Most of the drops where not as high as I had thought. On the other hand most o the walls where a lot higher than what I had imagined.

From Lisses I continued my way to Evry where I again without any greater difficulties was able to find the manpower gap and also the walls behind the Cathedral. I was also lucky enough to see some Belgium traceurs. The only downside was that we were both already heading back to Central Paris.

All in all Lisses was really quiet and tranquil, which is probably one of the factors that has caused the birth of parkour: there really isn't a lot to do, especially if you are a teenaged boy. The presence of parkour can also be easily seen, although not in the most positive way. Everywhere I could see lots of signs which forbade climbing  or entering at all at an area. I felt quite sad that it had come to that. I do understand the perspective of the people in Lisses. They are just trying to live their everyday live when there are constantly coming people from all over the world to jump and climb and occasionally breaking things or at least leaving their footmarks on the walls. I personally wasn't really in the mood for training. Mainly because of all the signs and the overall negative atmosphere but also because I had already traveled with my 20kg + backpack for over two weeks, so naturally my legs weren't in the best possible condition.

I am not sure when I am going back to Lisses. The next time I visit Lisses I will probably try to contact the local traceurs so I could better see the way people train there. All in all I have rather mixed feelings off my visit to Lisses, and I really hope that there could be a better understanding between the traceurs and the authorities in the future.

InterRail part 1 and part 2

 Written 28.6:

Today we woke up early in the morning for we had to catch the bus to Turku which was leaving as early as 3 a.m. This meant that we had to be ready at around 2 a'clock. The whole morning consisted maimly of running from one place to the other so I do not have any fancy pictures. In Turku we still had to get to the port which lies about 4 and a half kilometers away from the centre. T his meant more running, especially because we first went to the wrong direction, thanks to my supreme navigating abilities. I really love to stretch your own limits to the very edge both in training and in life. Like today, we were exhausted, hungry and we had both slept only 2 hours. And I am not even mentioning the huge backpackd we were wearing. One could say that we would have could just catch a cab, but this was from my point of view lot more satisfying.

We were at last able to get some rest when we got on the boat. After a couple of hours of sleeping and reading my parkour radar was already tingling, because I hadn't had yesterday a change to train at all and I was a little sad because of all the nice spots which we had to leave behind us in Turku. So I decided to use the time on the boat in the most efficient way possible and started to search for training possibilities.

At first I didn't find anything inspiring save a couple of possibilities for a cat leap. But then we went on the sun deck and this nice complex (I can't give a better name for it) openend in front of my eyes. The best part of it is in my opinion that you do not face constructs like this everyday, the texture is different and the shape isn't very common. Thus it offered a perfect place to use my imagination. At first it was rather hard to find anything mindfull out of this construct. But as usual with new spots, by just trying enough moves your imagination starts to fly and new ideas come up.

The fact that it does have a rail was already enough to create a smile on my face for it was really windy on top off the ship so you really had to consentrate if you wanted to keep your balance.

At the end of the boat trip I was already consentrating on the next part of our journey: Stockholm. I visited a website called traceur.se which has listed a large number of spots in Sweden and almost every spot has pictures and even a list of the things you can train on the spot. I was rather disapointed of the spots; although there was a vast amount of them right in the Center, they where still mostly quite plain. I would have personally expected something more mind boggling. We where also both really exhausted, so we decided to relax a bit at the beautiful railway station of Stockholm.


InterRail part 2: 

I was able to really screw things up today (11.8) and I accidentally deleted the next part of my InterRail text, so I'm now trying to copy it here.

After the first couple days I didn't have many opportunities to train for our schedule was rather tight, but I was able to find some sweet spots to share with you, enjoy.

