29 dic 2008

Female scene

As I promised.. here I am... this time I've been thinking about the female scene... mainly here in Mexico, when I started (2 years ago) there seem to be one serious female practising...now as time has passed by there are lots of girls coming... I remeber when I had few time training with UR and some girls attended 1 or 2 classes and then they quitted now there are lots of girls that have more than a year or year and a half and lots of newcomers!

This is a big deal... I think this because of the hard work that all of us have done here... and well the merit goes to them too.... they all are doing a great job.

So I want to add something posted at the website Girl parkour... I wrote it myself and well want you to give it a look...hope you enjoy:

First of all I need to say that I was feeling a bit anxious… I had finally decided to organize the official second Traceuses gathering here in Mexico. I knew that the number of female practitioners had increased a lot during the last year, but I had no idea of how many girls would be attending the event. So there I was, going to the meeting place and when I arrived there were about 4 girls waiting, but suddenly the thing started growing and in a couple of minutes we had around 20 girls. I must say that I knew lots of them but I was very happy to see new faces.

We then decided to walk to the place where the event was taking part and when we arrived, I could see a girl with a broken leg. She already had a plaster on it and somebody told me she was going to train and this really put me into shock… This was the first of many surprises I received that day, this girl proved to have a determined and really strong spirit. Personally, the image of seeing her trying to move gave me extra energy to lead the event. When we started, I really had no idea of how they were going to respond to the activities but anyway we had a nice sunny day and we had something in common… we all were there to learn and share.

We ran for a while and then warmed up in a circle. Then the nice part came! We divided into two groups in order to make some conditioning and strength exercises, Saga was in charge of one group of girls and I had another group.

Afterwards we did some conditioning (abs, pull ups, climb ups, pistols, quadrupedie, etc) we all got together and started with some techniques. The first thing we did were some passé murailles and well, here all the ladies were all willing to train, they were pushing hard and got really nice results. That was when I realized the event was completely worthy…not only with regard to training and techniques but what they were all gaining in self confidence.

So then the real test came, I planned this exercise to encourage them because this was mainly an exercise of confidence and balance. The point was to stand up on a rail (the rail was not completely stable so this gave an extra level of difficulty) and then the girls had to attempt to do an arm jump and go over the obstacle. In the beginning few girls felt confident enough, but they gave it a go. The balance was a little complicated and it seemed to scare them. Suddenly they started encouraging other girls, they were clapping when one of us achieved this goal and this encouraged the rest to go up, to jump and to keep moving.

We then moved to another place and started vaulting. The girls made rows and started passing, they practiced their vaults, and the guys that were watching and the rest of girls were giving comments and suggestions to improve their vaults. I got a nice rock and placed it so that we could practice our vaults ending with a precision. The girls started trying and after a couple of attempts they got nice and clean precisions.


We decided to do some barefoot training, most of the girls had never tried it and they felt a lack of confidence but they soon started feeling better and tried vaults and precisions and many girls said that they were considering to include this in their own training. Many girls had to go by this time; the rest of us had a brief session of conditioning and some stretching.

After all the girls went, exhausted but really happy, I was there thinking and I felt so much excitement and could find that many girls are taking this very seriously. Definitely this gave me extra strength to keep on, to organise this event every year, to share and to grow. Now I feel that all of these girls are my sisters, my teachers and part of my motivation. They taught me a lot and I'm very pleased to have these opportunities. We all have a long way ahead but we are all strong women and I am serious when I say that all those girls who showed so much commitment will achieve all their goals, it's just a matter of determination, and they all have it.

We are now holding winter trainings for girls and many girls are coming. Most of them attended the gathering and I know I'll have the chance to see them grow and share experiences for a very long time. This is what parkour gives us, the chance to learn, grow, evolve and share as if we all were part of a big family. We must think of ourselves as equals, such as brothers and sisters, not to compete but to grow with respect and love for all of us and for all of our abilities. This will provide us with self confidence, self understanding and an enormous opportunity to make this a better world.



So finally I add two videos, the first one was the gathering of 2007, the second this gathering (2008)






26 dic 2008

Just saying hello

Well I hope to start writing here...Don't have much free time... just wanted to say hello... this will be a place to share, write some ideas and a somethings that happen during my training...

As I have not too much for now I add my recent video