Another Week

Another week has come to and end, another week ahead. Last Sunday I taught a Parkour workshop again. I enjoyed the group of people that attended, from various countries. They members also learned the techniques with a fair amount of ease, and after only about 30 minutes they were able to do a basic run.




On Thursday night last week the senior students, for whom the current semester is their final one, organized a banquet in honour of the teachers. In Korea senior students host such a banquet to thank their lecturers for what they have done for them during their years at university. As a teacher I can only say that it is a much appreciated gesture. This was the first such a banquet I've attended, and was definitely the best one so far. We were taken to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Kangnam, which included an excellent buffet.

There are only two weeks of classes remaining at the university where I work, which means that we are very focussed on finish the material in time. Of course this means that I've started doing lots of grading in order to finish the assignments and class tests before the final exams start December 13.
Saturday night I met up with a dance instructor focussing on Jazz and contemporary dance. We had a very interesting conversation, mostly comparing the similarities between dance and the martial arts. I learned a lot.

Today (Sunday), I attended a Taekkyeon tournament (as a spectator). Although I have seen Taekkyeon tournaments online, todays one was the first time for me to see in person. Most of the events were group events, with five members per group. If a fighter wins his bout, he stays on to fight the next challenger from the opposing group. In one of the sets, a girl stepped up and won against all the members of the opposing team. She was quite good. Of course, I enjoyed the adults fights much better, as they used much more intriguing techniques. I took my video camera with and will put together a video once I have time.

The tournament ended around 7PM, it was supposed to end at 5PM. Starving by then two of my fellow Taekkyeon mates and I went to Itaewon for dinner. We had fabulous Thai food, including tongue smackingly good Thai deserts. While having dinner it started to snow.

By the time I headed home it was snowing quite hard. At first I was tempted to take a taxi from the subway station to my house so that I do not have to walk to far, but then I decided to rather take the bus and enjoy the fifteen minute walk in the snow to my apartment. Although I've experienced it now for a number of years, snow is still a novelty to me—I grew up in Africa, after all. That white blanket that covers everything is to me a beautiful spectacle year after year.

Today America and South Korea performed their joint naval exercises in the West Sea; the largest ever naval drills.I guess they were pretty intimidating as North Korea didn't react much. Then again, there is still a couple of days to go as the naval exercises are planned to continue till Wednesday.

Parkour in Olympic Park

This past Sunday I hosted an introductory workshop on Parkour. We met at Olympic Park (South East Seoul) where I showed the attendees most of the basics. We did some precision jumps, a variety of vaults like the monkey vault, lazy vault, turning vault and the like, and also did some wall running. We finished the day with some PK-rolls on some of the grassy slopes in the park. In all, I've been in Korea for nearly four years, but this was the first time to do a proper Parkour session -- I didn't reallise how I've missed it until actually doing it again. How was pleasantly surprised that I could still do the basics with fair ease. I kept myself from doing any crazy stuff. I guess it helped that I'm still quite bruised from a heavy Taekkyeon sparring session I had the previous week. Parkour is such a great workout -- my leg muscles felt sore, in a good way, the days after the jam. The interesting thing about Parkour is that you do not reallise how much you are exercising because it is such a fun playful activity.

Many people (about 16) showed interest to attend the introductory workshop, although only six showed up. I'm guessing that since it was on a Sunday morning most people, when faced between the decision of sleeping in and exercising, chose to stay in bed. If I didn't host the event I would probably have slept in too. Nevertheless, since there was such a big interest I will try and host another workshop -- this time in the afternoon -- before it gets too cold. Unfortunately my Autumn weekends are running out. This coming Sunday I'm going ziplining, sliding with ropes through a forest canopy; the following weekend is Halloween; and the weekend thereafter I'm giving a bride away at a wedding. I also hope to go scuba diving one last time before winter hits us. The last place I'd like to be is in cold water during the winter; I get cold too easily.

Parkour, Friends and Stuff

A couple of years back I started doing Parkour. I met up with the "father" of Parkour in South Africa, Dane Grant and we just hit it off from the start. A wonderfully strange friendship developed practically immediately, which have stayed consistent even though we have only been in each others' company a handful of times. Dane has started to make the most of his Parkour experience and has recently starred in the Dunlop Zone advertisement below.



Dane learned Parkour from the founders of this art while he lived in England. When he returned to South Africa he started up Parkour - South Africa, to develop the art locally. It has grown tremendously; practically all major cities in South Africa has troupes of traceurs (people that practise Parkour) enjoy the freedom to be gained from this art of movement.

The video below is "The Making of Dunlop Zone", and shows how the add was put together. I'm sure my friends in the advertising business and video production will be interested to see it. The cinematography and editing are excellently done and, of course, my Parkour brothers are amazing!



Unfortunately I haven't done much Parkour since I've been in Korea. My time have mostly been taken up by all my martial art training. As the season changes and it becomes less hot and rainy, I do hope to go for a couple of runs before it turns cold and icy again.

Bicycle

Some of my earliest memories are of me on my yellow and red tricycle. I then moved on to a little bicycle with some support wheels that was slightly bent which meant that they did not support me all the time. It was a Christmas or birthday gift. I remember racing down terrible gravel roads struggling to keep my balance. Learning to ride the bike is something I did by myself. Much of my childhood victories were solitary experiences.

I grew up with BMXs and later mountain bikes. I've never enjoyed racing bikes, finding it boring. I guess it is for this same reason that I enjoy to do parkour, but I strongly dislike jogging. Parkour, like mountain biking, presents you with interesting terrains and forces you to come up with creative on-the-spot solutions.

The guy in the video below proves me wrong. He deftly uses a racing bike like a mountain bike, combining the speed and smoothness of racing bikes with the dexterity and excitement of a mountain bike.



I've been contemplating getting a bicycle. I use public transport all the time. From my apartment I need to walk about ten to fifteen minutes to catch the bus. Getting a bike will greatly reduce that time. I also live at the foot of a mountain, so having a mountain bike may be great fun. Of course, it is quite unlikely that I will go mountain biking much. As it is my time is so finely sliced that I doubt such fancies of going mountain biking will come to much. Nonetheless, I still walk daily to the bus stop, so a bike may still come in handy -- at least to save some time, if not to provide some pleasure.