Topic: I feel embarrassed practicing in public...

[Joe Brock]

My friend Pancakerz...EVERYWHERE can be a place to train.  You're limiting yourself to an "ideal" scenario, which is nice, but the real spirit of parkour can be applied to locating a place to train.  A picnic table can equal your own personal gym if you so desire.  Just bring the right attitude at anything, and it's a "perfect" place.

[NiklasT]

man i wish i had a place to train
i live in a small-ass town (220 people in my high school) where everybody knows mostly everybody, by face if not by name.
so i would probably be known as "that weird guy jumping around town" but since i'm only starting this spring, it'd be more like "that weird guy wiping out around town."
but i'm graduating in the summer, so hopefully i can move to the city soon.

That isn't an excuse for not training. There is, as mentioned above, ALWAYS a place to train. If you don't feel comfortable with people in your surroundings then find a spot where there are less people. As you described there isn't a huge school and I take it as the community as a whole is pretty small. So go out in the woods or to some backalley where you aren't likely to run into people. Train and when you have the confidence to show yourself in public, do so and you will most likely be "the guy that is jumping around" and people will be jealous. They can't do it but they sure would like to, who wouldn't?

[Zachery Schuh]

Not all comments should be perceived as negative though, I got called Spiderman by some old dude back in like september. Freaking hilarious! 

[BearMills]

this local school where i train (the janitor knows me as the parkour guy) but heard complaints of a "Ninja in training running around on school campus" and he runs up to me and says "dude these people here who walk their dogs every day think you're a ninja".... LIFE COMPLETE

[Adam Moore]

Haha that's great, there's not many places to train at my school so I'm hoping to get permission from my church.  It has some nice spots.  If not I'll just head back to the park, but I don't really like doing it there because there is always a bunch of little kids, like 3-11 in age.  I'm really worried I may screw up and nail one of them someday 

[Matthew]

Just curious if anyone has anything to say about this from the adult perspective? I'm 23, weak as anything and with no coordination, and want to get into Parkour. I've always been extremely uncomfortable with myself but I'm finally becoming comfortable in my own skin and getting involved in things outside my comfort zone. I've made contact with the Tulsa area PK group and hope to start training with them asap and I guess I'm just curious if anyone's experienced the "you're how old and your playing little kids games??" It would help to know that there are other 20 somethings out there doing this I shouldn't need that boost but it would be nice lol. After I post this I'm gonna go look at the 30+ boards and hopefully get some good from that

[Brian O'Neil]

Just curious if anyone has anything to say about this from the adult perspective? I'm 23, weak as anything and with no coordination, and want to get into Parkour. I've always been extremely uncomfortable with myself but I'm finally becoming comfortable in my own skin and getting involved in things outside my comfort zone. I've made contact with the Tulsa area PK group and hope to start training with them asap and I guess I'm just curious if anyone's experienced the "you're how old and your playing little kids games??" It would help to know that there are other 20 somethings out there doing this I shouldn't need that boost but it would be nice lol. After I post this I'm gonna go look at the 30+ boards and hopefully get some good from that

I decided on my 24th birthday that I finally wanted to go for it, and I started conditioning over the winter. I then found a gym about 20 miles away roughly a month ago. I go twice a week, have really gotten to know the guys there, and they're all mainly 18+.

Training by myself is the hardest to do around my town, but after getting better in the gym, I'm a lot more confident in my abilities, and now head over to a local school on the weekends (if I don't head into the city) to train. Actually heading there after the Sox game...

[Matthew]

I decided on my 24th birthday that I finally wanted to go for it, and I started conditioning over the winter. I then found a gym about 20 miles away roughly a month ago. I go twice a week, have really gotten to know the guys there, and they're all mainly 18+.

Training by myself is the hardest to do around my town, but after getting better in the gym, I'm a lot more confident in my abilities, and now head over to a local school on the weekends (if I don't head into the city) to train. Actually heading there after the Sox game...

Nice Thanks man.

[Keifer]

Thanks guys.

Just yesterday I was practicing at the school near my house, and they have this huge base ball batter area fence thing with a bar across the top of it. I always like to do stuff on it. But when I got there there was a TON of people on the field, like around 300 people just sitting on the lawn having a pic-nic or something. So I just decided to do it anyway. SO I climbed all the way to the top of it (around 40 feet high) using just my arms and when I looked back every single person was looking at me, so I did one of the upside down hanging things in the very middle of it, and then climbed back down. When my feet touched the ground everbody started clapping. It was kind of inspiring...

Heck, I'm a relatively skilled traceur and wish I could do that... I wouldn't have clapped. I would've bowed to the king! (Sorry, are puns frowned upon? =P)

But I faced this same problem for the longest time, until somebody took a video of me performing a wall-up at the mall. That was the day I realized, I'm a traceur and look doing doing what I love (parkour, in case I wasn't clear. =D). Looks can't stop me from exploiting gravity.

But I must bring up something I have noticed- It's always the old people and moms of young children giving me dirty looks. Probably because the old people are A- always grumpy, or B- wishing they could do that. The mom's of young children's dirty looks, I don't even care about them because their children look at me like I'm some kind of superhero, and that's a great feeling man, a GREAT feeling...

P.S.- If anybody asks you to do a flip, you can either do it or if you are like me and can't do a flip (yet. ) then just say, "Why don't YOU do a flip?" and then use parkour techniques to do whatever it was you meant to do beforehand, and look cool doing so. XD

[Dana Winchell]

I also feel a bit silly about practicing in public. I've decided I'm going to start my training with some gymnastics classes. I'm training at home by doing yoga, and some strength building exercises.I figure by the time it gets warm again I'll be in better shape and feel more confident about jumping over things in public. I also am doing some yoga and strength training exercises at home, and I'm thinking about running a zombie 5k in June (obstacles and zombies chasing me? sounds fun!).  And what does my feeling silly accomplish me? nothing.

Anyone in the greater Cincinnati area? I'm looking for a few people to train with.

[Tomas]

Fine well it sort of sucks yet nobody else will be as interested within it and it might be way to hard to meet up with another person. Parkour is is just not a really big sport at all. And what does one think when two 18 year previous kids are generally running as a result of san fransisco leaping over fences and climbing through to rooftops.

[Tomas]

You shouldn't be operating from police.  Nothing you do should be developing a scenario in which they would catch you.  Even if it came to conflict, municipal discussion encourages better knowing between the police officers and parkour areas, and gives you a better possibility of getting off mild.

[Mike]

Hey guys I dont feel like reading 17 pages of tread or starting a new thread when the topic is being covered here lol. But My dad hates me doing parkour because he says i will get arrested for destruction of property. I try to tell him I am only running and conditioning. He says I fail to see the big picture and need to grow up. He refuses to see how this is a real discipline and in philosophy a martial art. Is there anyway I can show him how good this is for me and him if he chooses to take it up?

[Sam Dutton]

Just keep training, and let him see your improvements.

[Ryan A. Vetter]

What Sam said, but don't blatently defy your father. Doing conditioning right where it's visible to him immediately (should he walk by or something) will prove you're not doing anything of harm. It will also show you're just working towards better fitness overall.

[dylan]

I dont feel nervouse when training in public places. Lol people look at me like wtf is he doing and the i turn around and laugh at them. idk why its funny to me probaly becuse there clueless of what im doing.