Nevertheless I made my way to what looked like a child's playground mixed with a crossfit arena, and started to wonder if I'd crossed the line into insanity.
I was however, made to feel extremely welcome and even though I was by far the oldest attendee I felt even more motivated to make sure that I could keep up with these kids.
We started out with some warm up stretches, a light jog and them some pretty strenuous lunges, crawling, and frog jumps just to name a few. At this point was wondering if I'd even make it through the warm up.
We then went into the rolling technique which is the core skill required for any future Parkour techniques. I was extremely impressed that the trainers separated those of us who were first-timers and gave us complete one-on-one attention in learning the skill. Most group classes I have attended have never given this level of focus on the new students, and it's definitely something to give props to.
I was starting to the hang of it...granted lots of technique to work on...but I don't think I have even done a somersault since I was about 12, so I was pretty impressed with myself.
Covered in grass we were take over to the concrete park to attempt our rolls. I'll be honest this didn't go too well, my mind definitely got the better of me and I was terrified to fling myself over on to the concrete. I tried once or twice but it was not pretty. I think some more practice and self-confidence will definitely be required.
Once we'd spent some time on the rolls we then moved back to the sanctuary of the grass and added in the boxes to jump over, which again were set up for beginners and the more experienced.
This was teaching us to not only perfect the rolls from a height, but also on the various ways of traversing over the boxes, which obviosuly latr lead on to concrete foundations.
Oh and me coming out of a roll..
We finished the session with conditioning to strengthen shoulders, back, lats, and butts which was basically like doing a crossfit session after an hour of what we'd already achieved...needless to say it was tough...but then we had a stretching session to soothe the muscles.
I was extremely impressed with the team's attention to each athlete in perfecting their technique in whatever we were doing. The encouragement really made me feel like YES I CAN DO THIS!
I am a little bruised and very stiff but it was so great to test my body and push it in a totally different way.
The first session is free so you have to try it out, and thereafter it's R100 per session or R600 for 8 sessions (R75 per session, I mean you can barely buy lunch for that these days)
Thank you so much to the team, I had an absolute blast!
Please check out their pages concretefoundationcrew.co.za or @concretefoundationcrew on Facebook.
