NYC Part 2: Conclusion of the Women's Jam

Week 19: NYC
Sunday morning, we did a group clean-up of the gym, thanked them for their generosity and headed towards Central Park which took about.... five transfers on the Subway.  Oy vey.  When we arrived, we went straight into the mini symposium.  We heard from four different women on various topics relating to parkour. The first (if I'm remembering correctly) was K who gave an empowering and motivating talk on our role as women, and how amazing it is that our group had taken it upon ourselves to get to NYC and to train parkour together.  She took an interesting perspective by reminding us of some of the very recent laws relating to women's rights.  She reminded us that it wasn't too long ago that we, as women, didn't have some very basic freedoms.

Next, we heard from M on various forms of movement and how they can contribute to our training, A on the physics of parkour (especially the parkour roll and how the center of mass on a male vs. female may affect our movement), and last but certainly not least, B read a beautiful and inspirational poem, On Growing Wings.

Unfortunately, a few of us had to take off at the end of the talks to head home, so we said our goodbyes and wished everyone well.  It was relatively painless getting back to my bus stop, and I only hit an hour of traffic on the way home.  Could be worse.

It felt so good to be as sore as I was the next two days, as I haven't had time to get a good ass-kicking workout in a while.  As usual, when I get an overdose (no such thing, really) of parkour, I have this feeling that I just want to stop everything I'm doing in life and train all the time.  It's just such an amazing art/discipline/movement/sport/whatever you want to call it.  I love it.

Sometimes I'm so focused on work and school and responsibilities that I forget to enjoy myself and just get away for the weekend and have some fun.  I almost didn't go this year because I had so much work to do, but I managed to wake up and realize that would be...well, pathetic.  I needed to put work down for a few days, clear my head, and just enjoy life.  And so I did.  I'm glad I made it to NYC this year.  So many beautiful and powerful women of all different ages and backgrounds, come together to train with their fellow traceuses.  It inspires me to keep pushing myself and reaching for new goals.  I hope to train with them all again someday.

But now it's back to the grind... just over a week left at my internship and then I'll have a few weeks to play and train and get organized before school starts back up! Where has the summer gone?!