I don’t want to say “I’m getting into parkour.” I may try it once and discover that it was a monumentally bad idea, that my hands can’t take it or my upper-body strength needs more work than I’m willing to do or I’m just not that into running, even with the extra stuff to add interest. I don’t want to say “I’m getting into parkour” because I don’t want to tell a bunch of people that I’m all about it on Thursday and then be over and past it by Tuesday. I don’t want to say “I’m getting into parkour” because as far as I can tell, there are no traceurs within an hour’s drive of here so there’s nobody for me to learn from. I’ll be relying on YouTube and an APK tutorial DVD and bootleg compilation videos and that might not be enough to keep me in it. I don’t want to say “I’m getting into parkour” because it might not take, and then I’m a quitter.

I kinda felt the same way when I started studying martial arts, though, and five years later I’m helping out with classes and I’m one of the top students at my school, just one more rank from being able to open my own kwoon, take on my own students, and further develop Lung Shou Pai by adding my own contributions.

I only have one regret about kung fu: I wish I’d started sooner. If I had started studying when I moved to Jackson, I’d already have my master rank by now.

I’ve been talking to some other people about parkour and gauging the level of interest. I know that things like this are easier when you have training partners, and if I end up faceplanting into a wall I want somebody nearby to drag me to an emergency room. Half a dozen guys have already said they’d like to give it a shot. We have all kinds: guys from my kwoon, a skateboarder, a gymnast, guys with no experience at all.

My training DVD is on the way. I’ve been pulling technique tutorials from YouTube to put on my phone for easy field references. I’m looking into getting Jump London and Jump Britain as inspiration, even though there’s no way I’m going to be doing any roofwork.

The plan right now is to get all the wannabe-traceurs together, watch the DVD, then go out to a playground and start working on the basics. The fundamental parkour roll is very similar to a breakfall that we practice in Lung Shou Pai, so I’ve got a headstart there. I expect that before long, one of us will hurt ourselves. I expect it’ll turn into a lot more conditioning and fundamentals drilling than you’d expect from watching compilation videos. I expect it’ll be a lot more work than it seems. I may quit.

Right now, though, I’m getting into parkour. I hope that before long I find myself wishing I’d started sooner.