Okay so I am back again, with my follow up post as promised. It is something I don't really like to talk about, but I am going to post it anyway, and I am sure any kind of reputation I may have been building on this website will be shot down in flames and then some. I deserve -10,000 karma I assure you. This post is a bit of a novel, but I think it is crucial to be that way. So here it is:
One day a few months after starting 'parkour' I decided that doing a big jump was the thing for me. After finishing work I found an object high enough (one around 6 meters or 20 feet), I climbed it and jumped off. Needless to say, I failed miserably. Other than the obvious, I made a bad mistake in calculating the horizontal distance that I would travel in the air. Therefore as I came close to landing it became apparent that I was going to be landing right next to an object that I could no way steer myself around. Upon landing there was no way I could go forward so my instinct told my body to lean back from this incoming object. Unfortunately this had further consequences with me landing flat footed, maybe even more on my heels. The sound of my feet hitting the concrete sounded like a sledge hammer. I managed to walk around and talk to my co-workers a little before driving home. That night my feet were not too sore, just a slight dull pain in them...
... the next day however the situation was alot worse. When I woke up in the morning the pain in my feet was still there, and probably worse than the night before. I lay in bed for an hour or so on my laptop then decided to get up. I swung my legs out of bed and placed my feet on the floor. They were a little tender but looked okay. I shifted my weight to them to get out of bed, stood up and then it happened. The pain in my feet was so agonising I dropped to the floor. I tried several times to stand on my feet but all I could do was drop straight to my hands and knees. I had tears running down my face because of the pain. Now I used to be a serious track and field athlete (which makes me just think wtf would I do what I did?) and have had to deal with the pain barrier and things like that before. Normally if you are sore you can still manage to do things to some degree. The pain was so intense, it was crippling pain. I couldn't walk, I couldn't even stand; I had never felt anything like it before.
I was taken to the hospital and had someone look at my feet. The whole underside from my heel to the ball of my foot was black on both feet; my arches were also somewhat flatter than normal due to swelling. The day progressed with examinations, xrays, scans of other kinds, alot of pain and tears. The doctors told me that amazingly no bones were broken or fractured (legs and hip included), but I had mostly damaged all the soft tissue on the underside of my foot and most certainly bruised the bone.
For several days at home I was largely dependent on someone else, having to resort to crawling to get around anywhere. Things like getting drink or food took the aid of someone else as I couldn't carry something in my hands and crawl at the same time. It took 5 days before I could even stand on my feet, and then I could only hobble a room or two before the pain was so intense I had to give up and crawl. Six weeks after my jump I returned to work for 3 hour shifts as this was all I could manage to stand for. At about 8 weeks I could function in a normal (normal as in not doing sports normal) way again.
My feet seemed to have healed up okay, and I can now exercise and do everything I could once do; although I know it will have repercussions later on in life. The damage done can never be totally undone...
These days I am still practicing parkour, but it is not the 'parkour' I started out with; it is now actually parkour. The adrenaline rush I got from jumping that height I now get every time I practice parkour. I go for xrays on my feet, legs and hips every 3 months now to check that the damage sustained has not left me vulnerable to stress fractures (and I will probably do so for another couple of years). I am so ashamed and embarrased to have shared my stupidity and naivety (..I am 25 after all) with the rest of the parkour community, but I hope it can stop just one person doing something the way I did. While practicing parkour with other people, or on the forums I always advocate safety first; although I wish the journey I took to get there had been a different one.
So to the OP (or anyone else reading), listen to the regular people on these forums; they are good people and will keep your best interests in mind. You may feel intimidated, frustrated or feel like you are being attacked; but they really are here to try to help you, so keep that in mind. If you really want to do parkour, realise that safety needs to be the first thing on your mind to ensure the longevity of the discpline of parkour, the longevity of yourself, other people you may train with and in general the passers by you meet when practicing parkour.
I am sure this post will get a few not too good replies, and believe me I know I deserve it. There is nothing I can say in my defence. The only thing I can do is what I have done here, and try to promote the practicing of parkour in the safest of ways possible.
edit:
A good video to see what happens to your legs on impact:
Time Warp + Free Running
