I don’t know exactly what was going through my mind when it
happened, but somehow a combination of too much buffy
, a day off and the first dose of boredom in a long time manifested as me taking a parkour session on a Tuesday evening. I guess I thought: if it goes wrong it’s an anecdote, if it’s good it’s an adventure, besides I’d seen vloggers on youtube do it so how hard could it be.
I rocked up in town and walked from the station to the
parkour building, which was a bit of a trek but I’d done the route before to go
to both the climbing place and the trampoline place nearby. However I’d
miscalculated the time, going way too early for the happy hour session.
Naturally I wandered the shops for the hours I had to spare, browsing mundane
products to pass the time. I went from a household supply shop to a tech shop
out of sheer boredom, getting gradually more fed up as the day went on. Part of
me wondered if people thought I was a thief, I had been lingering in their
shops for a while and I was a young white male, although I’m pretty sure most
of the attention was in my imagination.
After the hour of half-hearted shopping I followed the path
down to the industrial bit near the trampoline bit, nosing my head in and
immediately leaving. The words “murder basement” sprang to mind, it was dark,
cold and empty with an older man who I don’t think saw me. I was expecting
something full of young attractive people doing things from awesome films to pop
music. Old music was playing in the background and I slinked away, changing my
mind. My thoughts ping ponged between “murder basement” and “but you’ve waited
so long and you’ve been drenched.” In the end I slinked into the trampoline
place, performing the kind of toilet based clothing change you’d expect in a
double life superhero/Hannah Montana situation.
I braved the murder basement again and the older man
explained that they were on a first aid course. The happy hour time made sense.
There was another hour of waiting, this time with Wifi and my headphones in
against a marble table. It’s as annoying as it is ironic that when I’ve got
literally nothing else to do for an hour youtube is a desert, but when work you
settle down to do something productive it’s a minefield of distraction. Finally
when the guys in charge stumble in they set up in a heartbeat, with a blond
dreadlocked guy blipping my card using their website and his colleague
emerging. The lights flickering on and fading the murder basement vibe immediately.
There were weird wooden towers, random metal poles to balance on and a foam pit
that was only accessible via a jump. The guy – Craig – introduced himself and I
explained my complete lack of ability to him. He was a mixed race black guy,
mid-thirties and kind of cool in a very friendly way, reminded me of a family
friend who used to work for the climbing company next door to them. I also met
a younger lad later that night who was obnoxiously good at all the tricks and
had what could only be described as “Quintin from the magicians” hair, at least
ear length with a bob.
Craig showed me some warm ups and after a little running and
stretching we worked on balance, that I was terrible at. I could walk across
them a little but trying to balance on tip-toes as instructed was as hilarious
as my attempts were tragic. Next were jumps, hopping from one thing to another,
which I didn’t totally suck at. After
a few hops from three separate balance pads made of converted tyres he lead me
up one of the wooden steps and asked me to leap from one side to the other. I
hesitated, part calculation, part fear of whacking my chin on the bit where my
feet should be. The gap was apparently the same distance, but the height had
changed. I made it, jumping how I was advised as opposed to how I would
naturally jump. The wave of relief him me when I made it across, he
congratulated me and moved me to the vault area with a smile.
He pulled out the vault box and showed me a few different
vaults, this was the part where I met the lad. He was 14 yet acted much older,
and he had more muscles in his upper body than an army of my clones would put
together. A few slightly iffy yet not too tragic vaults later he left me to
have a wander. I then latched onto the lad and hovered around him for a bit,
where he showed me the tomb raider pole launch thing among a few other bits,
with me failing 80% of the time and him reinforcing how to do basics with the
phrase “you need to commit!” Most of my time was spend asking him to dumb down
what seemed to him like very simple concepts, and at one point he suggested I
“Imagine its Indiana Jones” as if that made it magically simpler.
It was surprisingly good fun, I’d go again. However I
wouldn’t do it as a regular hobby, especially not beyond the happy hour price.
My main advice to the company beyond the wait would be that slow old timey
slightly romantic music is not suitable for a parkour session. . I also now
know where my abdominal muscles are because they still feel a little achy the
day after, on the other hand I did end up hurdling a bike-slower-pipe-thingy on
route home because of my time there.
