Halloween in London

My last day in London was actually Halloween and despite my worst fears, the English have definitely advanced a lot farther than the French in their celebration of this Americanized “holiday”. While I’d say that they haven’t quite attained the level of the typical large American college campus, the number of people that were brave enough to wear their costumes in the Metro all weekend long was pretty impressive.
Of course, mixing parkour and Halloween costumes always has interesting results, especially when Halloween falls on the day of the monthly “Off the Wall” event when people from all over the region meet in London to train together and hang out.

This costume was neither made nor brought for me.  However, the combination of peer pressure and nothing to lose made for some sweet pics.

 

It was kinda chilly.



No comment.



Brian brings trust falls to a new level.  Not only does this help to create the spirit of community that's so strong in London, but it's a decent workout after a while.



London style parkour bonding.



The official group pic of the event.*

Thanks Brian!

Training Note:

On a side note, and in the interest of continuing the subject from the previous post, “The incorporation of fear into training”, I recently did the precision jump* that took the bite out of my leg at Vauxhall (see the August post for pictures). Since the injury, I’ve had a mental block each time I’ve approached this jump, despite the fact that it’s not a particularly hard one and is well within my reach. Apparently the emotional/mental damage takes much longer to heal than the physical wound. Since that first real “parkour injury” I’ve often found myself hesitant to do a lot of precision jumps, as there was always a lingering fear of a repeat injury. As I didn’t want to leave London with any reservations about jumping I decided that I had to do the jump before I left. About a week after the Edinburgh race I was in Vauxhall for a PkGen class and after it had finished I decided to stay and do some extra training. Despite the fact that it was already dark (it was getting dark around 6:30 in London at that point) and the fact that I had already been training hard for a few hours, I was more than physically ready to do the jump. I did the jump a few times without any difficulty besides the mental psych-up before the first one. I returned a few days later after the Halloween “Off the Wall” event and did it again, this time while dressed as Mowgli (sorry, no pictures of this as there wasn’t much clothing involved). While I’ve felt good about re-conquering the jump from a purely competitive angle, I’ve also found that there has been a big upsurge in my general confidence for parkour, as if there has been a huge weight lifted from my shoulders- someone described it as getting my “mojo” back which is probably the best description I’ve heard.

*For the non-traceurs out there, a precision jump is when you jump from one point to another, landing precisely and “sticking” the jump (like in gymnastics, sticking means that once you land you don’t move). In this case the jump was between two walls about 2ft high, 4 inches thick, and about seven or eight feet apart.