14ft running jump 👀

On Saturday I went to Dundee for my first comp since 2024! This is a part of Scottish Parkour Takeover League two colleagues and myself started in 2024 in Aberdeen. This has expanded across 5 cities with the help of 9 other athletes across Scotland managing the Takeover in the city they live in. I had a few reasons for going: 1. Train with people as I normally train solo. 2. See what impact taking part in the athlete programme has had on me mentally and physically. 3. To encourage my students to engage with the wider Scottish community and train in other places. So many of these challenges I would’ve walked away from just a month ago. I was honestly so pleased with some of these and didn’t imagine making some of these so quickly!

- A short story of todays challenge; So a few days ago I shared a video of Legendary Rodney Mullen, the godfather of street skating. He was talking about living in chronic pain but at the same time feeling the pull and love of his sport make him essentially overcome the pain with pure passion and love for skateboarding. As most people know now with all my endless complaints, my ankles are absolutely f**ked.. But with his passionate words echoing in my mind, I tried pushing thru the initial pain doing this challenge today. Very close to giving up after just a few attempts. But I held on and kept trying and kinda “delulud” my pain away which sort off worked better than expected. After like 15 attempts trying this, sweating like crazy wearing non-stretchy jeans of all things and fatigue setting in… I thought back to why I train Parkour at all, to me, it’s was always meant to be fun. My attitude changed and my entire atmosphere too. It was a great feeling and a nostalgic one. Each new attempt now brought me more and more joy, regardless of how it actually went, some to the side, another too slow, one too quick, ouch, staight on the heel… Every fibre in my body was vibrating with happiness, I was finally moving again… And in that next moment, I felt something so profound… “wait a minute… I can do this? Is my body actually allowing me to do this?” “You’re not gonna give up like always?” “You’re not gonna back out as usual?” “Wait.. even my mind is telling me it’s okay?” The feeling was evergreen and all puzzle pieces aligned within me and I succeeded that very next attempt. And Brodie Pawson, like a truly iconic Parkour Moment, completed the challenge on his very next attempt, classic I couldn’t believe it, I just did something that had more or less solidified itself as “impossible” for me in my current state. I’ll be real, the amount of self doubt that’s been expanding and replicating itself like a cancer the last probably 4 years of my life has been, ehm, let’s just say, overwhelming at times…

Filmed m assessment on Friday after work and really seeing how much work needs done on my climb ups. Static climb up was such a struggle, but found the dynamic climb up much easier. The red box is taller than me standing with my arms above my head. Also found it really weird how my standing pre was 11.5 of my feet but could only manage 12 for running pre and step in plyo out pre. I found it hard to commit to the running pre even with it being barely off the floor. 1. Standing pre 2. Running pre 3. Step in, plyo out pre 4. Static climb up 5. Dynamic climb up Keen to start seeing improvement!

Remembered to actually try this this session and was happy with how it went - keen to get it outside soon Did it beautifully off camera, decides to film an attempt, dies on the first attempt 😝