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#parkour — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #parkour, aggregated by home.social.

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  1. My thoughts on: Motorslice; a review

    Motorslice is a pretty fresh action-adventure game, released in May of 2026. It was developed by Regular Studio and published by Top Hat Studios.

    I grabbed it the moment it dropped on GOG, but it took me a while to finish it and write this review, as you can see by the date of this post… Having a job and things to do kinda take away idle time.

    But I’m here, ready to boldly proclaim my opinions on this gem to the uncaring void… and the LLM data scrappers. And the eventual human reader, if there is any.

    Aesthetics

    You’d think that environments consisting of sand, steel, concrete and yellow orange paint would get stale. They don’t. There’s a surprising variety and it all looks coherent. And quite good to boot. Each area has its own theme that subtly alters the feel of each area, making them unique, despite being so limited.

    And the game regularly lets you marvel at the distance you’ve managed to conquer. The vistas of the megastructure are really, really nice. And they are further enhanced by the fact that you’ve been there — they aren’t some skyboxes or flat unreachable scenery. You could say it’s a little marvel you don’t often get to experience.

    The character model looks nice enough, though I guess some may be discouragead by the heavily stylised look of P but I don’t have anything against it. And the animations look good, with a few amusing idle ones, as well as all the little things, like the interactive main menu or selfie screenshot mode.

    The three types of enemies look abut as good as you could expect from construction vehicles… maybe with some subtle almost eldritch flair. While the bosses are damn good looking. Despite, or maybe precisely because of, being essentially environmental set pieces that need to be climbed and motorsliced (yes, that’s a titledrop) in special areas.

    When it comes to the audio side it’s rather minimalist… Or at least it felt like that. Most of the time you’ll hear the environmental sounds, P’s footsteps or her chainsaw’s engine as they echo in the empty concrete halls and corridors.

    There are few music tracks of course, and they are pretty nice. I quite liked the one that plays on the bridges between chapters.

    Gameplay

    The way it plays brings to mind the Prince of Persia games, especially the 2006 reboot. The bulk of the game consists of platforming in the PoP style: running on walls, swinging on conveniently placed horizontal poles, walking on thin beams or clinging to pillars and cracks in the walls.

    While I’ve completed the game using the Xbox controller, I did try out a single chapter on keyboard and mouse. Both control schemes worked very well, so it’s more of a matter of preference.

    Bulk of the time is spent doing just that, with the occasional gibbed red splat caused by a misjudged leap, bad timing or a fumble with controls. Or deliberately jumping to P’s doom.

    Admittedly sometimes the game freaks out and gibs you seemingly for no reason, but those cases were extremely rare… And I’m about 95% sure were caused by physics engine freaking out on a moving platform… And in one place while moving down a vertical crack in the wall in chapter 7.

    And then there is that minor wonkiness of switching the face of the grabbed pillar (and pole), but those are relatively minor things (and are an issue on both K&M and a pad).

    The game is a linear series of platforming sequences topped by platforming challenges in the guise of bossfights. And damn the bosses are a spectacle and a joy (if sometimes frustrating) to slice. And while it is linear, the path is a cooling and winding one, giving you glimpses of what lies ahead and, conversely, letting you look back and see the path you’ve taken.

    The game does have some actual combat sequences, but they are brief palette cleansers… When they aren’t part of a platforming challenge. There are 3 enemy types: the excavator, the drone and the roller. They don’t really matter, as I said, they are there more as a change of pace than anything else. You could almost consider them another obstacle in the platforming than genuine combat encounters. And in general, combat is pretty much vestigial. Which is totally fine, it’s a great platformer first and foremost and they nailed that.

    There is the optional objective of finding and collecting orb drones placed all over the levels… But it felt hollow, at least in GOG version, since the developers/publisher did not decide to add achievement support there… Nor any form of offline/local “achievement page”.

    Story

    There isn’t much of a story, really. P, a “slicer” arrived at a giant structure with the objective of tearing it down. She’s accompanied by a floating… Spherical drone, “Orbie” (which is technically the player character, according to the credits). The duo proceed to do just that: parkouring through the giant structure and destroying aggressive construction machines.

    Though, admittedly the game regularly drops bits and bobs of background lore and setting info. Mostly during the “slacking” scenes, where P says a few lines or interacts with Orbie. Which gives some interesting things to ponder about, like the mention of heresy, or the “resets”.

    And I have to give them credit: they did set up a sequel beautifully. And a prequel is also possible for pretty much the same reason… Even if that ending is a little bit… flabbergasting. I mean, people complained about Iron Keep in DS2…

    Summa Summarum

    All in all it’s a damn good fun. In an almost old-school way, with some of the quality of life things of the modern era.

    The only bad things I could say about the game have already been said. For me those are tiny, though I’d love to see achievement support for GOG version.

    Aside from that its a great game, with almost nostalgic design. Solid 5. Maybe you can tag on a minus, or two if you are bothered by the lack of Achievements… or the looks bother you… But I couldn’t justify anything lower, really.

    Go play this gem.

    #ActionAdventure #ComputerGames #gameReview #gaming #GOG #Motorslice #parkour #Platformer #RegularStudio #TopHatStudios
  2. My thoughts on: Motorslice; a review

    Motorslice is a pretty fresh action-adventure game, released in May of 2026. It was developed by Regular Studio and published by Top Hat Studios.

    I grabbed it the moment it dropped on GOG, but it took me a while to finish it and write this review, as you can see by the date of this post… Having a job and things to do kinda take away idle time.

