Fledging Ninjas Go to Glasgow

I've never really visited Glasgow, even when I was younger and travelled all over Scotland with my family. In order to get from St Andrews to my Scottish cousins in Ayrshire this past year, I had to change trains in Glasgow, but I never actually visited Glasgow. Though Glasgow used to be the second city of the Empire behind London, I often hear awful rumors about Glasgow because today it looks like a rusting and decaying city. Heavy industries such as shipbuilding used to bring a lot of wealth and trade to the city, but those jobs left once the waterways around Glasgow became too shallow and narrow for the larger ships companies wanted. At least that is what I read in a Scottish history book. Another source said the jobs left because overseas competition could build ships and other heavy machinery, such as trains, cheaper than the Scots. Either way, Glasgow is no longer as prestigious as it once was. I have heard that Glasgow is now a major shopping center for Scotland and that the area around the university is pretty. Most of my friends still prefer Edinburgh over Glasgow because the Scottish capital has much prettier architecture and more history and culture. Because I rarely hear much good about Glasgow, I am much more willing to visit Edinburgh.

My friend who convinced me to try parkour, which I have mentioned in previous posts (in one post we learn basic moves; in another I tried to jump over a wall), convinced me and some other friends to go to Glasgow for a parkour event called the "Roots of Movement." This event was the day after I went to the Edinburgh Tattoo, so I had to catch an early train to get to Glasgow. Unfortunately, we all took the slow train to Glasgow that stopped in almost every small town in the countryside. There was a faster train that went about 100+ mph. It left at about the same time. Instead of getting to Glasgow in 30 minutes with 45 minutes to spare, our train took about a little more than an hour with only a few minutes to get to the event. In the end, it didn't really matter that we showed up a couple minutes late because the organizers were still signing everyone up and giving all attendants brightly colored shirts. Mine was blue.

The fact that the event took place in a large indoor basketball gym without a single window did not do much to improve my biased impression of Glasgow as a large, rusting industrial city without a lot of culture. Also, parkour has a 'rundown industrial city' aura for me because so many of the online videos take place in European concrete apartment complexes or other urban buildings. At least now I can say that I've been to Glasgow and have done more than just drive though the town.

I did not realize this until later, but some coaches were some of the biggest Scottish and British parkour 'stars.' This may not sound like much, and I'm honestly not sure if it is much. A lot of the guys have cool videos on youtube, so they're good at what they do. I just don't know how big Scotland is in the world parkour scene or how many of these athletes have won significant awards. I do know that a lot of the coaches have done events in France and elsewhere, so at least they're in the loop. Roots of Movement is the first large parkour event in Scotland, and it was sold out. The hosts seemed very happy with the turnout and said that this event had the same level of support as many events in continental Europe.

We started the event with a good warmup. My favorite part of the warmup was when all of the 150 attendants created a huge circle and linked arms while sitting on the floor. At this point the coaches went around to pull the attendants away from the circle. We had to cling onto each other. If the coach could pull us out of the circle, then we had to start pulling other people from the circle. It kinda felt like a zombie attack after a while when several people were unable to pull me away from the circle. I linked my arms through the arms of the people next to me and then clung my hands together above my chest in order to give myself a firmer grip. After a few minutes when most other attendants had been pulled away from the circle, several guys, including a friend, decided to do everything they could to pull me from the circle. They finally organized their attack. A few of the guys stood above me, and everyone grabbed an arm or leg. After counting down, they started to pull simultaneously. Since they counted down, I knew when I had to start turning and pushing them away. Unfortunately, they finally pulled me away, but there wasn't enough time for me to try to pull anyone from the circle.

In order to separate us into different groups, the instructors told us to to stand in a line along the wall according to how good we thought we were. If we thought we were beginners, we had to stand to the far left. If we thought we were freaking awesome, we would humbly go to the right. Along with most of my friends, I went as far to the left as I could. Thus, I was part of the beginners group. They had separate groups for the kids, which was nice. I didn't want to be in the same group as 8 year olds, especially if they were better than me. It would have been rather embarrassing if I stumbled through an obstacle after some kid nimbly jumped over or under something. If I was better than them, I would look like a total douche showing up a kid.

There were several 'stations,' and we spent about 20 or 30 minutes at each station. Most of the stations offered various types of obstacles we had to either jump over or crawl under. Sometimes we had to jump from ledge to ledge or balance ourselves across a beam. The goal for most of these obstacles wasn't necessarily to do a certain move but to keep moving. I heard that other events don't usually have special padding, but there were several mats so that we didn't hurt ourselves when we landed from a jump. It was nice getting to do pretty much whatever we wanted, especially since I already knew a lot of beginner moves.

At one station we separated into two teams. One team stood on a balancing bar gymnasts would normally use. We locked arms with each others on the bar. The other team tried to distract us anyway they could without touching us so that we would fall. In order to make it more difficult in the last round of this game, we had to stand on one leg and do a squat while holding onto the other people on the bar. I couldn't even finish one squat. As my videos from previous posts show, balancing on bars is not exactly my strong suit. I'm quite awful with it. I got a little better at it, though. According to my parkour friend from St Andrews, balancing is a very important exercise for this sport because it trains certain muscles that help control jumps, landings, and other parkour moves.

