Writer's Block: (like juggling chainsaws)

What is one crazy thing you would like to learn to do? View other answers

Did any of you ever read any Stainless Steel Rat stories? It doesn't matter, it's been in movies, but I ask because that's where I saw my first example - the guy was describing jumping down a staircase, vaulting the railing and landing on the next flight down, to get down faster.

Parkour, basically. I want to be a traceur.

Why do I want to do it? Because it's beautiful.

No, I need to elaborate. I don't want to do free running, according to the Wikipedia description, which is more gymnastics/acrobatics than speed - I want to speed. I want to go from a dead sprint above a fifteen-foot cliff to a dead sprint below within two seconds, and vice-versa within four. I want to climb the railing, not the stairs. I want to solve the human brachistochrone problem, to find the path that minimizes t given the endpoints and the geography as constraints. I want to ignore the aesthetics of taste and achieve the aesthetics of sheer skill.

Why don't I do it? I don't want broken limbs or joints. And, surprising as it is, a trick knee is more detrimental to one's general happiness than a lost leg - the latter makes things impossible, forces you to live a different life, but if it's your whole life, it's not a big deal. The former is a pain. There's a reason why Christopher Walken had a stuntman jump off the table for him (though he did the rest himself).


I'll probably still sprint and vault rails on occasion, or take stairs three at a time. But what I really want is to do it all.