    But I’m here, ready to boldly proclaim my opinions on this gem to the uncaring void… and the LLM data scrappers. And the eventual human reader, if there is any.

    Aesthetics

    You’d think that environments consisting of sand, steel, concrete and yellow orange paint would get stale. They don’t. There’s a surprising variety and it all looks coherent. And quite good to boot. Each area has its own theme that subtly alters the feel of each area, making them unique, despite being so limited.

    And the game regularly lets you marvel at the distance you’ve managed to conquer. The vistas of the megastructure are really, really nice. And they are further enhanced by the fact that you’ve been there — they aren’t some skyboxes or flat unreachable scenery. You could say it’s a little marvel you don’t often get to experience.

    The character model looks nice enough, though I guess some may be discouragead by the heavily stylised look of P but I don’t have anything against it. And the animations look good, with a few amusing idle ones, as well as all the little things, like the interactive main menu or selfie screenshot mode.

    The three types of enemies look abut as good as you could expect from construction vehicles… maybe with some subtle almost eldritch flair. While the bosses are damn good looking. Despite, or maybe precisely because of, being essentially environmental set pieces that need to be climbed and motorsliced (yes, that’s a titledrop) in special areas.

    When it comes to the audio side it’s rather minimalist… Or at least it felt like that. Most of the time you’ll hear the environmental sounds, P’s footsteps or her chainsaw’s engine as they echo in the empty concrete halls and corridors.

    There are few music tracks of course, and they are pretty nice. I quite liked the one that plays on the bridges between chapters.

    Gameplay

    The way it plays brings to mind the Prince of Persia games, especially the 2006 reboot. The bulk of the game consists of platforming in the PoP style: running on walls, swinging on conveniently placed horizontal poles, walking on thin beams or clinging to pillars and cracks in the walls.

    While I’ve completed the game using the Xbox controller, I did try out a single chapter on keyboard and mouse. Both control schemes worked very well, so it’s more of a matter of preference.

    Bulk of the time is spent doing just that, with the occasional gibbed red splat caused by a misjudged leap, bad timing or a fumble with controls. Or deliberately jumping to P’s doom.

    Admittedly sometimes the game freaks out and gibs you seemingly for no reason, but those cases were extremely rare… And I’m about 95% sure were caused by physics engine freaking out on a moving platform… And in one place while moving down a vertical crack in the wall in chapter 7.

    And then there is that minor wonkiness of switching the face of the grabbed pillar (and pole), but those are relatively minor things (and are an issue on both K&M and a pad).

    The game is a linear series of platforming sequences topped by platforming challenges in the guise of bossfights. And damn the bosses are a spectacle and a joy (if sometimes frustrating) to slice. And while it is linear, the path is a cooling and winding one, giving you glimpses of what lies ahead and, conversely, letting you look back and see the path you’ve taken.

    The game does have some actual combat sequences, but they are brief palette cleansers… When they aren’t part of a platforming challenge. There are 3 enemy types: the excavator, the drone and the roller. They don’t really matter, as I said, they are there more as a change of pace than anything else. You could almost consider them another obstacle in the platforming than genuine combat encounters. And in general, combat is pretty much vestigial. Which is totally fine, it’s a great platformer first and foremost and they nailed that.

    There is the optional objective of finding and collecting orb drones placed all over the levels… But it felt hollow, at least in GOG version, since the developers/publisher did not decide to add achievement support there… Nor any form of offline/local “achievement page”.

    Story

    There isn’t much of a story, really. P, a “slicer” arrived at a giant structure with the objective of tearing it down. She’s accompanied by a floating… Spherical drone, “Orbie” (which is technically the player character, according to the credits). The duo proceed to do just that: parkouring through the giant structure and destroying aggressive construction machines.

    Though, admittedly the game regularly drops bits and bobs of background lore and setting info. Mostly during the “slacking” scenes, where P says a few lines or interacts with Orbie. Which gives some interesting things to ponder about, like the mention of heresy, or the “resets”.

    And I have to give them credit: they did set up a sequel beautifully. And a prequel is also possible for pretty much the same reason… Even if that ending is a little bit… flabbergasting. I mean, people complained about Iron Keep in DS2…

    Summa Summarum

    All in all it’s a damn good fun. In an almost old-school way, with some of the quality of life things of the modern era.

    The only bad things I could say about the game have already been said. For me those are tiny, though I’d love to see achievement support for GOG version.

    Aside from that its a great game, with almost nostalgic design. Solid 5. Maybe you can tag on a minus, or two if you are bothered by the lack of Achievements… or the looks bother you… But I couldn’t justify anything lower, really.

    Go play this gem.

    #ActionAdventure #ComputerGames #gameReview #gaming #GOG #Motorslice #parkour #Platformer #RegularStudio #TopHatStudios
  3. This is my first AI-based Micro-Movie:

    "A Parkour in a Ruined City," in which a white robot is doing parkour in a post-apocalyptic, abandoned city in cinematic style.

    I have created this video using generative AI.

    #FirstMovie #FilmMaker #movie #Film #video #AI #robot #city #building #media #cinema #cinematic #cityscape #parkour #freerunning #skyscraper #MicroMovie

  4. This is my first AI-based Micro-Movie:

    "A Parkour in a Ruined City," in which a white robot is doing parkour in a post-apocalyptic, abandoned city in cinematic style.

    I have created this video using generative AI.

