Explore

Old training spots are like really good friends. You meet them one day, and something in them makes you keep coming back, and over time you discover new facets and nuances that renew your intrigue. So far as I know, that process never ends, but then I've only got three short years of experience in this. What I do know though, is that it's too easy to get caught up in facing and conquering the challenges at these beloved training grounds that we can miss out on discovering new places. Last Sunday I took my bike and just kinda toured around Seattle and Ballard, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, and completely without a destination in mind. Instead of noting that an area looked interesting and putting it in the mental list of places to come back to, I fully physically explored all of the areas of intrigue I found. Strangely, I think the best places found that day were the most unassuming, quiet, simple. I only came across them because they were close to something else that looked interesting.

With that, I'll leave you with a video Tim Kahn from Portland whipped together in record time. I really like his editing style.



Oh, and I'm aware that the drop off of the run in the beginning is lame. Eh, Even simple things need practice to remain smooth.

501(c)3 and More!

Let me just begin by saying that the Pacific Northwest Parkour Association now officially has 501(c)3 status with the IRS. Meaning that we can accept donations and really get some big projects working for the community. Wow. This is a huge step towards achieving some big goals for us. Where do we go from here? Well, we'd really love to get into schools and make parkour part of the curriculum for some lucky students. We also want to be able to offer up more opportunities for students to be able to fulfill their required community service hours with us. We have dreams of working with the parks to have "parkour days", and efforts to build more obstacles to accommodate different training needs. Our classes are steadily growing, but we need to be able to pay our coaches. Speaking of coaches, we've actually gotten one step closer to having a certification system. Whew. That's just the beginning. For more information on any of this, or to share interest, please check out pnwpa.com .

Part of spiffing up the pnwpa site is going to include adding more videos. This last weekend, we had Tim up from Portland to visit and film some footage for all kinds of projects (thanks Tim!!). I'm really excited to see what he comes up with. We spent most of the weekend out at Gasworks Park, re-exploring the familiar surroundings and coming up with new and creative ways to use it all. I found a great new run that deals with a blackberry bush precision problem... ouch?

Oh, and between this post and the last one I've officially become a Crossfit Gym Rat. A few short weeks of regular, quick torture, and I'm seeing huge results in my training capabilities. Not only in endurance, but also just raw power. Can I plug Crossfit here? Yes? Do it. Meet Pukey.