Charles’ Parkour Training Blog

In an effort to take a quick break from my normal posting, I feel as though I should introduce people to my art which is sculpture. Many people wonder exactly why it is I do what I do and all I can respond with is that I simply enjoy every minute of it. I love my art and I’m genuinely happy during the entire process of fabrication.

This past Saturday RIT hosted a university wide innovation festival called Imagine RIT. Each college, along with many of our numerous clubs, had exhibits and demos to show off exactly what happens here at RIT. I belong to the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences being a Fine Art Sculpture major. What better demonstration could we have done but have an iron pour?!

So what’s an iron pour? An iron pour is a highly intensive activity that involves tending to a red hot kiln, scrapping and melting iron in the kiln, catching the molten iron in a ladel, and pouring the molten iron into casted moulds.

The process started several days earlier when the preparations took place. The fuel used to heat the kiln is called coke, a purified state of coal which burns hotter and cleaner. This fuel needed to be hammered into varying sizes ranging from grapefruit size down to lime size pieces. We also needed to hammer our iron into more manageable sizes seeing as they came in the form of brake pads. The machine used to get the iron broken apart into smaller pieces was the human body equipped with a sledge hammer. I had almost as much fun doing this as I did actually pouring the molten iron. We needed about 900-1100 pounds of iron, 400 of which was contributed solely by me (I substituted this as a Cross Fit work out. Believe you me, I was sore).

The kiln is prepped by cleaning it out, then placing all the largest pieces of coke on the bottom rack. These are then torched and set a flame. Medium size peices are added and a leaf blower is turned on to further fuel the fire. After several hours, the kiln reaches it’s designated temperature of 3500 degrees fahrenheit. In smaller pours, the metal to be melted is usually placed inside the the ladel and the ladel placed in the kiln until the metal is liquified. Because iron is usually poured in hundreds or thousands of pounds at a time, the kiln used is slightly different. Iron is tossed in freely along with lime sized pieces of coke and is melted and sinks to the bottom of the kiln where it is caught in a well. The iron continues to fill up in the well until the well is filled. The ladel crew is then called to grab the ladel and prepare to catch the flowing iron.

Because the ladel is not heated in the kiln with the iron, it must be heated separately with a leaf blower and a torch. A ladel is a small bowl made up of refractory and heat resistant materials. A pole is inserted on either side of the ladel and is handeled by two people: the live end and the dead end. The live end is the person who actually controls the pour while the dead end is just there to hold the dead weight on the opposite end. This duo grabs the ladel when the sound is called and moves it to the kiln and prepares to catch the iron.

Once the ladel crew is in place, the tapper uses a very large metal rod and breaks the seal of the tap at the bottom of the kiln’s well which allows the iron to flow out. Once the ladel is filled (about 100 pounds of iron worth) the tap is sealed with a sand and resin cork. The iron is now about 2800 degrees.

During the melting process, all the impurities float to the surface of the liquified metal which is then scraped away by the pushbacker. The ladel crew then runs over to pour the moulds with the caught iron. Once all the iron is poured, the ladel is cleaned out and returned to the torch to be pre-heated for the next pour. Once we got going, we were pouring about 150 pounds of iron every 15 minutes.

All in all it was a good day and one of the best demonstrations of exactly what it is that I do. I loved every minute of it.

-Charles Moreland

RIT Parkour club prepared for battle once again today. Zac and I share a lovely quality that is beautifully described as stubbornness. It isn’t so much that we don’t possess the ability to comprehend defeat; we simply deny the concept’s applicability in reality. To demonstrate, my stubbornness to accept defeat is roughly equivalent to one of my favorite scenes from The Last Samurai:

Zac decided to finish up all the paperwork last Tuesday and handed in our Club Recognition packet to Student Government the following day. We were promptly denied approval by a unanimous vote. Defeated? Don’t make me laugh. Serious props go to Zac on this one who spent numerous hours typing out an appeal letter and a ten page report on the safety issues relevant to our club. We suited up, geared up, and set out to our Student Government meeting ready for a fight.

As always, we were initially met with a decent amount of opposition, however I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of debate that was taking place. Our saving grace happened somewhat unexpectedly from Michael D’Arcangelo, director of the Center for Campus Life. It wasn’t until this great speech that most of the student senators finally realized exactly what their role in this club recognition process was. For the past couple of hearings, it has been made clear that most of the debate has been around the acceptance of our activity and livelihood.

This type of direction for the debate issues I found really hard to handle. Perhaps it is because, for me, I see this so clearly. It truly is difficult to sit there in silence as you watch your love’s values get tossed around like moldy lettuce, when in actuality they are succulent kale. Parkour has been nothing short of an eye opening experience for me. The difficulty lies in explaining this to those who have never felt the joy that comes from our training and possess no will to try. I was being given a flight safety briefing by a guy who had never spread his wings and flown before.

“These are very dangerous activities and can cause serious injuries. Even death!” I held my tongue during the meeting because I reserve every right not to here in this blog. I apologize that you may never understand how you are wrong. But that Mountain Dew in your hand is more a risk to your health and safety than my vaulting over a rail will ever be. You may not even realize that that “harmless” soda you drink all but too often has caused your body to become hypertensive. Your breaths are short and wild. The activity that is your eating has caused you physical harm and will only get worse the more it is “practiced.”

A traceurs biggest issue with risk happens when he first decides to attempt a new technique. It is at these moments in time when a traceurs true ability comes to fruition and is displayed in it’s greatest light. After each subsequent repetition of that technique, the adherent risks associated with the activity dwindle. Physical strength, muscle memory, and sheer, unbreakable concentration are forced together into a spectacle of beauty. However, lose just an ounce of one, and risk will start to even out once again. Every successful vault, leap, and climb strengthens us. Our body adapts and becomes more efficient; more dense and resilient. I see a flaw from my perspective.

The issue is not whether or not Parkour should exist on campus. Whether we are a club or not, we will train. And just like Captain Algren, you will need to hit us fairly hard to get us to stop. Once Student Government’s role was clearly defined and reoriented towards the mindset of recognition and legal support and funding for our activity a series of light bulbs seemed to be lit across the board. A vote was made: 14-3 in favor of overturning the Club Review Board’s decision to deny us recognition. I believe my jaw dropped.

RIT Parkour is still not official and there are still a few more steps that must be made before anything official happens with us, but this was an acceptable outcome from all the hard work and effort that went into this arduous task of bringing Parkour to the campus environment. We are here. We are strong. We are damn stubborn, but determined, and don’t you ever forget it!

-Charles Moreland

This is very short and informal for now. An edit will happen probably at the end of today. However, I want everyone to know and remember that all day today PK Generations from Europe has taken over Youtube and every featured video on the homepage (http://www.youtube.com) will be hand selected from PK Generations.

This is extremely exciting for all of us. Please enjoy yourself and hopefully learn something new from all the great videos being displayed today.

-Charles Moreland