Unofficial symbol of le Parkour. Based on a photo of David Belle, the alleged founder.
It was a quiet night. No stars or moon reflecting of the hard concrete. There’s a little wind, but not enough to throw you of balance. You just had to keep running, dodging, jumping. A to B, B to C, and sometimes you had to backtrack which meant lost time and momentum.
Momentum, combined with reflexes, muscles, tendons and a brain working overtime to calculate velocity, angle, surface, friction, power, and hundred other things that might throw you of balance. Slipping of on a rail or a wall when you’re a few feet up might be bad, but it’s nothing compared to being much higher. You’ve got the time to think over what you did wrong on the way down. The only problem is you won’t get a retry. Not when the asphalt or some old hunk of metal pulverizes your bones into your brain. If you hesitate or do something too risky you might end up a wet stain. Fractures, torn ligaments, dislocations, and few others are always risks you expose yourself to no matter where you might be running, but they’re almost welcome compared to what might happen up here.
The city shines it light up from underneath me, a million little lights looking up towards the heavens. I’m already warmed up from the climb, but I do some stretching and bounce around a bit just to make sure.
A few deep steady breaths, hands moving back and forth as I start building speed. It’s only me and the gap to the other rooftop in my mind. It’s funny how that always seem to be the case. You focus only on avoiding what might kill you, but it takes a while before the brain starts working on a way to pass the obstacle as safely as possible. Of course you can’t do that while standing around thinking over what might go wrong, what might happen if you stumble at the wrong moment for instance. Nothing good, that’s for sure. But if you keep it up you get locked into a downward spiral, the more you think about it the more you freeze up. After a while you’re stiff as a mannequin, and you might as well call it a night.
You tense up, both in body and mind.
This was not one of those nights though. I reach the edge at full speed with the wind going past me, putting a carpet of white noise over everything. My foot hits the concrete inches from the edge. I have to push a bit to the left at the last second to avoid getting impaled by an antenna.
And then I’m in the air. Things seem to slow down, but I know it’s just the chemical payload that’s kicked in. I get a glimpse of the cars moving between the buildings as I pass the abyss.
Then the other side starts approaching, and as I pick up a bit more speed thanks to gravity I stretch out a bit in the air. The front of my feet hit the ground and I tip forwards and turn the energy downwards into energy forwards by rolling. I’ve got even more speed now than when I reach the edge on the first roof, and the following jumps are easy.
At the end I reach a lower building, only a few stories high. The balconies there make excellent platforms for making my way down towards the street. I still have to drop straight down from the last one, which pretty much kills my momentum, but it beats taking the stairs.
I breathe out in the alley for a minute, making sure everything intact. The soles of my feet protest a bit, at some point I didn’t manage to dampen the fall all that good. Have to work on that a bit before the next run.
