With everything going on in 2020 I value all the sessions I had with everyone this year. Especially all the ones with Sandra, Schorni and Flo. I still don´t put too much effort in filming (as you can see haha).
So anyway, here are some of the clips of my year 2020. And holy moly. I am 34 now, it´s crazy…
https://www.instagram.com/sou.slikart/
We (practicioners) often claim parkour is such a “holistic” and “well rounded” discipline. That it is good for old and young and that it is a great all around training. Sure, I believe so too and I teach it as well.
Over the years I have started testing this believe. The endurance challenge called Night Missions are a sort of test to check if your training has prepared you for meeting a multitude of physical and psychological requriements. But the Night Missions are very close to parkour in terms of what to expect and in terms of how you move.
And in my opinion a good traceur is also a good mover. If you train a lot in a certain discipline. How well do you do in others? – Can a climber run a marathon if he wanted to? Is a swimmer any good in alpinism? Can a weight lifter do basic gymnastics moves? If yes, can they do it “right now”? If no, why? I have a similar thought process connected to parkour. Is my training good enough to have prepared me for a multitude of potential challenges?
Can I run a marathon? Can I climb a mountain? Can I ride my bike from Vienna to Linz in a day? (~200km)
2 years ago I had that question pop up in my mind. Can I ride my bike from Vienna (where I live now) to Linz (where I was born) in a day? I train parkour. I think my training has provided me with a good fitness level. But can I ride the bike in that huge endurance challenge style? Let´s find out.
I basically took my bike a few weeks after the initial idea and set off to catastrophic failure. Well maybe not catastrophic but definitly “challenged failed” for me at that time. After 138 km and 13hrs of pure pain I gave up.
After having failed so miserably I knew what I did wrong and it motivated me the more to try again as soon as possible. The bad news is: what did I do wrong? – EVERYTHING (more on that in a sec.). The good news is: Mistakes can be learned from and corrected.
So what did I do wrong? 2 main mistakes.
Fast forward to 2 years later. I am on the road for 150km already and I feel great. I have already passed the spot where I gave up 2 years ago. Nothing is hurting, legs feel good, wtf is happening?
What did I change and why wait 2 years?
I think when you suffer as much as I did in that failed attempt you definitly don´t want to hear a few weeks about cycling, because…”Cycling sucks anyways”. But in all seriousness. A mental break is good. Give it a rest. And so I did. I needed time to think and analyse. Then came winter. The following year I forgot all about the challenge and continued training parkour as usual.
When I coincidentally found a great used road bike for sale I took the chance and bought it. I also talked to a work colleague of mine, who I found out was a cycling enthusiast and who has done some great tours in Austria and other countries (including Vienna to Linz). I think I mentioned I wanted to do the Linz challenge (as I call it) and he answered that we should do it together. An idea was reborn. I estimated my chances were good given I had a lot of potential when I would use what my errors showed me last time. Also: we would be a team of 3 people joining forces for the tour this time. The third man on bord was a powerhouse. Performance rower and strong built body type. Cycling for him means a balance to his training routine in rowing. He was in for the fun of it and he too had done the route already.
What did I change effectively?
Our team included my work colleague. Navigation mastermind who provided the best route for us via his Garmin GPS system and who would lead most of the way; a friend who lead our party sometimes and who set an incredible base speed (leading some stretches with 35kmh). Following and having the chance to be paced like that pushed us forward allthough sometimes I had to ask to reduce the speed by a few kmh as I felt like burning out if I continued.
The ~200km flew by in a breeze. The weather was perfect, the wind was good. Success!
My resume is: I was a fool for going in so blue eyed. It would be the same as when a swimmer would instantly try to free solo the biggest walls in his/her swimsuit. Not happening. But change the swimsuit for basic rock climbing gear, get a great partner to lead the pitches, have some basic rock climbing skills and off we go! (ok climbing might not be the best paradigm but I hope the point comes across).
I am glad to have finished this challenge and I am up for more. 200km of biking is something I can do with my current parkour training and I am glad. In encourage everyone to take their skills to the test, see if their training works for other disciplines too? If yes it is a good indicator for a healthy development and a sustainable training style.
What follows is the first review of one of the original participants from Night Mission III that I hosted in July 2016 in Vienna. Enjoy the read!
Night Mission III
Let’s face an inconvenient truth: Regular life is boring, about 95 % of the time. Wake up, eat, work, eat, wash the dishes, sleep, repeat. Yes, there’s the time with our loved ones that no one will want to miss, but apart from that? Repetition. “Groundhog Day” all over again.
For me, sports in general and parkour in particular is a form of breaking out of this routine. As long as I am moving forward, I am out of the comfort zone – I have to interact with my surroundings, their form dictates my options. And sometimes, this urge for getting out of the day-to-day-habit sends me off to events that challenge me even further. I’ve done several OCRs like Spartan Race, Wildsau Dirtrun and others. The Night Mission III was a whole different kind of thing, and I’m still not entirely sure what I experienced – but it was awesome.
