By Tracey Tiltman
Location: Greenwich, London.
For a more beautiful day, we could not have asked… Autumn is in full swing here in the UK, with its amazing colours and wonderful crunchy sounds underfoot – but it seems someone forgot to tell that to the weather!!! On one of the hottest October days on record here (22°C+), we journeyed down to the green and peaceful haven of the Greenwich training grounds to see what challenges we could find…
We started the session, as is common, with a warm-up leading into some body conditioning work. We were lucky enough to be graced with the presence of the lovely Thomas Couetdic, who led this for the girls (and beasted us!) – and went on to make sure we were all pushing our limits in all that we did. Amongst the many challenges were distraction balancing, upper body strength double-tap drills, turn-vaults at height, route repetitions and climbing. But by far the hardest was the mental challenge of height training and fear control.
The human body is well programmed to warn us when we are in danger – but it is possible to adjust your level of tuning. To be aware of the risk, but to control the fear is what we constantly strive for in Parkour. At a two-storey height, a wide wall does not feel nearly as safe to stand on as it does a few feet from the ground! Add to that a few simple drills such as walking forwards, backwards, turning, squatting, leaning, closing the eyes and looking up to the blue, blue skies and it makes for some serious leg-shaking action! This is where the control really begins. To endure this fear and return your body to a comfortable level without giving in to the instinct that screams ‘GET BACK TO SAFE GROUND!!’ is the aim.
We ended the jam with a wonderful long stretching session in the sun, courtesy of Naomi Honey. Big thanks to Thomas, Naomi and all the girls for coming down – and my utmost respect and congratulations go to all of Sunday’s ladies for getting stuck in to everything, pushing boundaries, and all having a go at the height training despite the good levels of fear goin’ on! You guys are hardcore.
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