ALO - Free Running Frenzy Part II

Hey, what's up dear readers? Alamane is back, bringing you part two of my article series on free running. When we last left off, I was training for the winter to be able to pull off mad stunts and flips when the summer came. As is the norm for part twos, I'm going to start where I left off.

Once summer came to western Michigan (and let me tell you, that takes awhile), I was, sadly, in no better shape than I had been in winter. But, dear readers, don't for a moment think that that stopped me from attempting free running anyway. I may not have been in the best shape ever (sort of a halfway deflated circle), I wasn't in the worst, either. I could run fair distances, and should I manage the finesse necessary to pull of the moves, I'd be pro in no time. So, as I do with almost any of my hobbies, I recruited friends that were interested in it as well, then headed down to a local playground to test out some of the moves.

We started with some normal warm up stuff, a bit of a race, hide and seek, tag, etc. (yes this was in high school, but those games are still fun...try to deny it) and then moved on to a game that would test our balance and free running capabilities: The Floor (or in this case, ground) is Lava! For our game, the ground, and most walkways were considered lava. What we essentially had to do was navigate our way from one end of the play structure to the other, and make a five foot jump to land on a boat-shaped fixture. Oh yeah, and the places we were allowed to walk were about 6 inches wide.

As once might expect, this game lead to its fair share of casualties, my older sister sprained her ankle trying to make the jump, my friend (who has, shall we say, less than optimal balance) fell off the ledges several times, and I had my own share of...*ahem* gravity-related problems. But, for the most part, everybody completed the activity while still being able to walk away (except for my sister, who more of...hobbled away). To me, this was an encouraging sign. With the dangers this had posed, we should be able to, at the very least, all try out for Ninja Warrior. How wrong I was.

The remainder of the summer was spent honing our balance skills, and trying to learn some of the basic moves. The one we focused on the most was also supposedly one of the most simple, the back flip. None of us tried it that summer, we wanted to wait for winter so we would have the snow as padding should we land on our backs or heads, but we worked on the individual skills involved.

And that, dear readers, is where this entry ends. In the next article, I will probably finish up free running, then after that, it's an afterward for the whole free run hobby. Then we move into the next for the back log. As for the references to in this post...I don't think there need to be any. If you feel otherwise, feel free to email us (me) at atleastonceblog@gmail.com and let me know what you think should be linked. This is Alamane, signing off.