    #FirstMovie #FilmMaker #movie #Film #video #AI #robot #city #building #media #cinema #cinematic #cityscape #parkour #freerunning #skyscraper #MicroMovie

  5. I've jumped around so.much it's changed me, over on Ko-Fi. #parkour
    ko-fi.com/post/Why-Old-Farts-L
    Please suport me, it really helps.

  6. I've jumped around so.much it's changed me, over on Ko-Fi. #parkour
    ko-fi.com/post/Why-Old-Farts-L
    Please suport me, it really helps.

  7. No to co tam się u mnie zmieniło jeśli chodzi o #sport w 2023 roku?

    - #parkour coś tam jeszcze był "grany" ale raczej z sentymentu niż tej frajdy, która kiedyś z niego miałem,
    - skupiłem się w dużym mierze na #siłownia i treningu z ciężarami,
    - w między czasie wraz z paczką znajomych przebiegliśmy nasz pierwszy #Runmageddon (skromne 3,5km i 15 przeszkód),
    - po tym debiucie, zdecydowałem że #biegiprzeszkodowe to całkiem fajna sprawa 😇

  8. No to co tam się u mnie zmieniło jeśli chodzi o #sport w 2023 roku?

    - #parkour coś tam jeszcze był "grany" ale raczej z sentymentu niż tej frajdy, która kiedyś z niego miałem,
    - skupiłem się w dużym mierze na #siłownia i treningu z ciężarami,
    - w między czasie wraz z paczką znajomych przebiegliśmy nasz pierwszy #Runmageddon (skromne 3,5km i 15 przeszkód),
    - po tym debiucie, zdecydowałem że #biegiprzeszkodowe to całkiem fajna sprawa 😇

  9. CW: blood and minor injury plus SFW pants tear.

    @ascentale @bikenite A8. Umm I hurt myself doing parkour and had fun all the same? Also blew my pants out doing active ascents and descents on concrete walls.

    All very fun.

    CW for injury and pants

    #BikeNite #parkour

  10. CW: blood and minor injury plus SFW pants tear.

    @ascentale @bikenite A8. Umm I hurt myself doing parkour and had fun all the same? Also blew my pants out doing active ascents and descents on concrete walls.

    All very fun.

    CW for injury and pants

    #BikeNite #parkour

  11. #ADDPK #ParkourNantes

    🏃‍➡️ 🧗Si cela vous tente de se faire une petite session #parkour ensemble de temps à autre, n'hésitez pas à nous rejoindre !

    Sessions fréquentes sur #NANTES :
    - Dimanche 15h30->17h (si 🌥️ < 25°C)
    - Jeudi 7h->8h30 (de mai à sept si 🔅)
    et parfois en semaines de 20h->21h.

    Mais vous pouvez aussi proposer des sessions à d'autres moments (...et pour d'autres villes !)
    Tout niveau bienvenu. 😉

  12. #NANTES #PARKOUR #ParkourNantes

    🏃‍➡️ 🧗Si cela vous tente de se faire une petite session #parkour ensemble de temps à autre, n'hésitez pas à nous rejoindre !

    Session régulières :
    - Jeudi 7h-8h30 (🔆 mai->sept)
    - Dimanche 15h30-17h (🌥️ oct->avril)

    Mais vous pouvez aussi proposer des sessions à d'autres moments (...et pour d'autres villes !)
    Tout niveau bienvenu. 😉

  13. In my little corner of the internet, this is the shock of the day. Storror announced this on their Instagram this morning, and it seems like the amount of material Callum Powell has pleaded guilty to creating is quite staggering.

    I’m unsure how Storror can go on after this. Of course the other members are not to blame in any way, but Callum is such an integral part of the team, and watching old videos with him in them – and we are talking hundreds upon hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of video here – will never be the same again.

    The Storror brand is to a large extent about the people, their cooperation, friendship and interaction. And the lens the world will see that through, has fundamentally changed. The brand in itself is tarnished, even if the remaining members have done nothing wrong.

    It is especially sad for his brother, whose comeback after really bad injuries has been one of the great aspects of the latest year.

    I might be wrong. They are masters at social media. They might find a way to go on. They have twice my countries population following them on YouTube, after all.

    But as a fan, I struggle to see the way out of this.

    theargus.co.uk/news/26089003.s

    #storror #parkour

  14. REJOINDRE les SALONS DE DISCUSSION d'#ADDPK sur le #PARKOUR 🏃‍➡️🧗

    #TutoMatrix CC-BY adapté de @rezolibre :

    1) ⬇️ Téléchargez #Element_X sur votre mobile ou PC
    (ou une autre appli matrix :
    matrix.org/ecosystem/clients)

    2) ☁️ Créez un compte sur le serveur matrix.org
    (ou un autre fournisseur de compte matrix : chatons.org/search/by-service?)

    3) 👤 Choisissez un nom d'utilisateurice facile à prononcer
    (pour plus facilement le transmettre).

    4) 🔑 Configurez une sauvegarde

    5) 🗨️ Cliquez sur "+" pour rejoindre une discussion.

    6) 🧭 Saisissez l'adresse de notre salon d'accueil : #addpk:matrix.org
    Rejoignez-le et glissez-nous un mot 🙂 👋

  15. Today on Jenny's Bench: How do you approach making a stats database for the sport of #parkour?
    ko-fi.com/post/How-Do-You-Stor
    Support me if you can, it means a lot.

