aangst (aangst) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-03-24 11:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, alex summers (havok), avatar aang |
Who: Alex S. and Aang
Where: a local privately owned gym.
What: Alex Summers introduces Aang to some of the basic principles of organized parkour.
When: Sunday, 03/24
Warnings/Rating: PG
Status complete
Alex was waiting in the appointed gym after talking to the Aang guy on the net. And then in texts. He wanted to go over basic moves first, before they hit the street, so today, they were starting on that. This was a good way to judge the skill level of his new pupil as well. He and Elaine had done some of this then, but he had also had intimate knowledge of her flexibility when they had started. This would be more like back in the military, but with less commanding.
He waited in the main lobby, doing stretches, and scanning the room for Aang.
Aang was a good student--smart, diligent, and hardworking--but in spite of appearances and the fact that he’d been Valedictorian, he wasn’t necessarily your stereotypical preppy Asian kid. He was a very kinesthetic learner. He did best when he had an outlet for physical expression; some way to expend the nervous energy that built up while he was confined to a desk in a classroom.
Some kids like Aang would have gotten slapped with labels and medications for ADHD, but luckily for him, he’d been able to articulate and explore his need for hands-on experience by trying out sports and drama, or by getting summer jobs as a dog-walker or volunteer animal keeper. His parents had encouraged his extracurricular pursuits, but also cautioned him against overcommitting himself, and helped him find a balance of trying new things and sticking them out to completion.
He’d seen some parkour on television, and his friends and family had remarked that the traceurs reminded them of Aang--always climbing and running and bouncing off the walls from the day he could walk. So he’d decided to give it a shot. He was fairly bouncing on the balls of his feet when he arrived at the gym, looking for his prospective teacher.
Alex spotted the young man looking around for someone and headed for him right off. The energy burning off of him was like a sun and Alex grinned. This guy reminded him of himself a few years younger. And of his nephew, come to think of it. He nodded.
“Hello, Aang? My name is Alex Summers. It’s good to meet you.” he extended his hand to the younger man. “How are you this morning?”
“‘Anolani Minami,” Aang replied, offering his full name, which was a multilingual tongue-twister for most people. “But Aang is easier.” And he would answer to ‘hey you!’ in a pinch. “Thanks for meeting with me,” he added, “I’m excited to see how things go!”
“Which do you prefer, Anolani Minami?” Alex spoke his name with surprising linguistic ability, but then mastering both the languages of the Middle East and Japan had given him some small skill there. “It’s good to meet you. As long as you’re willing to work hard, they should go well.”
“Aang is fine,” he said, the long A sound closer to the O in long than the A in hang. Alex had a good ear, though; Aang was impressed. Then again, it was easier to hear a name and repeat it than to guess at the pronunciation of something you’d only seen in writing.
“I’m ready when you are.”
“Whatever works for you. First, some stretches.” He smiled as he showed Aang some particular stretches to limber of the legs and arms. “One thing about Parkour is that it takes all of your body, so you need to be conscious of where if anywhere, you’re feeling weak or slow.”
Aang was good at following instruction--at least most of the time--so he didn’t have much trouble with the stretches. He listened intently, taking deep breaths as he followed along. “I try to have good body mechanics when I’m working at the zoo, but I probably slouch in class.” And fidget, but that was another matter.
“Until we see what we do and feel what it does to us, it’s hard to stop. One way to change your habits is get someone to film you at random times.” Alex nodded. Once they were limbered, he led the way into the mountain climbing wall room. “I use this to start off. “ There were wooden horses and a jungle gym, an obstacle course, and the wall. “As a parkour practitioner, you need to develop the ability to keep moving, to find the next place you are going, fast. Study this room. And walk around it some. When you feel you know where things are in relation to each other. Come back here.”
He pointed to a starting point.
