Hey Traceurs.

I've been looking at this site for awhile and I want to freerun. The only thing holding me back now is finding a spot to train. I live in the suburbs with nothing bigger than a solitary wall downtown. After looking at some posts here; I decided to look for a spot in the woods. This didn't work out either, the largest piece of woods within biking distance of my house is not even an acre...

Any ideas on how to get training? Me and one of my friends are planning on building a training spot out of wood in his backyard with walls and platforms and railings.

All ideas accepted...

Yeah, I love training on playgrounds. There is so much stuff to do, plus the woodchips add extra cussion in case you take a fall. The playground I go to is great because it has a bunch of picnic tables/benches to vault and hurdle, small snackstand/bathroom with brick walls to wall run, and the playground itself is great to run through and climb up and stuff. If you can find something like this then you will be in good shape.

Universities, government buildings, parking gargages, loading bays, handicapped ramps, high schools, you got any of these near you? Like Skinny said, just wait till you start getting the tracuer's eye and you'll see stuff everywhere. Playgrounds will do for now, but I highly advise finding at least one other place to train.

The trouble is that the nice soft wood chips / recycled tires will train you to be lazy in your landings and rolls, and you will pay for it dearly when you try to do the same moves on concrete. If I could go back and alter my early training, I would have started training drops and rolls on concrete right away. Not trying to be mean; your various joints, tendons, and ligaments will thank you for it later : P

Funny how blind you are when you first start and then after a few weeks everything becomes a potential obstacle.

or in the worst case scenario where there is nothing around anywhere but a field JUMP OVER YOUR FRIENDS!!
and don't forget to run a lot too.

After WEEKS of looking and finding decent spots (which I have been vigorously abusing) I FINALLY found my main training ground. Walls 10-15 feet high, rails galore, it's f'n beautiful, and it's right behind World Market in a major shopping plaza. My suggestion to you would be to spend one day driving around scouting potential locations (dont just look in the most obvious places, look in alleys and behind businesses where they have loading zones and such). There are spots are out there, just burn a few hours looking for and sampling them to see if you like them. The funny thing is I found this one by accident. My friend that works at World Market was taking his smoke break and I was chilling with him. My eyes lit up like a christmas tree when I saw it 

The spots are out there, just take the initiative to find them.

Another idea is to use things in your house (carefully and with permission) like couches (sp?), your bed, or stairs and if you have one a picnic table

my biggest problem is my lack of skill at the current time because i can not kong! i get all afraid and bail into a really low monkey and ussually(sp?) end up on my face!