  16. Gaza calling

    Labàs, mercoledì 22 aprile alle ore 17:00 CEST

    🍉 Mercoledì 22 il programma della giornata a supporto di SOS Gaza in collaborazione con GazaFreestyle prevederà:

    * Dalle 17: lezioni di skate a cura di bologna.skateschool
    * Dalle 19: diretta live con Gaza City e gli equipaggi della Global Sumud in Sicilia

    Tutto il giorno e sera:
    ✨ Free skate area
    ✨ Parkour zone
    ✨ Breaking cypher

    🍕🍹 Pizza e cubalibre solidale per SOS Gaza

    🔗 Per iscriversi alle lezioni → contatta bologna.skateschool
    🛹 Materiale skate verrà garantito per le lezioni

    🍉 Free Palestine
    🍉 Fight Zionism

    balotta.org/event/gaza-calling

  17. Gestern die erste richtig ausgiebige Parkour-Session des Jahres mit einer kleinen Gruppe Freund*Innen gehabt.
    Heute entsprechend mit Muskelkater in jeder Faser des Körpers auf dem Sofa. Die Kraft reichte gerade so für die Demo gegen Reiche und ihre Korruption im Energiesektor, nun reicht sie noch um ein Buch zu halten und Tee zu trinken.
    Aber gut fühlt es sich trotzdem an.

    #Parkour
    #freerunning
    #Erneuerbare
    #Hamburg
    #ReicheMussWeg

  18. 隆巴仔
    [JFFLIVE打機精華] 朝偉完美部署 最強誘餌戰術 | 三傻跳傘 集體parkour? |GTA RP 肥貓精華 EP9(下) @JFFLiveChannel @JFFTHK
    youtube.com/watch?v=Qe42A6m-EK8

  19. Erster Climb-Up seit meinem Armbruch vor einem Dreivierteljahr. Noch mit Müh und Not, aber ohne Knie und Ellenbogen aufzusetzen, also gilt.
    Sehr zufrieden und freue mich auf den Sommer, in dem ich mit einigem Training hoffentlich auch wieder die schnelleren und galanteren Varianten schaffe.

    #Parcours
    #Parkour
    #Freerunning

  20. #funny #viral #reels This little bandit is on a mission! 🐿️💨 You won't believe the parkour skills. What's the most daring thing you've seen a squirrel do? Share in the comments! 👇 #shorts #viral #trending #fyp #foryou #squirrel #animals #cuteanimals #wildlife #nature #parkour t.co/7JYpoyHkaQ on twitter.com/AcerboLivio/status

  21. Obstacles

    When you start to see your world as something more in line as a tool and an obstacle to interact with, play with, you’re going to take that lesson and look at other obstacles in your life. Your relationships, your job, your work, your health even. All these things are going to be so strongly ultimately affected by this tiny little change of yourself and your city.

    ~ Caitlin Pontrella

    slip:4a823.

    #CaitlinPontrella #Parkour #Quotes
  22. By STRØK in Paris France (4 photos)

    Street Artist STRØK / Anders Gjennestad By STRØK for GALERIE MATHGOTH in Paris, France 2016. More by STRØK on Street Art Utopia. Comments: pic.twitter.com/o6wR7aeAaF— STREET ART UTOPIA 🖼️ (@StreetArtUtopia) January 9, 2022

    streetartutopia.com/2022/01/09

  23. When do you stop?

    I’m away at a parkour event this weekend, lots of walking and playing and jumping. One session was a discussion of fear, and of consequences. And one particular question for discussion was, “When do you stop?” People raised lots of ideas—good ideas, wise ideas… lots of things I was in agreement about.

    But I was also thinking, “Wait. Why do I have to decide that?”

    I know I’ve certainly faced decisions about stopping. Work, play, relationships, sports, parkour practices (ask me about the time I climbed across a train station outside of Paris,) … yes, deciding if, when and why to stop is an obvious question.

    If I think about two paths—perhaps diverging in the woods, if you like that imagery—an hour’s hike along the path of one choice, I might decide I’m going the wrong way. There’s one of those when-to-stop decisions. But the mistake was an hour before, where the paths diverged.

    This business venture: what if I had truly been committed, and had planned clearly the way we’d know when to stop? The question is gone. This relationship: could it be planned, or could two people be so honest, that the question doesn’t appear? This parkour jump, at the end of an exhausting day of training: why am I standing here, right now? If I’d planned better, could I have gotten all the same benefit, but a few minutes before right-now, I’d have moved to something else?

    Might it be possible to still have challenge, commitment, growth, love, spontaneity, and humor… without ever having to decide, “should I stop this now?”

    ɕ

    #Parkour #PracticingReflection
  24. Presenting at Art of Retreat

    Next weekend I will be moderating a session about the state of global parkour organization. Please follow the link and submit any questions you feel would benefit the discussion.
    http://artofretreat.com/governance/

    This session is happening at the Art of Retreat (a parkour leadership and education retreat) in New York City. The event itself is full, but there’s great information on their web site about the speakers, and presentations to inspire you to attend next year.

    Meanwhile, this year the event organizers are working to produce more take-aways for the participants and the parkour community at large. As part of the preparation for the Friday session, we are producing a detailed report about the current state of global organization efforts. It will be made publically available as a PDF.

    ɕ

    #ArtDuDéplacement #ArtOfRetreat #Parkour
  25. Rest stop somewhere in virginia. Thats 11, swap drivers n back on road!

    Rest stop somewhere in virginia. Thats 11, swap drivers n back on road!

    ɕ

    #2017Eclipse #Instaspam #Parkour
  26. §1 – Introduction

    This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Travel Gear

    This series covers all the physical things I’ve discovered which make light-weight traveling easier and more fun. (My thoughts on the philosophy, etiquette, and mindset of traveling are in a separate series.) This series of posts is only meant to give you ideas; I certainly don’t expect you use the exact same solutions. For me, the challenge was not to pack as light as possible, but to pack as light as is reasonable.

