Monday July 28th

I cut my oral comprehension workshop today so that I could head out on a solo expedition to try and find the Cinema Museum (tried and failed once before). I came up from the metro and was right near a stadium. My immediate reaction was, "Wow, great spot for parkour..." but as I was on a mission to find the museum and was wearing tight jeans, a shirt that was somewhat low-cut and no sports bra, I decided to keep looking for my museum instead of playing.

I spotted a little park that was on the side of the stadium and was following a sign for the museum when I saw someone in the distance do a pop vault over a wall and then a cat to the wall in front of it. Immediately peaked my attention because I haven't seen ANYONE doing any parkour-type exercise in Paris. It was definitely parkour, it had to be! So as I got a bit closer I saw another guy do the same thing, then another, then another. I thought, "I have hit the jackpot, I ran into some random traceurs training a circuit! I have to talk to them, I don't care how bad my french is!!"

So I walked over to a bench to watch them for a bit planning on talking to them when they took a break as I didn't want to interrupt their training. As I walk over there was a guy standing on a little wall sort of looking at me looking at them, so I smiled as I walked by, he returned the smile, whatevs. I got to my bench, started sipping my water and watched about 6 traceurs go through their circuit. It was really nice to see, they were doing tic tacs off of a tree to a little concrete wall about 5 feet away, then going to the next tree and repeating down the row of 4 or 5 times. There were a few concrete ping pong tables that they got over, 2 of them double konged it, one guy did a side sumi off, some of them just hopped up and then off. It looked like they had all been working for a while and were really tired!

I was watching them for about 2 minutes when something started to click...as they got closer to where I was sitting, I looked over at the guy who smiled at me as I walked past and realized that it was Chau and the guy leading the circuit was Laurent. How random is that?!

So when they went on their water break, I went over and introduced myself. They were asking about New York, the people that train there, how I train, etc. I told them a bit about my trip thus far and training alone in Paris. It was then that I found out that they train every weekday at that place. GRRR! Oh well, though. Training alone has been a huge confidence booster, and I still have 5 days with PK Gen to look forward to, so there is no shortage of experienced teaching in my near future. :o)

Laurent said they were very tired from about 2 solid hours of training, but they were going to play a little bit if I wanted to join them. I looked down at my jeans and shirt and knew it was going to suck training in them (especially without a sports bra, aaaagh!!!) but hey, I won't let my clothes stop me.

Laurent, 2 of the traceurs from the circuit, 1 little boy (about 6 years old, it was adorable), an older gentleman and I did demi-tours on one of the concrete ping pong tables for a half hour or so. I have major fear when it comes to them, so that was really hard for me. The table came up to just above my hips, we did one from the right to the left in a constant line. I was using one foot on the table in the beginning, trying to get my confidence up by moving it more and more towards the edge as I continued. Going from the left to the right was sooo hard, definitely my weak side. I was getting really frustrated because I had made obvious progression going from the left to the right but was still having the same problems with the left, so I went to the other side of the table and drilled them from the left with 1 foot on the table. Got better, closer to a proper demi-tour. The guys finished up, but I continued with my demi-tours. One of the traceurs that was training demi-tours with me was apart of Majestic Force, this 21 year old guy Tony (could be a weird french spelling for that), I think he said he had been training for about 2.5 years. He came over and helped me build up to a demi-tour from the right. It took a while, but I got it! Not perfect yet, but it's a start. :o) Super cool guy, merci beaucoup, Tony!!!

They suggested that I come train with them, but I only had 1 more day in Paris and I needed to do some major running around. Next time I'm in France, though!!! As for right now? I'm off to London.......