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Saturday's Chicago Jam was a huge success! There were over 75 people in attendance! The full write up will be up soon, but here is the group picture, taken at UIC.
The best way to describe last weekends Chicago jam is “Huge Success.” While technically, the jam was Saturday, most people were there by Friday. The group who drove down from Michigan and the group from Virginia met up with Ryan “Cloud” Cousins, Kevin "Hak" Haack, and some of the other locals on Friday afternoon for some ice cream and miscellaneous training at a small playground. Mark Toorock, Frosti, and more visitors arrived and met the group, but then headed out in search of a new training location after we were kindly asked to leave by a parent.
As the group was walking down the street, Mike “Kipup” Friedman drove past honking and then pulled over on the side of the street. Immediately, seven people crammed into his car, and two people hopped on top of the trunk as Mike drove off. We went about 50 feet before we realized there were people on the trunk, then decided it would be a good idea to pull over. We gave up on the new playground idea and the whole group met up again at Ryan and Ando's house. The group decided to split up for food. Mark went with the Tribe and Alliance representatives for dinner and a meeting (which ended with Zac, Levi, and Frosti standing behind the piano player and singing “Piano Man” in front of the entire restaurant.)
We all met back up at Ryan's house and pretty much crashed in preparation of the big jam. We all woke up got to University of Illinois: Chicago by 10am, and by the time we arrived there was already a good 50 people there! After a few minutes of introductions, Ryan led a killer warmup with lots of QM and pushups (only ten pushups!).
After everyone was warmed up and ready to go, Ryan, Ando and Frosti climbed up on a wall and gave the group a rundown of the day. The rest of the Tribe and APK Alliance climbed up, introduced themselves, and offered to help anyone who needed it. From there, everyone broke up into small groups to work on different things. Mark and Zac led a group of “My First Jam” beginners through the basics of landings, while others led circuits, climb up drills, and tic tac workshops. Frosti was demonstrating how he has been practicing doing cranes, but also grabbing the obstacle with his hands to ensure safety. He demonstrated this by attempting a fairly massive crane, and then accidentally falling off. Luckily, his technique of landing in a combination of a crane and a cat worked, and even though he fell, he was still holding onto the wall and was okay.
We moved about UIC campus for a few hours, then broke for lunch. We regrouped around 2:30 in downtown Chicago by the River Front Vietnam memorial. Here Travis led another killer warmup, Ryan led a Kong to Precision workshop, and then we met a crazy homeless guy who sounded like a Viking and demanded that people “Strike him hard enough to make [his] knees buckle.” No one took him up on it, even after he offered to buy several (underaged!) people beers if they could do it. When everyone turned him down, he seemed quite put out and dejected, so Zac promised him that next time they met, he'd would strike him. That seemed to cheer him up, and the Crazy Homeless Viking Guy left without further incident.
The group moved further up river until we reached the APK Gap (where the picture in the banner was taken) and a big fountain. Everyone stripped off their shirts and shoes and jumped in, despite onlookers crying out “It's sewage water! It's sewage water!” (It remains to be seen if they were kidding or not. But I don't think anyone got sick, so no big deal.)
The jam wrapped up with everyone eating at this cafeteria downtown, and then people began to go their separate ways. In the end, over 75 people showed up, and the Chicago Jam was a huge success.
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