Starting things off with nine people (including Alex, our guide for the night) in Heiligenstadt, we were all a bit anxious. Nobody except Alex and Christian – who stood in as instructor for Alex at some of the challenges – had ever been on a Night Mission before, and we did not really know what to expect. Right off the bat, Alex told us that the Mission was going to last for nine hours in total. A little more than I had anticipated, since I thought it ended at sunrise, which would have been two hours earlier. But well, it was too late to change my mind (not that I wanted that) and we set off into the night.
What followed was a well planned series of tasks along a certain subway line that in my opinion seldom had really a lot in common with “classic” Parkour movement. Only one challenge asked for continuous, flowing movement for five minutes in a row, which of course looks best if done with panache and a few pres and kongs. Apart from that, there was climbing, daring, endurance and a whole lot of teamwork excercises. In a smart move, Alex made sure that we changed partners for almost every task he threw at us. This way we could not stick to people we already knew, but had to get acquainted with all of our team – and I am very grateful for that, since they were a lovely bunch. See, there is a sense of cameraderie (even though I do not really like this word) between people that have shared a whole night of continuous movement, mental and physical challenges as well as a lot of smiles. Smiles and seldom loud laughs, mind you – because we’re ninjas, dammit! And come morning, I did feel a bit ninja. A thoroughly beaten ninja, mind you; I would not recommend this whole shenanigans to ill-prepared people. Run a few training rounds, scrape your knees in basic Parkour movement practice, maybe climb around a little in your local bouldering facility – you will need those things. But anyway: After all Alex had thrown at us, we were still standing, still moving, still checking of the last tasks (doing continuous push-ups for fifteen minutes at 6 AM – yeah, about as much fun as it sounds). I am happy to report that the whole team has made it through the night, but might have undergone the slightest bit of a change. Because even though the regular life may be boring from time to time, I will always enjoy every part of it if it leads me to exciting events like the Night Mission III.
What follows is the first review of one of the original participants from Night Mission II that I hosted in 2015 in Vienna. Enjoy the read!
Night Mission Beta
It’s 9 pm in Vienna, and we’re just standing around at Donauinsel. Would we’ve been aware that these were our last moments of idle rest for a long time, we probably would’ve enjoyed them more. After all five participants gathered, Alexandros looked us in the eye, smiled from cheek to cheek and proclaimed: “Night Mission Beta has officially started.” He briefed us on the mission’s toughness, encouraged us to drop out before we pass out. And then we ran into the dark.
On the one hand, I expected an adventure. Cities the size of Vienna burst with hidden corners and secret places. I knew Alexandros wanted to explore those with us. Secondly, I expected a challenge. Back then I was sleep-deprived from the start, so I knew this mission would push me to my limits. In both cases I was right. Especially as my physical limits got a good kick to the teeth.
The first surprise was the sheer lack of motorized transportation. We ran the city. Now I’ve always perceived Vienna as a mosaic of metro stops. Now I visited all these hotspots – Donauinsel, Stadtpark, Schottentor and others – by foot, and I saw Vienna as a whole, interconnected and fluid. This alone gave me a new feeling for my city. We made around 20km that night, jogging, walking, breathing, repeat. Alexandros didn’t want us to get cold or tired, and even though my body hated him for that at some point, I knew he was right. Too many breaks would’ve broken us. And with the challenges at hand, we couldn’t afford to go down.
The ~18 challenges demanded both physical and mental strength. I climbed walls in 8m height, with just the arms of our comrades as safety nets. I carried an 84kg man on Vienna’s most beautiful staircase, up and down. I stood on a railing, fell, got up again, fell, up, fell up, for 15 minutes all in all. And all that with my body wondering why the hell it wasn’t lying in my bed as usual in the middle of the night.
Towards the end, when we ran up a mountain, sleep deprivation almost got the better of me. My eyelids weighed tons. I slept for split-seconds while walking in an involuntary zig-zag, looking like a drunkard. All the time I knew I would pull through, and I felt Alexandros watchful eyes on me, ready to step in. But Jesus Christ was I tired. Going in there without sufficient sleep was my mistake. A Night Mission demands top-notch fitness.
We all were struggling at some point. But the group generated a force field of determination, which fuelledevery single one of our cells. With a healthy mixture of competition and support, we battled those weak moments we all had individually. And thus we achieved feats I would’ve deemed impossible otherwise. The Night Mission Beta was not so much a feat of strength as it was one of endurance. While I ran, jumped, balanced and carried, 95% of my brain was occupied with a simple mantra: “One more step. One more push-up. One more minute.”
But the other 5% were all like “Hell, I can’t wait until tomorrow when I grasp what I’ve achieved here.”
And indeed, when I woke up the next day, I was physically crushed to pieces – but my mind fired endorphins in all directions. I bathed in my glorious pain, knowing that’s how it feels when limits break.
We started at 9pm. At 6am I collapsed into my bed. 9 hours, 20 kilometers, 18 challenges, 6 warriors, 1 goal. The Night Mission Beta showed me the power of comradeship, it gave me a new perspective on my city. And I got a glimpse at the potential of body and mind. It’s an experience like no other. If you want to see how far you can push yourself, go for it. Just make sure to take a nap beforehand.