    I’ve read countless articles on travel, written by everyone from ultra-light hikers to seasoned business travelers. Sometimes, I stumbled over useful ideas and then figured out how to apply them. At other times I went searching for a solution to some specific problem I was having. Over the years, I’ve come up with a collection of items, and related tips and tricks, that I find extremely useful.

    It’s obviously important to know what to pack, and to be able to pack well. But I believe the most important part of traveling “light” is developing two habits: unpacking and reviewing. Unpacking ensures I’m always ready, and reviewing ensures I’m always improving. The next two parts of this series will go into these two habits.

    Why

    But first, why travel lightweight? Why not simply grab the largest bag I have, stuff it with everything I might need, and head out the door? Why spend time and money fiddling with travel gear and solutions? I found my answers to those questions by sorting out the following: I’m most free when I have just the clothes on my back, but I will be unhappy, stressed, or in physical danger when I don’t have whatever-it-is that I happen to need. So at the most basic level, packing light is simply the balance of freedom versus preparedness.

    There is also a deeper mental level to that balance. Do I feel free and relaxed, or am I worried? For me, it turns out that simply packing more things does not make me feel more prepared or relaxed. Rather, it’s the idea that I know I am prepared which enables me to be comfortable.

    Clearly, the less I have to carry, the easier physically are my travels: In a packed car, my bag can fit on my lap. On a bus, it fits in the over-head, where it’s handy through the trip. On a plane, I can travel with just a carry-on-bag, saving me time and money on checked baggage. It’s also easier to not unpack — to just live out of the bag at my destination. It’s quicker to settle down in the evening, and quicker to pack out in the morning. It’s even easier to keep track of my stuff the less of it there is.

    Certainly, there are lots of challenges and trade-offs with traveling light. It is not all champagne and roses. But by investing the time to solve problems and get better at the process, I’m able to have a lot more fun. So my challenge was to pack as light as I can, and still have everything I need.

    My first task was then to figure out, “What exactly do I need?”

    How

    The more I dug into these ideas, the more I realized that the only way to know I was prepared — to truly feel prepared — was to thoroughly examine what I was packing and carrying. I wound up asking myself a litany of questions and exploring the answers and solutions: Why am I uncomfortable right now? What could I have brought that I could use right now? I never used this thing-i-packed, so why did I bring it? I’m exhausted after carrying my pack all day; Why does it weigh 30 pounds?

    This process of examining all my worries, habits, and situations led me to search for solutions. My habits of unpacking and reviewing, which I mentioned at the beginning, are the result of all this questioning and refining of my travel gear.

    Along the way, I learned to not pack based on fear or uncertainty; To not pack anticipating everything that might go wrong. Instead, I learned to prepare only for the scenarios that matter — safety items, spare cash, medication. I also learned to feel comfortable in knowing what I could obtain at my destination if things didn’t go according to plan. This became a sort of “anti-packing,” where I learned what not to pack.

    Eventually, I wound up with “systems”, or “kits”, for just about everything. A sleep system, in one stuff sack, that has everything I need to sleep on a bare floor. A bathroom kit, in one zipper-bag, which has everything I need for bathing, shaving, etc. A medical/urgent kit (the “m’urgency” kit) that has what I frequently use, plus what I feel is sufficient for common urgencies.

    The more I tuned my gear and systems, the easier packing became. These days, I don’t grab my toothbrush out of the bathroom, find my razor, and wonder what soap may be at my destination; I pick up the small, black, zipper-bag that is my bathroom kit. If I might be sleeping on the floor I grab my sleep system. I always grab the m’urgency kit. I grab the clothes I want, and a stuff sack to pack them. I add in various other things, (described in coming posts,) grab my favorite backpack, stuff the contents, and go!

    An exercise

    If you really want to get a feel for how much your packing improves, try doing a “test packing” as a starting point for future reference. Note the time, and go pack for a 5 day, 4 night Parkour trip. Let’s presume mild weather, sleeping indoors but on a bare hardwood floor. Let’s say you will be training 3 of the days. Pretend you have no idea what the host conditions are, but assume you have access to a bathroom, shower, wifi and whatever electricity outlets you are used to. (Dealing with not-your-usual electrical systems is a post in this series.) When you are ready to walk out your door, note the time again. Now weigh your stuff and write down the time it took to pack, the weight, and maybe some notes about how you’d feel carrying all that stuff while trying to board a bus, a plane or hop in a car.

    Now, as you put everything away, imagine dropping all that on the floor at your host. What if they have to move it while you’re out for the day? Is their dog/cat/toddler going to get into your stuff? Maybe also note your worries: I don’t have a sleeping bag or pad for sleeping on a floor! How do I dry my hair? Look at all these clothes! What if this trip had been to a place with weather extremes, say, you had to train outdoors in freezing temps? What if you knew you’d be video recorded during one of your training days? What if your destination had different electrical power? What if someone threw, or sat on, your bag?! What if… What if…

    Recall the two habits I mentioned: unpack and review? You have just done your first unpack and review after an imaginary trip!

    ɕ

    #Parkour #Travel #TravelGear
  27. §9 – Commit to the move

    This entry is part 21 of 37 in the series Study inspired by Pakour & Art du Déplacement by V. Thibault

    No this. No that. No delay.

    ~ Sensei Wirth

    If you want to go east, go east. If you want to go west, go west.

