Pk-Day Mumbai 2009 - A Fantastic Trek

We have been holding these annual jams for a few years now. Every year at each jam we see a lot of new faces as fresh new blood comes in realising the joys of practicing parkour, a lot of the older ones disappear as they realise that maybe parkour is not for them after all, and then there are those few who are doggedly persistent and are a common sight at every jam. This year's jam was no different. But unlike last year's jam, there was no media present as this was more like a private gathering, and a few people with us this time weren't even traceurs/traceuses, but they were simply people who came along for the trek (though they didn't leave without us introducing them to the wonder that is parkour). But like every other year, we had a load of fun at the jam despite all that.

This year saw us head out to Karnala Fort today for a Parkour-cum-Trekking expedition with a group of 20 people (this figure is getting to be a standard attendance figure for Indian parkour jams). Unlike in the past, due to low interest in actual Parkour jams this year (2009), we decided to bring a little change into the mix (after being inspired a lot from my man from Hawaii, Ozzi's nature parkour videos. Ozzi, I need to start writing you royalty cheques for all the recent different forms of inspiration you've been giving me), and went trekking to the fort with a lot of methode naturale training on wayward rocks and trees thrown in for good measure. The trick actually worked, and this was one of the most fun and memorable jams we have had at Parkour Mumbai so far. (Don't know how many people will be able to get up from their beds tomorrow and go to work though, please forgive me for that .)

We have a lot of footage - both videos and pictures - from the event that I will have to shortly sit and sift through, although once again, I cannot promise a good video edit of our jam because the battery from our main handycam ran out of juice a short way through the climb (thanks a ton, Daredevil ), and we had to rely on low-quality digicam and cellphone footage instead. But we do have a lot of good quality pictures that will be going up on the website shortly, so keep your eyes peeled for both.

We are also happy to announce that this being our first real outdoor jam out in the nature, we also followed APK's Leave No Trace, and although we didn't explicitly volunteer to clean up trash in our surroundings, we strove to make a conscious effort not to litter ourselves, and also cleaned any stray pieces of litter we came across.

So what if the pk-day 2009 was actually held in 2010? We're still gonna hold the 2010 event later this year, hopefully keeping our date with the traditional 3rd Sunday of November. See all you guys next year this November.