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.

Traveling Ninja: Miami Edition (2 of 2)

Part Two

Nothing makes me feel better than getting up early to workout along the beach. Palm trees, ocean breeze, hot sun, and sand beneath my feet. My paradise. I didn't even notice I didn't have my iPod with me on my run because I was so consumed in my surroundings and enjoying myself.

After my adventure on Thursday, I took a rest day on Friday to lay on the beach but I got back out Saturday morning for another parkour run. I took the same route this time but tried some different things. I did lunge walks and QM along the wall to warm up. Then, instead of running along the promenade like a normal person (who wants that?), I ran along the top of the wall (about thigh to chest high on me at different points). It is a great balance challenge, especially where it becomes as narrow as a balance beam in some places. As an old man said as he was walking by, "balance is very important! Keep working at it!" Thanks, old man.

I did the same jumps I played with on Thursday, creating a circuit and challenging myself in different ways. As I was working on precisions along the wall, two young women walked by and looked at me like I was crazy. I smiled, as I always do when people look at me like that. "That's very impressive!" they said. I laughed and managed a "thank you" in between breaths. Sometimes I forget how cool it is that we can do what we do. It's nice to be reminded every once in a while that I'm outside of the norm in some way. I think everyone needs that every now and then. It's easy to say, ehh I'm not that good when someone tells you you're awesome at x, y or z. But when you take a step back and think about all of the people who would never even try to do what you're doing, you might see things differently.

Okay, motivational speech over. Towards the end of my run, I stopped at one of the mini muscle beaches located along the promenade with a collection of gymnastics-y and basic workout equipment. I did some swinging on the monkey bars and then went over to the parallel bars to work on balance. I did a few sets of 10 rail squats and three 30-second squat holds on the rail with sets of 10 rows in between. Feeling tired enough, I headed across the street for a fresh smoothie. Tropical fruit and coconut water. Exactly what I needed after all that sun. Still in my gym clothes, I went in to order with a face as red as an apple and dripping with sweat. "Are you training for a marathon?" the cashier asked. Do I really look that exhausted? Nope, just a normal workout.

I got a few days. Sun, sand, ocean. Smoothies for breakfast and seafood for dinner. Nothing to do but run around, play, and lay on the beach. I feel relaxed and happy, and although I wouldn't say I was smiling when the plane touched down in DC, I guess it's time to get back to reality.

:)

Footprints in the sand. I had to, sorry.

Sunrise on my last day