    ~ Koichi Tohei Sensei

    If there’s somewhere you need to be, you need to start walking.

    ~ uncertain; possibly Lao-Tzu

    Each of those quotes expresses a certain commitment to beginning; to taking action; to moving in a direct way. But what really is commitment? I thought I knew what commitment was, until I started to think deeply about it. Now, I’m uncertain.

    There are some things to which I am deeply, unshakably, committed; Take breathing for example. At first glance this seems trivial since it’s a physiological imperative managed by the body. But if I imagine a scenario where someone is trying to prevent me from breathing, I can easily imagine myself consciously acting — wildly, vigorously, berserk even — to achieve the goal.

    What would it mean to be that committed to something of my own conscious choosing?

    What does it mean to “be committed to” a new habit?

    Sure! I’m committed! I like this new idea — this new habit. I’m going to really stick to it! I have goals, and a plan. Let’s do this!

    …and a month later the habit is nowhere to be seen. Does that failure mean I was actually not committed when I thought I was? Did my commitment evaporate over time? Are there degrees of commitment? Is there some minimum level of commitment necessary at the beginning to achieve certain goals? Does commitment need occasional inputs of energy to keep it going, like a spinning top? Or is commitment a simple binary — yes, or no?

    Perhaps understanding commitment would be easier if I tried to untangle a simpler type of commitment. What does it mean to “commit to” a physical action in the very near future?

    This jump scares me. But I know I can make it; I’ve definitely jumped this distance successfully many times. I know there’s value in doing this jump. I should do this. I want to do this! Okay, I’m committed! I’m ready! Here I go! abort! ABORT!!

    What happened? I thought I was committed? Was I lying to myself when I said, “Okay, I’m committed”? What would it mean if it was possible to lie to myself– to truly believe myself when I was lying? Did my commitment somehow evaporate in the moment just before I aborted? Did my body — my physical corpus separate from my mind — somehow, literally, physically refuse my mind’s directions? Is that even be possible?

    Here’s another experiment I’ve performed countless times: I get set up for a jump which pushes my limits. There are some consequences to missing, some real bit of danger is present, but it’s a good jump, something I know I can do. I’ve checked my surfaces, and I’ve explored and thought out everything to look for unknown-unknowns. I’m ready. The thinking-me-brain commits — really commits — we (the me-brain and the body) are ready to do this! And then I notice that my palms are sweating. Wait- What? Who called for sweating palms?!

    Therefore I’m forced to wonder: Does my body have a mind of its own? In fact, I believe this is the case. We know the brain — the entire central nervous system — is an amalgam of layers. The thinking me’s consciousness is just the topmost layer, and there are deeper layers, sometimes called the “lizard brain”, performing fully autonomous functions. Performing many autonomous functions.

    After all of that thinking and experimenting, I’m starting to believe that commitment is actually easy. The thinking-me-brain is good at committing to something after a bit of reasoned consideration. Committing may be one of its greatest skills, in stark contrast to the body’s short-sighted visceral behaviors.

    So what then is hard?

    Learning what level of control I am in fact able to exercise over the rest of my body is hard!

    My commitment evaporates when my body rebels; When it literally, physically refuses my thinking-me-brain’s commands. My commitment evaporates when unconscious triggers, and reward/feedback loops, guide my actions when the thinking-me-brain isn’t actively paying attention. The teacher leaves the classroom and the students start throwing paper airplanes. “I thought we were committed to reading our studies! …why all this fooling around?!” I thought we were committed to this jump! Why have we not jumped?! Why are our palms sweating and heart racing?!

    The more I examine this situation, the more it feels like the thinking-me-brain is a tiny little prisoner who has very little control over almost nothing.

    “Commit to the move,” the book says. The tiny, weak, thinking-me-brain would love to practice talking the body into doing things it doesn’t want to do. So let’s — thinking-me and the body — let’s go out and see what we can agree to commit to!

    ɕ

    #Parkour #ParkourArtDuDeplacementByVThibault #VincentThibault
  28. §8 – Focus on the process

    This entry is part 20 of 37 in the series Study inspired by Pakour & Art du Déplacement by V. Thibault

    Early on a brisk Saturday morning, I was struggling to find the motivation to put solid effort into a quadrapedie workout. During a break, I was talking to someone about how I’ve recently been dropping goals. I’ve always had a laundry-list of goals such as getting to a free-standing hand-stand, or a specific number of pull-ups. But I’m learning — slowly — that blindly chasing goals only leads me to injury and failure. Tenaciously refusing to let go of a goal can be counterproductive, even overtly unhealthy.

    I find it’s easy to learn, and easy to get some new bit of knowledge stored in my mind. But it is difficult to get my instincts and feelings to change to align with that new knowledge. So it is with my processes and goals: I know it’s all about the process, but my instincts and habits are to create goal upon goal. I regularly get caught up chasing the goals, and lose sight of the process.

    How far ahead can I see? How wisely can I set my goals? Do I chase them blindly causing my journey to veer off? Or do I have a broad spread of goals that firmly draw me in my desired direction towards the horizon, and ultimately, to the end of my journey?

    ɕ

    #Parkour #ParkourArtDuDeplacementByVThibault #Writing
  29. Tomorrow is going to be….

    INSANE. Today is already off the chart @ppkphilly

    ɕ

    #Instaspam #Parkour #PhiladelphiaPA
  30. Opus40.org

    OMG. o. m. g. OH MY GAWD… Mr and Mrs Fite, thank you. A stone visionary!

