Hi, my name is Annalee, and I'm learning Parkour, which is kind of a cousin to climbing in some ways. It involves that same kind of physical problem solving, and thinking with your whole body. Also it often involves climbing things.

I got into it, oddly, as a byproduct of becoming a babydev. I had never tried to learn programming before because I thought it would be too hard. Once I tried it and realized it wasn't so hard after all, I started wondering what other stuff I was talking myself out of trying. So when I saw parkour videos on youtube and caught myself thinking, "I could never do that," my second thought was, "I bet I could if I tried." I just began intermediate-level parkour boot camp this week.

The thing I probably enjoy the most about it is that it's completely non-competitive. Even when people are showing off and being super-flashy, no one's keeping score. It's entirely about beating your own personal best and finding routes and moves that work for your body.

Right now, vaults are my favorite thing, but once I've got pop vaults/wall runs down, I'm probably going to do them constantly just because I can (that's where you use a step up on the wall to transfer forward momentum into upward momentum, then use your arms muscle up and over the wall. I can get as far as hanging. Pulling myself up has yet to happen).