By Shi.
Location: UNSW, Sydney, Australia
Treading New Ground Down Under – 1st Sydney Girls’ Jam
2 months ago when I finally arrived in Sydney I was keen to find the girls’ parkour scene there – who are they, where do they practice, how do I meet them? Random female nicknames scattered the local forums like pieces of a jigsaw waiting to be put together. The Australian Parkour Association also runs classes in Sydney and there are some girls, but no girls’ group as such.
A minor setback but starting a facebook group and setting up an email was easy enough. Then the hard part, putting the word out on the forums about girls’ jams. To be honest I felt out of my depth as the Sydney community for me seemed like a close-knit group where everyone knew everyone and how would they deal with an unknown girl barging in announcing all-girls’ jams? Was I being obnoxious, a loudmouthed newcomer claiming superiority in an established scene?
But I really wanted to meet girls to train with and the photo of the London Girls’ Jams sat on my desk with the many happy faces smiling back at me. I was sure that this is the right thing to do so I swallowed my nerves, typed out a few lines, set a date for the end of the month, closed my eyes and clicked the Submit button.
Turns out I was worrying about nothing as the Sydney boys voiced out their support loud and strong for a girls’ jam. Realizing the need to spread the word, I did up a bunch of posters and made detours through uni putting up signs once a week that seemed to attract more male attraction than females. Interestingly as I was practicing rail quadrepedies after work one night, 3 male students walked past and one exclaimed excitedly “Oh, that must be that parkour thing” “What?” “You know..” The word was slowly getting out, but I wasn’t sure where it was going. Steadily, a small number of girls trickled into the facebook group and put in their “ayes” of attendance.On the day, the weather forecast was for a blistering hot 32 Celsius in the first month of spring. The group was small, keen and with good spirit. Warm ups out of the way, we went through saut de chats, wall runs, tic tacs, balancing to precisions. The place we were at is amazing, with parkour hot spots dotted along a linear path offering a variety of conditions for all skill levels.
The girls were game to try anything, Jules was eying up a rail precision and Nikki had a penchant for precisions. In fact, Nikki attracted 2 security guards with her neat precisions who then hung around, forcing us to reluctantly move along. First-timer Inna threw herself (excuse the pun) into everything with equal gusto and the girls were there for encouragement all the way.
Many light hearted moments were abound from trying to leap-frog the “NeverEnding (Ball) Story”, hanging out in the Scientia tree, taking the rail express down to lower campus and the warm-down of 30 push ups, 60 sit ups, planks and other lovely bringers of joy.The great thing about Girls’ Jams is that the girls that you train with are not just people that happen to be in your immediate hemisphere. These girls become your cheerleaders when you have that gap to precision across, that big wall looming or that tricky rail that sneaks up waiting to grab the edges of your feet as you sail over them. And then you give the same support back to them when they need it.
In the long run, who knows what the Sydney Girls’ Jams will become. In the eyes of an outsider, it was a group of girls jumping, running, laughing, balancing and climbing trees on a sunny Sunday afternoon. And maybe that is all it has to be, just girls getting together to do something they enjoy. Whatever it becomes, it seems that the future is bright and sunny here in Sydney for its traceuses.
Sydney Women’s Parkour Facebook Group
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