Into the wild

During Midsummer we Finns tend to leave the cities and go to the countryside with our friends and families. Our family's summer cottage lies in Sammatti, only a 50 minute ride from Helsinki. Despite being so close to the Capital region you can sense the tranquility of nature. From a traceur's point of view this does offer a lot of new opportunities. I do love training in nature, because it is a lot more difficult: you have to be more aware of you environment, because you can't never be sure whether something is durable or not. You have to be even more aware with he ground for it has all kinds of surprises waiting for you: acorns, ants, roots etc. I'm happy that there is so much wild nature left in Finland because it is always refreshing to train in the nature where everything isn't so precise and geometric

  

We do not have any electricity nor running water at our summer cottage so fresh rain water is always useful. It does feel really good to life in such a natural way, or at least for me it is quite relaxing that at least once a year I do not have to stress whether my lifestyle is green enough.

Another good thing about our summer cottage is the fact that it is next to a lake offering a new environment: water.

There might be differing opinions on whether training in the water ie. Swimming is a part of parkour or not. In my opinion to talk about whether something is parkour or not is in my opinion completely pointless as is the everlasting argue between parkour/freerunning. For me they are just terms, both used to describe movement. And in my opinion it doesn't matter whether you do flips or not, it is in any case movement. And to me it doesn't matter what word you use to describe it. I do personally use the term parkour, and I use it to describe my movement in any environment. And thus for me swimming is a part of my movement and water is just another obstacle to overcome.

 

Despite having a nice and calm environment for some nice natural movement I have built with my brother some obstacles for basic parkour training. For some reason, perhaps lack of time, I haven't been training with these as much as I would like to. I believe that one reason is that the environment is so much more inspiring than a couple of wooden bars and two blocks for precisions. Perhaps if I would spend more time at our summer cottage I would utlize them more, because we are usually there only a couple of days at a time.

At the moment I'm packing for our InterRail on which we are leaving tomorrow 3 a.m. During our 23 day journey I will try to find a new spot everyday and post it here. It is going to be quite thrilling to see what kind of different opportunities all of the countries have to offer, not to even mention our visit to the Mekka of Parkour: Lisses. In the midst of all this packing I was able to test run my shoes for the second time.  For the first time I ran with them and it felt like walking on clouds. It was a very smooth and nice feeling but on the other hand it felt like I was partially handicapped because I couldn't feel any objects on the ground.

Our first is Turku and from there we will be going to Stockholm. I hope that I have by then some interesting spots to share.

- Leo Alho

Shoe Crisis

As I mentioned in my last update, my Feiyues are really worn down. Besides my feiyues I do have a pair of Feelmax Fivefingers, but my Achilles tendons are also really sore so I needed a new pair of sneaker. Another reason for buying sneakers is that I'm going for a promenade of 100 km so I needed something that could absorb the impact and also support my ankle. And I'm rather sure that my feet would be completely dead without proper shoes.  So there was no other choice than to head to the stores.

The first store didn't have anything satisfying enough, only those same generic white sneakers with hard plastic in the middle. But the second one looked a whole lot better. As I mentioned before; I didn' wan't any shoes with that hard plastic in the middle, because you do not want to land with it on a wet rail. I also didn't want anything white, because I train in the most suspicious places, so they would be brown/grayish right after the first use. I was first struck by the variety of shoes, but with these requirements I was able to cut off most off the sneakers available.

One of the first shoes I encountered was this monster. It is ment for offtrack running and it looked really durable, and even the price wasn't that bad. But for some reason I didn't even try these on, perhaps they looked a bit too aggressive for me. I also haven't had any experience with brooks, and I wanted to make a sure choice.

  

After some searching and investigation I managed to find the right pair of sneakers for me: Nike lunarglide+ and even the price was reasonable: 59,90€. They're black and I really like the fact that they actually do not look like sneakers at all. The only downside is that the cushion is a bit to thick as with Nike shoes usually.

