As soon as I heard that Bangkok had parkour classes, I became desperate to go. I had no idea parkour was something you could teach, but I was assured that no matter your fitness level, you could participate in these classes and soon be leaping about the city with the grace and ease of a soi cat.
With this goal in mind, I attended a class at Benjakiti Park, where a small group of fit young people had assembled. We started with a slow warm up of gentle dynamic stretches and then progressed to what I consider to be the hardest part of the class: crawling like an animal forwards then backwards along the concrete and then leapfrogging forwards and backwards across this same space. Sounds easy, right? Well, Johan made it look easy and beautiful, but the burning in my quads and my heavy landings made me suspect my movements were lacking the fluidity for which parkour is known.
When Johan announced that the warm-up was over and now we’d move on to something much harder, my heart sank and my brain raced with ideas of what could possibly be harder. Thankfully, the next challenge was more of a mental one, involving creeping very slowly through the park as silently as possible, along walls, through the grass and over to a playground area. We must have looked odd to any onlookers who caught sight of us. Though the task wasn’t very physical, I did have to opt for crawling along the high marble wall rather than walking along it because every time I tried, my legs started shaking uncontrollably from a combination of sore quads, fear and a complete and utter lack of balance.
Next we took part in a spot of wall vaulting. I’d never leapt over a wall before, but was relieved to find it was fairly easy work. But, before I could get cocky, it was time for the final game of the evening. We were asked to walk from point A (a low wall) to point B (a bench a few meters away) without touching the floor. I was the last in line, and was thus able to take cues from my forebears, slinking along the wall, hopping from bollard to bollard (I had to have help from Johan for that) until I finally got stuck at the last bollard. The leap to the fence seemed just too far. “You’ve got three options,” Johan said. “Either hang from the overhead bar and climb along using that, try to jump or use me as a human bridge.”
I have to say, none of the options sounded appealing. I don’t have the upper body strength to hang like a monkey, the jump involved hitting my face against a metal column if I missed and using Johan as a human bridge meant losing any dignity I might have left. Instead, I opted for stepping onto the ground and giving up. I could tell Johan was unimpressed.
Walking back to the main gate, he told me that to get good at parkour, you have to commit to it. I think he was hinting at the fact that I’d avoided doing anything even remotely out of my comfort zone. Despite that, I felt like I’d had a great workout and vowed to incorporate the leapfrogging move back into my regular gym routine.
Though I am lacking all the skills needed for parkour (agility, balance and grace), I really enjoyed the session. It’s quite possibly the only class that has worked my muscles without involving any traditional exercises, while the problem-solving and teamwork aspects of getting from point A to point B make it feel more like playtime than a workout. That said, it’s hard. Really hard. And despite the fact the class is open to all abilities, I wonder how well an out-of-shape person would do.
Suitable For: People with a good base fitness level, and those willing to test their limits.
THB500 per class. Packages available.
Photo: Gaby Doman
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