Started the day with minimal fuss on the metro and got to the Evry in one piece, despite the warnings about how horrible Lisses and Evry are crime-wise. I was expecting the straight up ghetto but was really pleasantly surprised. It is actually quite beautiful and the people were friendly. Northern Evry is pretty bad, meaning shootings everyday, but where we were seemed very safe. I did have trouble finding TK17 at the train station, but managed to spot him literally right before he and some wicked cool traceurs from Holland were about to book it.
The day was a combination of training and sightseeing, we hit up the man power gap first, which was amazing. It is really f'ing big...I don't know how one looks at that and even thinks it is possible, but I suppose when you build up your training gently and progress slowly anything is possible. Made me feel really good to look at the jump and know that it has been done. Really inspiring.
Then we dropped by some other famous little stops from UF3 and the Yamakasi vids. Warmed up and did a little training at the church, but I decided to take it easy, absorb the area and get to know where everything is for when I come back later in the week alone. TK had also arranged a little training session later in the day with a bunch of local traceurs, how exciting is that?!
After a quick stop at a pizza place next to the Formule 1, we headed to the Dame. Amazing. I wanted to stay there all day. So so so much fun. While walking through the park that the Dame is in, we passed the playground from UF3 where Steph was doing dive rolls through the fish and pistols on the little spring horse. We also passed the rail where the famous "6 by 5" conversation took place. I didn't realize that they were in the same park as the Dame, so that was pretty cool. Speaking of cool, we also ran into David Belle's mother walking her dog. Felt really random, but made total and complete sense at the same time, haha! She had met TK before, so some friendly bonjour's were exchanged and I petted the pup. I love dogs sooo much! I think it was some sort of golden retriever, he was medium sized with the silkiest coat. A lot of the dogs in France actually look like scotties, really short legs, short tails, but with silkier coats and beagle-esk faces and a wider snout. Fun facts, just thought you should know....
Anyway, I digress. After spending a minute taking in and basking in the shear size of the Dame, the beauty of the surrounding park, beauty of the lake and beauty of the day, we went around the fence and approached it. The water goes right up to the edge, so the fence is only on 1 side and there are trees surrounding it the other sides. You just have to traverse along the fence and not fall into the lake, which is really easy to do. There is a staircase on the back which leads up to the little blue triangle, but there is a door which prevents you from actually getting to the triangle, unfortunately. I forgot to get a picture of it, but I'll try to remember if I am able to go back!!
After some general exploring, I started playing around and finding little routes. I went up the hammer first, there are 2 big footholds at the bottom, and then the rest is just rock on a slight incline. So grippy! Really nice to work on. Got to the top of the hammer, which is about 8 feet high, then climbed down and started qm'ing up the left side.
The side was about a foot wide with little grooves going across it every few feet. Not particularly difficult until it suddenly gets pretty much vertical for the second half, heh. I went up halfway, got to the little sheltered platform and took in the view, then went on top of the shelter and climbed across to the angled canal thing. There is 1 handhold at the top, then 1 at the first angle, from there to the bottom, though, you are sort of on your own. After what seemed like 5 minutes but was probably actually 45 minutes, we had to go meet the locals for a conditioning session. So sad to leave, but I did make it back later in the day!
Started to rain a bit and got really gray on the walk over. TK, the Holland traceurs and I met up with the locals at the famous sheltered area from UF3. After a quick handshake and "bonjour," we immediately started training. The difference between the Lisses traceurs and American traceurs was apparent immediately (READ: I'm not, not, not, not, not saying that as an insult!! I love American traceurs/euses, I am one!!). There was no talking and no introductions, we just started training. It really made me get over the social aspect of parkour and really focus on what I was doing, which is what it is all about. It made me immediately recognize why I was there. When we started I just thought, "Okay, I am here to train, and now is the time to train. Let's go."
We started with forward qm, then hopped onto a wall which had about a 7 or 8 foot drop on the side, was about 4 inches wide and slick with rain, qm'ed across (slowly) and reached the adjoining wall. We traversed along the wall on a ledge 2 inches deep, grabbing on to the bits of stucco for balance. It was really really difficult to do! My fingertips were killing me!! A lot of us kept falling off the wall and had to start over again and again, but that just made it all the more satisfying to finish. After that, we did some push up variations and a 3.5 minute wall sit.
We then moved on to a long road along side the famous school with pink walls. There were 6 huge lampposts on the road that the fellas monkey climbed up. I tried, but unfortunately don't have the strength in my shoulders to do it yet, so I qm'ed down the road backwards instead. Then we did lunges back down the road and moved on to the staircase.
