Conquering Fears: Scary Cats Edition

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are no fun for me because I have to go to academic class instead of parkour class. Since I can't go to pk tonight, I am writing about how much fun I had at class on Monday night! I will get back to my homework soon...

In the early class, we did some QM routes (forwards, backwards, sideways) and some plyo jumping courses with obstacles at varying heights (also forwards, backwards, sideways). It was a lot of legs and a great warm up for our focus in the late class: failure. No seriously, that was the goal. Push yourself to the point of failure. What were we failing at? Running cat leaps. For my non-parkour readers, a running cat leap looks like this (except your arms are fully extended in the final cat position):

So the idea is to land hanging on the obstacle. But the other night, our goal was to go for a leap that was just out of reach to force us into bailing. This meant pushing ourselves not only way beyond what we were comfortable with, but also beyond what we can actually do. It is surprising how difficult it is to go for something 100% when you know you're going to fail.

I struggle with pushing myself sometimes because of the balance between two different kinds of fear. There is a fear of the unknown. This fear is there because you are leaving your comfort zone and it is scary to try something new. You might fall, you might make it, but you probably won't kill yourself. And then there is the fear that we should listen to. The fear that is there because your body is trying to tell you something. It might seem obvious which fear is which, but sometimes it is hard to tell in the moment or for those of us who have less mental strength. The worst is when we allow the first fear to take over in our minds, preventing us from committing 100% which automatically leads to failure or even injury. Then we tell ourselves we were right in being scared when really, we only failed because we did not commit. Anyways, I think I stay a little too close to my comfort zone sometimes, not pushing myself quite to the point of failure. I mean, let's be honest. Failing isn't fun. But how else do we get better? How else do we realize our full potential or limitations? We have to take those safe and calculated risks.

I was in the perfect mental state Monday night. My mind was clear. I was totally focused. And I was not letting fear control my mind. I was determined to push myself.

We started at a normal distance, within everyone's ability. Then the instructor, R, pushed the box back in small increments every round. Every time, I looked to him to see if he thought I could make it. The first few times, he gave me an "absolutely yes" sort of head nod. Then it became more of a "you'll probably maybe make this" head nod. Then he started standing next to the mat on the floor in between the boxes in case I failed or didn't bail properly. I generally avoid measuring things but for the sake of my readers who need visuals, the distance of my last two jumps was about 8-9ft. out.

So yeah... incredible but terrifying. I got up on top of the first box and stared at the distance. I felt the fear creeping in so I spun in a circle to distract myself and then I went for it. "YEAH" I heard the class go. Woohoo! My hands hurt a little bit after that one, but R gave me a high-five and I felt amazing. My heart was pounding a little bit. I honestly wasn't sure if I was going to make it but I wasn't even thinking about it. I was literally just focused on trying. That was it. Commit 100%. Go for it and see what happens.

I wanted more. I was really nervous the next time around. I was trying to calm my breathing in line but I was kind of freaking out inside. I got up on the box and stopped myself from looking at the gap. I spun to loosen my thoughts, looked at my feet, and didn't look up until I took my first step forwards (there was only room for two steps before the jump).

I felt my feet hit the wall and my hands slam down on top of it. HOLYFLYINGCATS. I was too overwhelmed for words, but you get the idea. I probably looked dazed. Another powerful high-five, which was starting to hurt because I had just slammed my hands onto a box several times.

I looked at R, "You know that feeling you get when you almost hit a car but then everything is okay? That's kind of how I feel right now..." Everyone laughed. I was shaking and my heart was pounding but OHMYGOD THAT WAS AMAZING. After my last successful cat, I went for the next distance, knowing my run might be up but going for it anyways. I hit with my feet and bailed. I had reached my limit. I went for it at the same distance one more time and bailed again. Time to rest.

It felt so incredible to make that jump. That feeling when my hands hit was just... wow. I was in the zone. I was committed. And I was beyond excited when I made that last jump. Great night of training.

Valentine's Day Ninjas!

Valentine's Day Ninjas @ APK

Whether you love Valentine's Day or you loathe it, ninjas are awesome. Just stay with me for a second. This tradition, that blends our ridiculous love holiday with ninja badassery started many many years ago at the University of Michigan, the alma mater of my fantastic roommates. The idea is to dress as Valentine's Day-themed ninjas (think pink, red, purple, hearts, etc.) and run around handing out candy, cards, and teddy bears. This year, we decided to continue the tradition in DC. We gathered a group of fellow ninjas who were willing to join the adventure and bought out the Valentine's Day section at Walmart (don't judge). Each of us left the house with one stuffed animal to give out to a special person, and a bag full of candy and handwritten Valentine's cards. Remember the ones you gave out to your classmates in elementary school? Yep, we used those. My Little Pony, Superman, Disney Princesses, and Outer Space-themed. It was pretty great.

