Even Traceurs Miss The Train

If you live in NYC, you know the feeling of having the subway doors close just in front of you, and being unable to do anything about it. After eight or so years in NYC, it has happened to me dozens of times — and missing the train never gets easier. Waiting on the subway platform after just missing your train is like the anti-parkour. It kills a little bit of your soul.

In fact, this happened to me today. I was heading to the subway for a quick jaunt to my chiropractor’s office over lunch, and saw people walking up the subway stairs. Never a good sign. I ran down the stairs pell-mell (which the MTA advises against), and the subway closed in my face. Trick is to stand right by the door until the train starts moving, because if the doors do open again, you can slip in. Of course, the train started moving, so I was out of luck.

As a traceur, you think about movement differently than the average commuter. There’s sometimes a temptation to vault the chains strung up in between cars, to land on the small platform in between them, and walk into one of the two subway cars. But that’s pretty high risk, because if you mess up, then you could fall in between the subway cars into the tracks and that means you’re probably dead. I don’t love those odds.

Well today, the D train (I missed an express train! Arghhhhh!) decided to slow down, so slow, that I could have easily hopped onto the back of the train. There’s a little hand hold, there’s a small platform on the back of the train, one measured jump and I’d be on it, on my way to my destination. Then I could hop off at the next station and walk into the car like a normal person. In fact, I was the only person at the far end of the platform, so possibly no one would have seen me jump. Of course, if the train started to speed up while I was in mid-air, my trajectory could have taken me close to the third rail, and touching that is instant death. I’ve seen people dead on that rail before. It’s horrible.

I didn’t do it.

I was late to my chiropractor appointment, but you know what? I got there.

Bottom line: knowing parkour doesn’t give you permission to be stupid or reckless. Don’t do stuff that could kill you (and is probably very illegal). “Don’t do stupid parkour” is one of my first personal rules when doing parkour — for more, check out my Medium post on 22 Parkour Tips for Beginners.

Train hard, be safe.

Zeeko