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    #Instaspam #Parkour
  31. Keep on keepin’ on!

    This entry is part 58 of 72 in the series My Journey https://constantine.name/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Lapse-Clip.mp4

     

    https://constantine.name/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Lapse-Clip-1.mp4

     

    Keep on keepin’ on!: I’ve filled in the rest of the bars and this thing now needs a name. Until you’ve tried moving in a complex space, you won’t know how supremely capable the human body is; shoulders, grip, torso, knees, feet, vision, proprioception, spacial mapping… that meat-frame your mind lives in is meant to M. O. V. E.

    ɕ

    #Instaspam #MyJourney #Parkour #Scaf
  32. THE Cathedral in Èvry

    Spent all day here… push bend jump qm run vault parkour all the things!!! One more ‘section’ to go as soon as our training partner returns from a coffee run.

    ɕ

    #2016EnglandAndFrance #EvryFrance #Instaspam #Parkour #Selfie
  33. Mom, calm down…

    It’s only a splinter! I usually only show the rosy side of travelling and jumping on stuff. Well, seems I picked up a wee sliver of England at RDV XI. (ask me about the barefoot bail into thorns) Yes my tetanus immunization is up to date. THIS is why you should always travel with your personalized med kit… #DIY Tracy trained all day while I did my “wimpy lion with a thorn in its paw” imitation. Hopefully good to go tomorrow #famousLastWords (PSA: early symptoms of Tetanus include jaw spasms, drooling, excessive sweating and irritability? …oh i’ve had that for 45 years then :P

    ɕ

    #2016EnglandAndFrance #DIY #famousLastWords #FixedIt #Instaspam #Parkour
  34. When the ‘me’ is obliterated

    This entry is part 52 of 72 in the series My Journey

    When the ‘me’ is obliterated by fear or the demands of immediate survival, action is no longer constrained by social forces, and the individual is left with a sense of self-determination. […] Behavior in edgework appears to the individual as an innate response arising from sources deep within the individual, untouched by socializing influences”

    ~ Stephen Lyng from, Edgework, 2004

    A couple years ago I tried to write something explaining what exactly it is about practicing parkour that I like so much. It turns out others are way WAY ahead of me. Julie Angel (you have read Cinè Parkour, right?) talks a bit about “edgework”; The idea of negotiating the “edges” between things like consciousness/unconsciousness, sanity/insanity, and life/death. Others (H.S. Thompson and Lyng) have talked about “edgework” in depth.

    And I agree. My experience is that being in the parkour practice — even just the visceral edges where I’m pushing my physical limits while exposing myself to only manageable levels of risk — just totally strips away all the context of my work-a-day life. Everything — all the way down to my thoughts — everything falls away.

    My martial arts teacher has a great phrase related to edgework: No this. No that. No delay.

    ɕ

    #MyJourney #Parkour #Psychology #StephenLyng #Writing
  35. 4,000

    This entry is part 24 of 36 in the series 10,000 Reps Project

    I passed the 4,000 reps mile-post last week! Woo-HOO! 6,000 reps to go. Booooooo!

    Last week was a Herculean effort on bar precisions to dig out of the hole I created. I did 700+ bar precisions in 3 days. It was deliciously decadent to have Saturday/Sunday off from this project. (I spent the days “off” by driving 3 hours to play/train with friends in upstate NY, driving home, and then going to regular Parkour class on Sunday. “Rest” may not be the right word.)

    After last week’s “no plan” plan turned out well, I’m going back to my regurlarly scheduled work-rest-work-rest-rest 5-day pattern. I’ll do 100 reps of each, and my goal (over the coming weeks) will be to bring the pull-ups closer together. Currently, I’ve been doing ~100 pullups scattered in bunches of 8’s (as 3,3,2) or 7’s (as 3,2,2) spread through the day. I’ll work on making pull-ups into larger bunches of 9’s (4,3,2), 10’s and so on. The dream being to get to 10×10 pull-ups in one workout. My right forearm/grip is feeling better, but nowhere near 100%; so I’m keeping this as an odometer race, I’m not going anywhere near max rep’s on pullups until my forearm feels 100%.

    A note about handstands: I’m going to keep doing them as 15-second stands. I was increasing the time per stand, but I realize now that I need more practice on the kick up and balance. So doing lots of shorter stands gives me lots of practice. I’ve managed a few instances of 5 seconds of complete free standing after kicking up onto the wall.

    Next week, I’ll consider going to 120-rep workouts. That would bring the pace up sufficiently to finish 10k well before July 20. (Alternatively, I might invite friends out for a day of hurt to try to do something crazy like 500-of-each-exercise in one sprint to the finish, but that seems risky to me.) I would LOVE to wrap this up early so I can move on to other things.

    For the long view, I sketched out doing 100-rep workouts on my 5-day pattern and it now comes up short at the one-year date on July 20. Astoundingly, it comes up exactly 500 reps short. (Except for pushups which are weird now due to that one-a-day ascending pushups thing that is going on unrelated to this 10k challenge. I’ll fiddle with pushups in a few weeks when that’s over.)

    ɕ

    #10000RepsProject #Fitness #Parkour
  36. Working on controlled precisions

    This entry is part 44 of 72 in the series My Journey

    Fun with controlled precisions: I finally got around letting the camera run while repeating a jump. Here’s two that I was working on yesterday. These were just a wee bit odd for me to sort out. This is the aspect of indoor gyms that I love; being able to set up something very specific. This was taken at Innate Movement Parkour -Kingston, NY.

