Four Ways To Break My Neck

One of the most important things for me is to have some kind of sport to participate in regularly.  It's exercise and competition (even if it's just against myself).  Of course, it's hard to get a group of people together when most of my friends have responsibilities of their own, like work and school to deal with.  Also, wives and children.  Them too.

And so, without team sports, I'm left with only individual sports.  I've tried a medley of them in the past and here's my top four future ways to break my neck:

 1--Parkour

The art and science of running from the cops

Parkour is the French art of running away.  And because nobody has historically done this better than the French, you can imagine they've perfected it.  Parkour is all about flow, the effortless transition of movement over obstacles.  There is nothing that can compare to the feeling of hurtling yourself full speed at an obstacle to cleanly and smoothly flow right over it and never even slow down.

Basically, it makes you feel like a small child again.  Like a small child, you're turning everything around you into a playground of your own.  Also like a small child, you occasionally come home crying covered with scrapes and bruises because you thought that you could "totally make that jump, man."

When you do parkour, it's only a matter of time before you find yourself waking up to find that you're drooling on the sidewalk.  And then, there's nothing to do but pick up your teeth and and try that double kong vault over the two railings again.  Because you can totally do this, man.

2--Rollerblading

This is some hardcore stuff right here

I know what you're thinking.  You don't know why you started reading this post.  And now that you've gotten halfway through it, you figure you might as well get to the end.  It becomes almost a chore--but if you've committed this much, you might as well finish the stupid thing, right?  If it makes you feel better, I'll leave you a treat at the halfway point.  Eh?  Better?

Or, you may have been thinking that rollerblading is kind of a softy sport.  You may picture children and very . . . em . . . feminine men blissfully rolling by with a big carefree smile on their face.  And you would be right.  Now, know that one of my hobbies when I was young was to invent a sport or a sport league with my brother and compete with ourselves and our imaginary fellow athletes.  And in a situation like that, nothing is blissful.  This was a professional athletic competition, after all.

During high school, I was a big fan of downhill rollerblading.  That consists of rocketing down streets dodging cars, pedestrians, and the odd animal while going faster than cars on the same street.  Sliding around corners and leaving black marks on the road from the brakes when you come to an intersection at the same time a car does.  Because, in the world of rollerblading, car beats rollerblader beats small child.  And that's why this is inherently dangerous.  Because although the world accepts (in my case, extremely begrudgingly and with a crazed, homicidal glean in my eye while I'm driving) the need to share the road with bicyclists--rollerbladers are never, ever welcome on the street.

2.5--As promised, treat at the halfway point

If you promise to keep reading, I promise another kitty before the end.  Deal?

3--Bouldering

Not pictured in any of these photos:  Me.

Bouldering is basically climbing boulders.  It's seeing a rock and saying, "You know what would make that rock better?  If I was standing on top of it."  It's the natural human instinct to crush nature under our feet and prove ourselves kings of the universe.  I live very close to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and one of my wife and I's hobbies is to drive around and go hiking on it.  Inevitably you come across some enormous rock formations and the natural call to be king of the rock is strong.  It's a very simple thing to do.  In fact, third after running and sex, it's the most basic exercise you can possibly do.  Actually, it should be the second most basic.  Have you seen how many books there are about running?

Step 1:  Find a pair of sexy shorts.

Of the four sports I name off here, this is the one that I've done the least of.  I love rock climbing, though, and I have done a little bit of bouldering.  Of course, the dangers of this sport should be obvious.  I suck at it, and there's a lot of potential for "vertically-induced pain".  Also known as smacking the ground from 20 feet up.

4--Mountain Biking

We'll say this is me.  With a convenient helmet.

Downhill mountain biking is just a blast.  I used to love my bike when I was young.  I rode it through our woods, made ramps with my brothers, and played cops and robbers with sticks and rocks.  You know it's serious when you try to pull a Pit maneuver on bikes.

I haven't ridden a bike for five years before last week.  The college that I work at (not for, at) decided that we should start paying for parking passes to park where we work.  It was a bit pricey, and I was feeling a bit indignant about the whole affair.  So, instead of paying for the close lot decal, I bought a bike with that money instead and paid for the further one.  Good exercise, right?

What I didn't know was that the other lot was not in the same county.  As a matter of fact, you need a stinking globe to see that lot.  I popped in a Teach Yourself Spanish CD when I drove off and by the time I got there, I was thinking and dreaming in Spanish.  I had to poach squirrel and rabbit to survive and drink from the fresh springs.  Eventually, I became at one with the mountain the campus resides on.  So, the logical next step is to go hurtling down it at breakneck speed with my new bike.  Sounds fun, right?

Oh, and I lied about the cat picture at the end.  I'll have that for you next post.  See what I did there, again?