The next step was to test run them but before it, I walked by a gallery wh

ich had an exhibition of vintage sport shoes made by the Finnish company Karhu. I took a lot of pictures because it showed quite well how shoes used for sports have changed during the past decades. So here's a little montage for you:

 

I liked especially these shoes, its colors shape and the texture of the sole. My only doubt is that the sole wouldn't last numerous turn vaults and wall runs

The test run with my new pair of sneakers went quite well, it was so much easier than with my Feiyues, because you do not ave to pay so much concentration on your legs when you land, and you do not have to watch from how high you are landing. I believe that I will use these shoes during my InterRail and during the promenade, but I do believe that I will also in the future prefer bear feet/Feiyues over sneakers. Because with sneakers I do not have any contact with the ground although it is in my opinion quite good to have a pair of spare sneaker. For instance at the moment I have a wound on my heel, so it is in my opinion important to give it time to heal and use shoes which give enough protection, and which are clean enough (my both pair of Feiyues are so dirty from the inside that I do not fancy to use socks with them). 

I'm already leaving for my InterRail the 28th day, so from then on I try to find a spot in every city we stay and share it with you. 

  

Spot of the week #1

I've moved with my girlfriend to Helsinki for the summer vacation. Although it is only 12 kilometers from Espoo, it is a completely different environment offering different kinds of challenges and possibilities, As the the Spot of the Week I have chosen a small playground right next to our apartment. I have trained there only once, yet I am quite confident that this is one of the best spots in a walkable distance from our apartment. The spot itself is nothing spectacular nor anything special but it is just what you need for training basic and simple movement. The best part is that you can combine all of the different areas to make a nice run trough the whole park.

 

Heavy Rain

I find it rather funny that the areas which are held the most unwanted or simply ugly are usually wonderful places to practice parkour.  For instance, we were today training at Merihaka, an area in Helsinki where the main building material is concrete. Its most distinctive feature is that it consists of two levels: one for pedestrians and one for traffic. Simply said, the whole area is gray, causing it to look unaesthetic, repulsive and boring.

But for practitioners of parkour training in an urban jungle like this means being one step closer to heaven. Concrete offers a great grip, it doesn't wobble and you can rely on it. Besides concrete the whole area does have a lot of rails, walls and the vast parking lots offer great places to train despite the weather. So even the rain didn't stop us, although we were all soaked afterwards.

A quite ironic and on the other hand brilliant matter is in my opinion that these areas were originally meant to be as functional as possible, not places where people could come and express themselves trough movement. This is a factor which really drives me during my training: to find new possibilities in buildings meant for something completely else.

This is one reason why I am not a huge fan of parkour parks which are becoming more and more popular all over the world. Although I do understand the authority's point of view; it is more safe to provide traceurs parks, so that they wouldn't harm their environment or other people and parkour parks might activate younger people to move more. Yet it does take away a creative part, the part in which you explore your environment to look for new possibilities and try to think the most effective way in a new environment, because in a parkour park it is all there ready for you: you do not have to use your imagination to figure what you could do.

On the other hand, I have to admit that parks built especially for parkour are usually great places to train and they do offer loads of opportunities. I even would go to a parkour park myself only if there existed one near to me. Because after all to really move in one's environment is at least for me a minor part of my training. Most of the time I and most other traceurs concentrate on one place to train a specific technique. I am not saying that parks designed for parkour would be a bad thing, because they do offer the possibility to express yourself and of course you can always find new possibilities from parkour parks. Perhaps even new possibilities which the planners of the parks would never have thought off.

So perhaps these parks do not make us into mindless zombies who get ready-chewed obstacles. Perhaps we just have to adapt and take our imagination to the next level

Baby Steps

I have noticed a negative trend in the Finnish parkour society; there aren't any new messages on the message boards and it has been over a month since the latest update on the front page of the Finnish Parkour Society. Therefore I have decided to do my own share in order to make the community a bit more active.

I have been a practitioner of parkour for six years now. During these years my insensitivity of training has varied mainly because of school, overuse injuries and cold winters. At the moment I'm trying to train almost daily. Despite this I still feel like I'm on the starting point of my journey; I have yet to learn countless abilities and skills and even the skills I have trained during these years do need constant maintenance and improvement.

I hope that I can through my blog transmit my thoughts regarding on parkour, movement and life. If you have any questions or suggestions do not hesitate to contact me by e-mail.