This article has actually been written for a while but I wanted to post it now to try to give a few rays of warmth to those cold winter days...

So after a few weeks at home I returned to London.  While this was done under the general premise of continuing my research into parkour, I also wanted to attend some key events, most notably Rendezvous.  I arrived in the city just in time to catch the tail end of the instructor’s meeting at Elephant and Castle.

Our feet take a pounding, plain and simple. The tight shoes, repeated impacts and poor mechanics all contribute to this. If you can't run or jump without foot pain (of any kind) then you can't train at the edge of your capacity, thereby increasing it. Any pain you may have will only contribute to further problems as you inattentively set up compensatory patterns to work around the pain (it is quite common for people to complain of medial knee pain after a recent ankle sprain.

I want to share something with you that makes me smile.  Its something that I'm sure most of you will be able to relate to and have experienced yourself at some point.

There is a grey, fairly nondescript railing outside Kilburn Park Station.   For those of you who have been there I’m sure you’ve walked past it on many occasions without looking at it twice.  When I see that rail now it makes me feel all warm inside; it’s the simple things in life!

So you can skip to the section(s) most relevant to you, this post is broken into three parts:  1) What are SOPA and PIPA?  2) How these laws will negatively affect the parkour community. 3) What you can do about it.  This post is not meant to be a complete overview of SOPA and PIPA, it is merely meant to inform on the issues that have direct implications for the parkour community.

What are PIPA and SOPA?

Quadriceps

‘Try it, you will love it!’

‘Don’t worry, anyone can do it’

‘It will improve your other sports!’

‘It doesn’t matter if you haven’t done anything like it before’

I have a love/hate relationship with railings. There is a sense of satisfaction from landing a good rail precision that just can't be matched by the same jump on a wall. Sure, I've got chunks of my legs missing from when we've had a disagreement but rails are one half of the Traceur's bread and butter so can't be ignored. If you are just starting off in Parkour let me reassure you - rails are awesome.

"Wax on, right hand. Wax off, left hand. Wax on, wax off. Breathe in through nose, out the mouth. Wax on, wax off. Don't forget to breathe, very important."

There were two very good reasons to hook up with Parkour Generations in order to photograph the ADAPT Level 2 course taking place at the end of November. Firstly, this was a unique collection of traceurs gathering for a week in one location.