It's been a long time... almost 10 years since the last post, and even longer since our last Jubilee. Things have changed, and things have stayed the same.
The people have gone through many changes, but the fundamentals of parkour have remained:
- Be strong to be useful
- Progress with purpose
- Grow with longevity in mind
- Embrace play and creativity
- Build community
I had reached a point where I was so burned out on parkour I didn't care if I ever did it again. I turned to other physical pursuits: martial arts (a return to that after nearly 20 years away!), yoga, scuba diving (love!), and of course just your generic garden-variety fitness training. And frankly, there were quite a few stretches in that 10 years away from parkour that I literally did nothing physical. My body-mind just didn't want to. And that was OK also.
But then I noticed that the mental part of parkour never left me. I'd just been ignoring it for a while because I needed to set down the load of all of it. I needed a moment of rest in my training. I figured the door had closed on parkour forever, and I was OK with that. Until it started coming back to whisper in my ear. I'd be going about my daily life and get a flash of "parkour vision" when walking past a stairway: seeing routes in my head and actually feeling my muscles twitch as if I were doing the route.
I'll be honest, my parkour vision had vanished for a few months before I stepped away from parkour, so getting it back was a wonderful experience, like, "Hello, old friend."
I've spent the past year or so really exploring deeply in my heart what this all means and what my relationship to parkour is to be going forward. I've gotten really clear on which people in my parkour past have been constructive and uplifting, and which have been toxic and destructive; and I've also gotten clear on how some destructive mental patterns I had were affecting me during the height of my training.
I also got in touch with some folks who are passionate about movement and parkour -- some of whom came up through Wisconsin Parkour's program back in the day. I'm so glad to reconnect with these folks and see all the great things they're doing for parkour - and support their visions in any way I can.
I'm not sure what this means in terms of exactly what Wisconsin Parkour will do or be going forward, but I do know this:
- We will lead with heart
- We will return to training
- We are (re)building new partnerships
- What's important is the movement
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