Train Hard - Stay Humble

Jamming in the Philippines

While on vacation, i was fortunate enough to jam with the guys and gals of the Philippine Parkour and FreeRunning Association. Raven, the organizer of the jam, invited me to come to Quezon City Circle, a national park for a jam on Monday 23 Feb 09 (an extended weekend for students). He, along with Sam, (who together introduced freerunning to the Philippines), picked me (+2) up at a meeting spot and took us to QC Circle. Everyone was very friendly! We started at about 8:30am when it was probably already in the 80's, only for it to get hotter as the day went on. Jorell led the group in total-body stretching and then we went into a conditioning session. i was invited to lead the group in some conditioning and was excited to see everyone so receptive and welcoming of the new movements i was able to show them; the knowledge sharing was very advantageous.

PHFR kindly made the video below that shows the spots that we visited within the park. they face the same issues that many traceurs worldwide do when jamming in an open space-- getting some pushback in the more urbany, populated, or private areas. nonetheless, the obstacles were well suited for training many levels of parkour, so it was a wonderful variety of spots. we drank a lot of water, and in the middle of the jam we stopped for a refreshing buko (coconut) juice break. after a 4-hour jam in extreme heat and humidity-- conditions i'm not used to but was happy to experience, it was very nice to have had the chance to train with this group of about 20 traceurs in total that day.

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Comment by Philosofist on March 19, 2009 at 11:54am: That's awesome. I went to the Phillipines before, and the blazing heat would definitely make parkour more challenging. Glad to know about their community.

Comment by Seng on March 2, 2009 at 9:13pm: Looks like so much fun. Hope you were able to follow that session with some tasty tropical fruits.

Comment by monk on March 2, 2009 at 9:10pm: thanks!

@Steve, yeah this place is pretty much completely safe to do parkour, there's a bunch of people that gather in this park to do other types of exercise or dances even, except that there's a monument (here at 3:57)that we were quickly asked not to jump on. in the more urban areas i think more of the problems come from the crowds of people that are just there (along with the authorities)

Comment by Just Steve on March 2, 2009 at 7:26pm: @NIko - That was funny... :)
@Jody - Nice...Is this location pretty hands off as far as the authorities go? Do any of the traceurs have any problems jamming in the more "urban" areas?

Comment by Bio on March 2, 2009 at 6:54pm: Way to go Jodie!

Comment by Chris on March 2, 2009 at 5:10pm: Representing BApk very well!

Comment by monk on March 2, 2009 at 2:54pm: you've got skills! and just like us, they welcome beginners and everyone. i trained with a couple of first timers there too =)

Comment by knownanonym on March 2, 2009 at 2:43pm: sighh*...i dont know if im more jealous of you going to olongapo..or of this..ahah. hopefully by time i go back home ill have enough skills to meet with them too!