Parkour Moves, Technical Issues and Mt. Shasta

Happy Monday, folks.

This is me jumping over some chairs a few years ago. And no, I’m not wearing any pants.

I hope your week (and month of March) is going well. Wanted to take this opportunity to update you on this month’s challenge, lay out a few mini-goals for the last week of the month and tell you about an exciting trip I recently returned from.

Parkour Theory

March, unfortunately, is not a Parkour-friendly month in Boston. I’ve spent most of my time reading about the sport/discipline/philosophy, watching movie clips, taking notes and scouting out locations, basically biding my time until the weather becomes more agreeable. At the end of the month, I will upload a short video clip that highlights what I’ve learned.

Parkour is a sport of efficiency, where traceurs navigate urban obstacles using only their bodies. Neophytes tend to focus on a particular set of moves/skills before linking them together in longer, more fluid sessions. A good resource for beginners can be found here: The Definitive Guide to Parkour for Beginners

Below are a few of the individual elements I’ve been working on:

The Precision Jump

Landing and Rolling

The Kong Vault

The Wall-Run

Care to join me? I know Josh Crocker and Joel Runyon have expressed interest. Let me know if you would like to contribute.

Technical Difficulties

Some of you have probably noticed a few issues over the last month. Unfinished posts. Delayed email updates. Blank pages and garbled text.

Here at The 9 to 5 Alternative HQ, things don’t always go as smoothly as I’d like them to. While I try hard to keep this blog nice and orderly, from time to time I let operations go a muck. Thanks for baring with me, folks!

Mt. Shasta, Avalanches and Winter Camping

A couple of weeks ago, I flew out to California with my brother to attempt a winter summit of Mt. Shasta, a 14,179 ft. volcanic peak near the Oregon border. While I’ve been fortunate enough to reach the summit twice during the summer months, I was itching for winter camping experience. My brother and I crashed with a former coworker of mine in San Francisco who joined us for the climb.

Avalanche conditions and impending 90 mph wind gusts held us to about 8,500 ft., but it was a fantastic weekend. We learned a lot about winter camping, gained mountain confidence, and I had the chance to snap a few photographs.

8 thoughts on “Parkour Moves, Technical Issues and Mt. Shasta”

  1. First of all, I think this Parkour stuff is awesome..can girls do it? 🙂 I watched a few videos on it after your first post..so cool that you are attempting to learn!!

    Second, awesome pictures! I bet it was simply breathtaking!

  2. Ever since I saw parkour on YouTube a couple years ago, I’ve been in love with it. I always wanted to do it myself, but I’m quite nervous about getting injured. I know, I’m a sissy, but a safe sissy!

  3. That photo of you jumping the chairs is crazy! It seems like you wouldn’t make it (but I’m sure you would have mentioned if it went horribly wrong…)

  4. That wall-run looks so fun! At first, I thought it was going to be the “run up the wall and flip over” trick, which scares me a bit. I don’t know if I’d ever feel confident trying that.

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