The guys did cat leaps from the railing to the wall, then did a hanging traverse to the end, dropped down and then repeated. The cat was pretty big, so I did a hanging traverse back and forth along the staircase. Also got a chance to talk to a local traceuse who was chilling, just filming for the day, so that was pretty cool.
After that, we qm'ed around the entire school, back to the staircase, which took a looooong time. The ground wasn't quite gravel, but wasn't quite concrete...it was in between. Very difficult to work on, my hands were killing me! More mental than anything else, though. Just have to shut the pain out and finish. Great feeling when we came back to the staircase, though. Very satisfying!
We moved on to a basketball court where the guys drilled muscle ups, but I had to say goodbye as it was getting late, I had a train to catch, some more sightseeing to do and I haven't gotten my muscle up yet! I promised to come back in 1 year to the day and be able to do 11 muscle ups, the cat leap, get to the top of the Dame and speak more french. Looks like it is going to be a busy, busy year........
Me, TK and the Holland guys went to the castle, the forest and the areas from accroiches toi after that. Heard a funny story about how shocked and sad David was when TK told him that the song from accroiches toi is really really vulgar and offensive in English. He very obviously didn't know that and just kept saying with this sad/worried look on his face, "...Noooo!....Nooooooooo!" The guy who made the video happened to be there, so David ran over to him started yelling at him in french. Ha!
It is amazing how all these epic training spots are soooo close together, and it is really amazing how the local traceurs talk about David. They speak with such a heavy sense of respect and admiration. Not to say that he isn't respected and admired in the States or elsewhere in the world, I guess that since they live there and train in those areas every day, they really understand how much time it must have taken to build up to his level. There is also a sense of mysticism and almost legend in the way they talk about him.
After that, we went back to the Dame where the guys sat on a bench, which allowed me to go and play on and pay respect to the Dame alone. It was really, really amazing. It was really spiritual to stand and look out at the lake with the trees and all this beauty around and know that so many amazing, talented and dedicated people who began to pave the way for us had seen the same thing. They had trained on the same obstacle, struggled with the many of the things that I am struggling with now. When I am training, I tend to feel very alone at times, but I didn't feel alone in that moment. I felt like they were alongside me, everything made sense, all my questions were answered and I knew what I needed to do. I felt like I had a place and a purpose in parkour.
I was sort of conflicted as to whether or not I should even go to Lisses and Evry. I felt like I wasn't good enough yet and that I really wanted to be able to represent and really bring it. I realized when I got there that none of that really mattered. Why would I deprive myself incredible training in incredible areas? There is something for everyone to do, no matter the skill set. Some people look at the man power gap and think that they won't be able to do that, so why bother training at all, but the spirit of parkour really is to just train for you, don't train for one obstacle or for one jump. During the course of this trip, I keep thinking, "Be strong alone so that you can be useful to others." That mentality was really apparent in the traceurs that I met from Lisses and Evry. The spirit is so alive there. People know what parkour is and they seem to enjoy watching us train and respect it. Little kids even joined us while TK and I were training by the church. They were doing little pop vaults and trying to land silently, and they knew that it was parkour. So cool!
One thing that kept repeating in my head during the course of the day is that all of the movement in parkour has been developed and honed by men, and I feel like we have yet to see the potential for women in this discipline. For men, there are very apparent levels of skill and very obvious individual styles that have been developed: David Belle, the Vigroux brothers, Forrest, Dan Edwardes, Blane, Chris Keighley, Tyson Cecka, Levi Meeuwenberg....the women are all sort of lumped together because we have much more work to do by developing the way we need to move and overcome obstacles, in addition to all the strength and technical training. The traceuses of London and the UK are building an incredible community which I'll be able to further comment on in a few weeks, but being a traceuse training in America comes with an extremely isolated feeling. We are not only separated from the origins of parkour geographically, but spiritually as well. There is a path that has been laid out by those who have come before us, but we need to find our own way, take what we can from them and really trace our own path, both as women and as individual traceuses. Being in Lisses and Evry helped me further understand the spirit, dedication and work that parkour requires. There was no dilution, no mistranslation, no restriction that comes with seeing a 3 minute video on youtube.
I have 2 more weeks left in Paris, and I hope to hook up with the traceurs of Lisses and Evry again. I am definitely going back to Lisses this Saturday, and then hopefully 3 more times before I leave for London. Soooo much more work to be done before I get home, so much to learn, so many people to meet and so much awesome training to be had! As excited as I am, I am even more excited to get back to Jersey and share all the love and knowledge that I have acquired thus far. Honestly, If the trip were to end tomorrow, I would be completely satisfied, but, as I said, there is much more to come!!!