For me, the coolest station was two metal scaffolding towers the organizers erected in the middle of the gymnasium. Each tower was about 15 feet tall, three feet wide, and six feet long. Metal bars intersected the middle of the scaffolding at different angles in order to present more obstacles for us. As beginners, we didn't have a very difficult task. We had to climb up one side of the tower, down the other side, use a bar between the towers to get to the other tower, crawl up this tower, and then down the last tower. It sounds simple enough, but we could only use our left arm. Also, we didn't know the best path through all the metal bars inside the towers so that I had to figure it out as I went along. It forced me to think about how I was moving, where I was going, and how to use other parts of my body in order to get through the bars. It wasn't incredibly difficult physically but was a mental challenge. At one point I slipped on a bar and almost fell off the tower. I could have easily used my other hand to pull myself up, but that would have been cheating. As I dangled from the bars, I had to think about how to get myself back up. I ended up using brute force and my legs in order to get myself back onto the tower. I was proud of myself. The second time through this obstacle I had to use my other hand. This second round was a bit easier because I had found different places where I could sit and swing myself around, but I had to do some moves differently because I was using the other side of my body more.

In another, similar station/obstacle there was another scaffolding tower we had to crawl up. However, there was a bar jutting away from the tower and from the top corner of the tower to the floor at a 45º angle. In order to get to the top of the tower, I had to find a way to balance myself on this bar and 'monkey crawl' to the top. The instructors didn't show us how to do this because we had to think of a way ourselves. I was the first to go, so I couldn't copy anyone else. Since balancing is not my forte, I slipped multiple times on the slick bar and had to pull myself back up. I almost embarrassed myself in front of all the girls... and by 'almost' I mean I probably did. I finally realized that I just had to use as much upper body strength as possible to pull myself up the bar and just use my feet to balance myself since the bar was too slick. If I got some momentum going, I could get to the top quickly and without falling. My parkour friend later told me that the next step would have been doing the same moves more slowly in order to build up more upper body strength, but I was just proud of myself for finding a way up the bar.

I watched a more experienced group play a special game of 'tag.' The instructors set up a series of large black boxes and walls that the players had to jump over anyway they could. Most of these guys were good enough that they could 'kong' over the tall obstacles and gracefully push themselves over others. In this game of tag, the first player would get a couple seconds' head start in order to get away as quickly as possible. The second player would then chase down the first player and try to tag him before the first player passes over the last obstacle. It was really cool to watch, and this could become a cool game to watch on tv. In fact, whenever I see parkour in spy movies or on crime tv shows (I recently saw parkour on USA's Covert Affairs), it's almost always a chase scene like this game of tag.

The best part of the event had little to do with parkour. One of the coaches, a French dude, made us do a series of pushups and squats. I wasn't familiar with this style of pushup, and it was brutal. I had to keep my arms tucked into my torso as I went down, and my shoulders couldn't be higher than my hips. Also, we had to hover over the ground for a little bit before we could push ourselves back up. He said this style of pushup was better for the body. I'm not sure how. He told me over and over again how I was doing the pushup wrong. Then we had to do squats. Since my knee had been hurting me, I would only go down a little bit because then I would feel the pressure on the knee. He told me to go lower, and I told him I couldn't because my knee hurt too much. He told me that squats were good for the knee. He came over and gave me several instructions so that I could squat lower: I had to spread my feet out further and let my knees point at wider angles from my torso. I was then able to do the squat better. During one of the breaks, I asked him to teach me how to do a proper squat since I had apparently been doing them wrong. He was very helpful and gave me several other pointers I did not know. I would have probably learned all this stuff if I had played sports while growing up, but the instructions were very helpful. We did a series of about 10 more squats. As soon as I did these squats, I couldn't feel any more pain in my knees. Ever since then, I've had no knee problems, so I plan on doing more squats in order to prevent future knee problems. Learning how to get rid of my knee pain was probably the best part of the event for me. I'm glad that the instructor was able to take the one-on-one time to help me.

We left the Roots of Movement around 4 pm in order to catch a train back to St Andrews. While waiting for the train, we walked across the street from Glasgow Central train station to get a sandwich at a cheap walk-in shop. Though we walked briefly around the station and only took a taxi from the gym to the station, I at least got a small feel for Glasgow. At a later date, I would have to walk from Queens Station to Glasgow Central, so I got an even better feel for the city even though I only saw a small portion of the central part. It seemed to be nice enough with pedestrian friendly streets and lots of shops. It reminded me of Orléans, France. That may or may not be a good thing. When I lived and worked in Châteauroux, which is an hour south of Orléans, we hated Orléans because we had a lot of bad experiences in this town, mostly involving the French rail workers going on strike when we had important meetings to catch. I digress. After going to Glasgow for the Roots of Movement, I can see how this city is no better and no worse than other cities that struggle with economic transitions. Some areas may not look as pretty as others, but most cities have rougher neighborhoods. Some buildings may look sketchy with graffiti on the walls, and there may not be a beautiful castle on top of a volcanic rock like Edinburgh has. Still, it seems like a fair enough city if I had to live there and could get used to it. Then again, if I had my druthers, I'd still live in Edinburgh instead of Glasgow.