Other Means

Todd: Have you heard about planking?

Julia: Planking?

Todd: Yeah, planking.

Julia: No, I haven't heard of planking.

Todd: Planking is like where people, they, they are really stiff like a board.

Julia: Uh-uh.

Todd: And they, I don't know how it works, so...

Julia: This is exercise?

Todd: Yeah, there's a whole movement where they, you know, you just keep your body...

Julia: Moving like ...?

Todd: Really stiff and you move, you know, yeah like your body is like a board.

Julia: When people walk on you?

Todd: No, I don't know. I'm sure there's like if you were to do like go to YouTube, I'm sure like there's loads of...

Julia: Planking?

Todd: Planking. But it's also similar to, have you seen, what's the French martial art where they run around and they like jump and they do flips and stuff like that?

Julia: Oh, a bit like cap Capoeira and things?

Man: I think it's called a...

Todd: That's going to drive me nuts. It's like a French word parkour - never mind. That's kind of like the French exercise or craze parkour, have you seen parkour?

Julia: Parkour? No.

Todd: Yeah. Parkour's pretty cool. Parkour's like these guys they run and they like run against walls and they'll do flips or they'll jump over stairs and...

Julia: Ah, does it, does it have another name like urban something? It's used in the opening scene of some movies.

Todd: Yes.

Julia: Like in the James Bond movie?

Todd: Yes, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Julia: Where they're running over the building and over the roofs. Yeah, I know it by another name, yeah it's really cool.

Todd: But that's what...

Julia: That would be really cool, wouldn't it running around the rooftops and...

Todd: Right. So those, those are, the guys that do parkour remind me of the guys on the infomercials in the States where they'll have some machine and they'll like if you buy the, you know, the muscle flex you'll get muscles just like this guy but only the guy in the commercial that already has those muscles can look like that and I think like the guys for parkour like you already have to be this amazing athlete I think to do it.

Julia: To do it I guess and I guess you must have to have some kind of mental agility or faculty that makes you push yourself in very dangerous situations.

Todd: Yeah.

Julia: Like having the desire to leap from one rooftop to another or run up a wall or...

Todd: I know, I can't imagine the adrenaline.

Julia: Having that idea no.

Todd: Like it's if you make a mistake you're pretty much doomed.

Julia: Yeah, you don't have so many margins for error or learning in one of those sports.

Todd: Exactly. So, would you be interested in trying any of them? Cross fit, planking, parkour?

Julia: I, one thing I have seen recently was an extreme trampolining which is kind of...

Todd: Oh, wow.

Julia: Combining a wall, like you had a wall with a ledge, a high up ledge, very narrow ledge high up this wall and then underneath it a trampoline and so I saw the guys jumping from the ledge down and then they did that thing where they kind of ran up the walls, flip back over and went back down on the trampoline and some of them had two walls adjacent to the trampoline and would jump from one wall down on to the trampoline and then twist and come up on to the other ledge on the other wall and that was pretty cool.

Todd: Wow.

Julia: And I guess maybe that's how you would start out with a trampoline or a net or something and then you could, I could imagine doing some trampolining or leaping around like that but I'd quite like a safety rope.

Todd: Yeah, I think so.

Julia: So if I didn't quite make it, someone could just pull me up. I have done some rock climbing. I'm pretty, I used to do a lot of rock climbing and I enjoyed the adrenaline of that.

Todd: Oh, what, you would actually go up real cliffs?

Julia: Yeah, yeah.

Todd: Not like just the thing in the gym?

Julia: I started out in the gym, got some basic skills, footwork skills and, you know, got the feel of what it's like to balance on a small ledge and pinch a small outcrop of rock and hang and repel back down once you get to the top as well you have to get back down again so learning the equipment, the harness, the ropes and that kind of stuff. But, yeah, I've done it outside as well.

Todd: You weren't scared of falling?

Julia: Very, very scared, very, very scared but that's something that you have, if you wanna conquer an extreme sport you have to be willing to face your fears and get a kick out of facing your fear.