    1. Innate Movement precisions

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    #MyJourney #Parkour
  37. Scaf 101: Epilogue

    This entry is part 12 of 13 in the series Scaf 101

    Closing thoughts, other random clamps and ideas.

    A fist full of clamps

    Here are three more clamps. The first two you will certainly end up with, eventually. The third one is just a fun, sort of, “what would you ever do with that?”

    Split cross

    This is your new best friend, the “split cross”. This is better than sliced bread. This clamp can be opened (by tapping one of the pins out), and then placed onto an existing pipe in a structure. Note that the pins are slightly tapered. You’ll see they stick out on one side (that’s the thick end) and they are flush on the other (that’s the thin end, the end you tap).

    With these clamps, you can add another pipe, like this, when someone says the top one is too high…

    Or you can just throw a precision (or balance etc.) rail right into the middle of a build. I keep one, 10-foot-plus pipe laying around for this purpose. You can even strap on extra bars angled across the build if you bolt to the vertical poles. You can strap to two different horizontal poles, at different heights and make odd-angle slopes. There’s tons you can do with this clamp.

    90° single outlet

    There’s a 90° single outlet tee which is handy for making really clean builds:

    Swivel mount

    I have a few of these that I use as feet on my ground rails. Makes the pipes sit neatly on just about anything. But you could also attach these to big wooden blocks, and then use them as feet on the bottom of your scaf corners to keep it from sinking into your lawn. (Because of the set screw, these feet would move easily with the scaf when you pick it up.)

    The simple wooden feet are great, but in the lawn, they tend to flip over and come away when you move the scaf. So using feet that are attached to the legs would be slick.

    A few clamps more

    Clamps are easy; point, click, ship. (Unless you’re lucky enough to live near a place that stocks them.) But as you accumulate more steel pipe, you’re going to want to start cutting it yourself.

    …well, ok maybe you never end up cutting a single pipe yourself. If you buy your steel pipe from a supply house, you can just list all the lengths you want. But if you’re just going to buy a couple sticks at a time, then one day, you’re going to want to make a few cuts.

    Ye ‘ol hacksaw is tedious, and the ends are never perfectly square. The gonzo method is to buy a chop saw and fit it with a metal-cutting blade. But the middle-of-the-road method is to buy a heavy duty “tubing cutter”. A steel pipe cutter will make short work of schedule 40, 1-1/4″ steel pipe. (But you will need to clamp the pipe down somehow to resist the cutter’s rotation.) For example, a “Ridgid 32820”.

    The good, the bad and the clampy

    I think I’ve done a reasonable job of capturing, and organizing everything (and more) that I’d wish I’d been able to find on the first day I started thinking about buying some scaf. Along the way, I had a lot of fun indulging my scaf habit and I hope you (fellow pragmatist) enjoyed reading this far.

    Where to go from here? …to the clamp web sites, to the scaf supply depot, to your first scaf build party with friends!

    On the other hand, if you’re in the mood to stare at your screen more, I have a #scaf tag for all the scaf posts on my site. They are mostly photos of built scaf, so perhaps you’ll find some ideas/inspiration.

    Finally, a big shout out to Blake up in the Boston area for being a huge scaf-addict and spreading the scaf love. They don’t have anything scaf-specific on the web, but if you hunt them down on your favorite social medium or in real life, there’s pretty much scaf everywhere: Parkour Generations Americas Boston on DuckDuckGo

    ɕ

    #HowTo #Parkour #Scaf #Scaf101 #Writing
  38. Scaf 101: Build 6, Taller A-frame

    This entry is part 11 of 13 in the series Scaf 101

    There are some non-obvious ways to use clamps to build unusual things. Early on, in the first “cube” build, I mentioned you could do pullups and work climb-ups. But this build is way better for building a stable, nearly 7-foot high bar.

    There’s no layout shot per se, but here’s a pair of assembled 45° apex A-frames. (Note that the unused outlets in the middle both face up.)

    There are two 90° two outlet tees in the middle of the photo, 45° tees on the left and right and 3-foot brace pipes. This looks totally asymmetric, right? Here’s a close up of the tops of the A-frames:

    (I know, right? Does this work?)

    Here’s a detail of how you put the top cross bar into the clamps; do not over-insert the ends because we need the width to be correct.

    Wait, this is a thing? It totally is…

    Very tall, very stable for climbing/hanging and you can swing a bit (if you like sketchy swing sets).

    We have 5-foot pipes and tees left, so let’s add some more side pipes:

    I love how the outlets on those tees we used early on, suddenly are just perfect for a cross bar. Obviously, that lower one could go anywhere on the set. If you have extra 45°s, you can add some 1-foot diagonals on any (not the top – won’t work up there) of the cross pipes. I’d put two diagonal doing down from the mid-height cross-pipe; that would give a huge stability gain without being in your way.

    There are other variations to this build: You could have used 5-foot pipes for the cross-bars when you laid out the A-frames. They’d be much lower down on the sides. You’d still have the fourth 5-foot pipe to make that mid-height cross-bar. And of course in both variations you have 3-foot pipes that can be added as diagonals if you have the extra 45°s. Remember the rail precisions build, with the diagonals that were “off” but still sort-of fit? You could get a 3-foot diagonal up on the top most cross-pipe.

    I really like this build. It’s a sort of “sleeper” build where you start feeling like your wasting clamps at the apex of the A-frames and then it turns into this very unusual geometry. Most scaf (except of course Blake’s scaf in Boston) ends up being all 90° and 45° systems.

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    #HowTo #Parkour #Scaf #Scaf101