I think I can jump farther now.

So yesterday, I got 3 wisdom teeth out. Obviously, this makes me lighter, and because I didn't lose any muscle, NOW I CAN JUMP FARTHER. This is also why I want my spleen, part of my liver, and one of my kidneys out. The more internal organs I can remove, the lighter I will be, and the more powerful I'll become!

(That is a joke. Not the wisdom teeth part though. My puffy cheeks and meals of smoothies say that those definitely are not a joke.)

More seriously though: I came into college with some extra AP credits, and now that I'm almost ready to graduate I realized that I could graduate a quarter early. Instead of missing Spring Quarter... I decide to take winter quarter off! (Seeing as the current temperature in Rochester is probably negative-I'm-going-to-freeze-your-face-off-until-it-becomes-an-ice-sandwich, this is a good decision.)

So what will I do with my quarter off? I decided to live and work for APK/Primal Fitness! All winter, I'll be spending the weekdays working at Primal, and the weeknights sleeping there! Janine Cundy, Frosti, and Justin Ganguly are also staying there fulltime/mostly fulltime. It's been quite an adventure so far, and I expect a ton of great work to get done, and a lot of late-night training sessions!

Johnny Parkour Appleseed

As a member of the APK Alliance, I set a lot of expectations and goals for myself. I'm always trying to improve APK as a website, organization, and community. The Alliance is composed of strong local community leaders though, and so I spend a lot of time working on my local community in Rochester, New York.

That being said, I'm in a fairly unique position. I've been involved with APK and NYPK for most of my parkour-life, and I've created a very strong community in Rochester out of nothing. Through other non-parkour projects too, I have a lot of experience building/rebuilding organizations and making them far more effective.

I was looking at the Google Analytics map for New York State the other day, and I realized that there were bubbles of activity around a lot of major cities (Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, etc) in Upstate. I realized that there are a lot of people interested in parkour in these areas... they just don't know where to go.

That's when I came up with my New York State Area Reps program. This program has two functions:

1. It designates a specific "Go-To" person, essentially an official community leader, for each city. This gives newcomers an official person to contact. If for some reason the two parties can't meet up, the Rep might know other people in the area that they can connect with.

2. It provides a network of support for all the area reps. The reps can give each other suggestions and advice, and learn from each others' successes and mistakes. It will be easier to plan cross-city events and implement a "traveling traceur" program.

That's what I've been keeping busy with here in New York while I'm at school. However, the school year is coming to a close, and then I'll be back in Maryland for the summer.

I've already been contacted by a traceur from Baltimore and a traceur from my hometown. They're both looking to legitimize their communities a bit more - hold Beginner's Workshops and more structured training sessions. I'm going to be spending a lot of time working with them and really building up their communities.

I realized that a few days ago that I've become the Johnny Appleseed of Parkour communities. Coming into a new city, planting the seeds of structure and leadership and community, and then moving on when they become self-sustaining.

Not a bad way to pass the time...

Be Strong to Be Useful... or just Be Useful.

I think to truly understand the phrase "Be strong to be useful," you can simply modify it to: "Be useful."

On Saturday, Charles Moreland and I were driving back from the grocery store. We were already 20 minutes late to our own party, it was raining, cold, and there were 30mph gusts. While at a stop light, Charles noticed a van in the intersection across from us. It was stopped in the left turn lane, cars were going around it, and all the lights were off. The lights came back on, briefly, and then went out again. Clearly, their car was dead.

Immediately, and pretty much without speaking, it was agreed that we'd pull into the nearest parking lot, don our jackets and gloves, and run into the middle of the road to help. We walked up to the car, and I waved. The old russian man cracked the door open suspiciously, as I announced that we were here to help. "I already called Triple A" he said. "They'll be here within the hour." I waved my hand toward the oncoming cars. "It's not safe for you to be in this intersection. Throw the car in neutral and we're going to push you into the parking lot."

I think there was a bit of a language barrier, and a bit of suspicion about these random boys who showed up out of no where to help, but once we got behind the car and started to push, he shifted into neutral and steered. Once we got out of the intersection, we pushed the car (uphill! Damn minivans are heavy.) through the road and into a parking space. I noticed about halfway through, whenever he could, the old man opened the door and tried to help push with his foot.

We got to the parking space, he put it in park, and he and his wife got out of the car and thanked us profusely. She asked us if we were in school, and if we were done with calculus yet (she is a calculus tutor at a local high school apparently), and she gave us her card. The man shook our hands and thanked us many times. I gave them my card and told them to call me if they needed any more help - I lived just five minutes away.

Getting out of my car to help two complete strangers in need? To me, this is more parkour than the biggest precision, the furthest kong to cat, or the largest drop.