Valentine's Day Cards! To: you! From: Ninjas! :)

We started at Union Station, ran around the Capitol and went back towards Union to go inside by the shops. We got very mixed reactions. Some people weren't even phased. They just looked at us and kept walking. Others were extremely weirded out. They did not want our candy. And frankly, they did not deserve it for being so close-minded.

Luckily, others were super pumped. We said Happy Valentine's Day via cards and candy to commuters, parents and children, couples, security guards, Capitol Police, tourists, and more. The tourists and children had the best reactions. They were always so surprised but excited. It was really fun to brighten up someone's day like that. I think the highlight of the adventure for me was ninja-ing (it's a verb) over to a little girl, kneeling down, and handing her a fluffy white teddy bear. She had been very shy before that, observing from afar, but when I handed her the bear, she completely lit up. There is really nothing like a child's reaction to receiving an unexpected gift, especially a stuffed animal. She was so cute!

After posing for a photo with the little girl for her family, we continued doing parkour and running around near the Capitol with our Valentine's Day treats. We even made friends with the Capitol Police while we were over there. They took a picture with us too!

Valentine's Ninjas with Capitol Police (notice the policeman on the left tried to ninja-fy himself!)

Handstands at the Capitol 

As it started getting dark, we went back to Union Station to spread the love inside the shops. Unfortunately, when you're dressed as a ninja, it makes the security guards very nervous. Especially when you're doing flips and rolling around on the floor like 007. Personally, I find it amusing that the Capitol Police were not bothered by our ninja masks but the security inside of the Union Station shops were... hmm. Anyways, we only lasted about 5 minutes inside before they kicked us out. Boo.

We finished giving out all of our cards and almost all of our candy. We also succeeded in giving away each of our stuffed animals to very happy children. I was a little disappointed by the DC-ers who refused our cheer and ninja love, but that's alright. I've been a bitter "Singles Awareness Day" celebrator before, but why be bitter when you can be happy and playful? No, I didn't have a change of heart (haha) because my relationship status changed. Still single. Just would rather shower people with ninja love and treats than put in the effort to be unhappy.

We got so many amazing reactions from people and it made my day! We also got lots of laughs and "what in the F%*&?!"s which was entertaining too. It was somewhat thrown together at the last minute, but definitely worth doing. I hope to continue the tradition next year!

Thanks to my fellow ninjas for an awesome afternoon!

xo A

"Will I die if I do this?"

Playing on the bars at APK

We had another great women's meetup yesterday! It was our largest one yet with 21 girls. I'm so happy we're reaching that many people! We were at APK Academy again so we were able to set up a big course downstairs to incorporate everything we've been learning including vaults, precisions, rolls, cat leaps, and balance. After our warm up and some playtime upstairs, we brought everyone downstairs and had them practice in stations at the different pieces of the course and then we ran the full course.

We had a lot of beginners yesterday which makes me so happy! I love seeing people try this out for the first time. One of those beginners was a classmate of mine freshman year. I ran into her in the Fall at the gym and, naturally, I found a way to mention parkour and told her all about the women's meetups. Anyways, I'm so excited that she finally made it and had a great time.

I also had the pleasure of torturing teaching my best friend at the meetup. V doesn't think she's very coordinated or capable of ninja-level accomplishments but I've been working on that. Somehow (we're still trying to figure this out) she missed one of the stations while we were rotating through the obstacle course before putting it all together so she didn't know how to vault. I don't think we worked on vaults the last time she came either so I can imagine she was just staring at these large black boxes like how on earth do you expect me to get over that?

So when we all ran through the course the first time, and V snuck over to me and asked if I could show her vaults afterwards, I realized she planned on skipping the course because she didn't know how to do the vaults portion. Obviously I couldn't let her get away with that, so I went over to the start of the course and asked if everyone had gone already. Yep. Well, I said to V, now everyone is going to watch you. You did this to yourself. Just to be clear, I would never actually pressure someone like this if I didn't know they could do it. Plus, she can handle my poking fun at her. Anyways, I told her I would do the course in front of her, and she could follow along and try to get over the vaults the same way I did.

I stopped every couple of obstacles to make sure she was getting over them, and then we made it through the rest of the course that she had already practiced on. We exchanged high-fives at the end and everyone cheered for her. Hopefully she didn't want to kill me for calling her out like that, but it was good for her to take the challenge head-on (not literally) and work through her discomfort.

V learning how to sloth climb!

Ah, and the title of this post comes from her. When we reached the cat leap part of the course, she was nervous because she had only practiced it from the ground, not from one box onto a larger box. She turned to M, who was spotting, and said, Will I die if I do this? Laughing, M and I said no, just jump! Well, V, you didn't die. Congratulations! You have now made baby steps towards being a ninja.