Aang nodded, already looking around the room, assessing the layout. Working with the animal keepers, he was good at being aware of his surroundings, even if he wasn’t moving all the time. He had to know where to put his feet down where he wasn’t going to slip and hit his head and fall into a snake pit or a polar bear tank.
He began walking slowly around the room, circling the obstacles, looking over and sometimes peering underneath them. He tugged on some of the structures, testing how secure they might be under his weight. Finally, he returned to the spot that Alex had indicated, swaying from foot to foot as he waited for his next set of instructions.
“Now watch this.” And Alex ran. he charged the wall and leaped for a handhold a little ways up, used that to lift his feet to two handholds and then flipped out from the wall toward another area, reaching out and using his hands to bounce off of a large wooden horse, and whip around it to spin feet first into the ropes of the climbing wall of the obstacle course, and then clambered up fast, and slid down the secure line from the top on his feet, leaping the last ten feet to bounce off of a net over the crawl zone of the obstacle course, and spin around the wall a second time, this time using the other balance rope as a handhold to flip himself up and over and into the thin open space where he had started.
He landed knees bent and then stood. “Parkour is not about making a spectacle, it’s about looking ahead, knowing where the road is, and taking the road less traveled. You have to have a good judge of speed, distance, and timing.”
“No showing off,” Aang said, nodding. “Got it.” He wasn’t sure if he could go quite that fast yet, but if it wasn’t a spectacle, then it probably wasn’t a competition either. At least not yet. “I guess I shouldn’t worry about copying exactly what you did, either. Right?”
“Take it easy, and just look for things that feel right for you. Don’t push it yet. You have to learn to walk fast before you can run. for now, don’t hesitate to even stop, and look before going. This is important. Just try to do your own thing. Never duplicate someone else’s run. You never known if they know something you don’t, and that can be fatal on a run.”
Alex nodded.
Aang nodded back, looking determined. He gave the course another glance, then looked back at Alex. "Ready as I'll ever be."
“Then make a run. Have fun with it. Right now, don’t worry about going fast, just enjoy it.” Alex gestured the other toward the room and stepped back to watch. Everyone started differently. How would this man do on his first run? And what?
Aang took off, building up enough momentum to spring over the wooden horse like he was leaping over the back of a sofa--something he did quite often--using his hands to brace himself as he swung his legs neatly over the top. He ran toward the climbing wall next, grabbing on to one of the ropes as he planted a foot on the wall and sprang off of it, spinning around. Landing in a crouch, he rolled under the horse, and came up running toward the jungle gym.
Alex smiled, watching him go and nodding. The kid had good instincts, well done. Alex noted a few things he could do differently, but waited for the kid to complete his chosen course before giving any critique. He really did have a gift for it.
Aang swung across the bars and picked his way over a few more obstacles on his way back to his start point. He knew his run had probably been pretty simplistic, and he could already think of a few other things he could've tried instead of or perhaps in addition to what he'd done, but there was always next time. Better to build up to it than push too hard his first time out.
"how'd I do?"
“Very well!” And Alex then began a critique, telling Aang the good and bad things he had done and showing him a few things he could do better, or different. He led him through the obstacle course on foot, showing him a few things, teaching him a few different ways to look and think of angles.
“Now... we start over...”
And he pressed a button and fully half the surfaces started moving or sputtering with sparks.
And he grinned...
Aang watched, and listened, doing a double-take when the course started changing at the press of a button. “Whoa! State of the art, huh?” He grinned. “Looks like you’ve got all kinds of tricks up your sleeve.”
Alex nodded. “This gym is run by people who take their workouts very seriously. But the idea is, really, to just get good at having fun, and making decisions quickly. Nothing else is important. Parkour should be fun.” He nodded.
“Fun is good,” Aang said, “I can do fun.” Which wasn’t to say that he couldn’t be serious, if he wanted to be, but he really was a fun-loving kid at heart. “Are you ready for round two, sensei?”
“I am. Let’s get down to business...”
And so they did.