Parkour

I have loved the idea of freerunning as I knew it, for a long time. It was very fortuitious therefore, when I saw the Dunlop TV ad (and said to my girls I would love to do that), heard Dane Grant of Parkour South Africa(featured in the tv ad) and read about it in the Sandton Chronicle, all within a few days.
An email to Dane confirmed that I was welcome to attend the workshop in Sunninghill. I was thrilled and scared at the same time. My big thing (after looking at the training clips on the website) was the roll. Now, I haven't done a 'head-over-heels' roll since primary school, and even then I can't remember specifically when I did it. The precision jump looked okay, and I was quite sure that the Pop Vault, wouldn't be required of beginners and obviously the Drop Jump wasn't going to happen. My other concern was also being in a group of teenage boys. I have nothing against either teenagers nor boys, but I didn't see myself "fitting-'in" with them for a 2.5 hours workshop.
I needn't have given any of that a second thought. When I arrived at the skate park, two teenage boys thought it was "Cool" that I was coming to do Parkour and Dane was very welcoming.
Two and a half hours of a tough workout and I loved it. I "crawled" along high walls and short banisters, I ran up and down ramps and pits, I climbed walls and jump over shorter walls. I even did forward flips into the foam pit. I was very proud of myself for doing it all, while acknowledging the fear. I will definitely be going back.