(b)East Coast Reflection

(b)East Coast; a yearly Memorial Day weekend Parkour and Freerunning jam held in the Washington, D.C. Metro Area. I have participated in this event for the last 3 years. The first year I was there, there were perhaps 30 people at the event. Last year there were around 60 or so. This year there were over 130 people participating in the training and group events that the Beast had to offer!

This jam is usually my wake up call and my yearly reminder that no matter what I feel I have accomplished in the last year, there is so much out there that I have yet to see and do. Some of the places that we all trained in I have been to many times before, however people saw things at these spots that I hadn't thought of before. I saw people accomplish feats that inspired me to want to train harder. I saw people pushing themselves to accomplish amazing things, which made me proud to say that we were doing Parkour training.

I also met many, many people who I had only heard of or read posts by on APK. It was amzing seeing so many people get together and have so much in common for having never met each other face to face. I even saw some minor hero worship as new practitioners watched on as menbers of the Tribe who were in attendance worked on various routes and jumps. I can't blame them though, as I love getting the chance to watch Tribe members in action, and at the jam, everyone was encouraged to train with them.

I am not the biggest fan of large Jams, as I prefer training alone or with a small contingent of people. More seems to be accomplished in those settings. I will say this though; I am a fan of what these larger national Jams can do to inspire, open one's eyes, and to bring together teh community.