14 Beast Mode

They looked like boring monkey bars to me. But Coach called them laché bars. They were tucked off in the corner of our gym. I had barely paid them any attention until the moment Coach led us to them at the next practice. There were three steel posts bolted to the floor. I reached out and grabbed one. A dull rattle answered back.

Bars stretched between the wall and posts. Everything was connected by rivets, nuts and bolts. It looked like something you’d see on a construction site.

The first bar was just above my head. I jumped up and grabbed it with both hands.

“Demo day is coming up, and it’s time to start the really hard work,” Coach said. “These are easy, fun skills to add to your runs. You’ve all been on monkey bars before, and some of you have tried these. So let’s get busy.”

He jumped up and grabbed the nearest bar with both hands. He kicked his legs out for momentum, and after three big swings, he was nearly flat on his back in the air. He let go, reached out and grabbed the second bar. He repeated that between the second and third bars. Then the third and fourth. When he reached the end, he threw himself straighter into the air. He twisted in mid-air and grabbed the bar before heading back toward us.

“Just practise swinging on one bar,” he said. “Then let go and land properly. Don’t try swinging from bar to bar yet. That will come later.”

He walked us down to the far post.

“When you swing and land, run for this post and do a twist around it before you head back into line.”

I stepped up for my first swing on the bar. When I grabbed it, I felt the skin on my palms pinch. I had to readjust my grip a little. I kicked my legs forward to get as much momentum as possible. It was an easy thing to do. But it was also more painful than I had guessed.

My hands felt chapped almost from the start. But I wanted to get a feel for how much strength I’d need to swing from bar to bar. So I kicked my legs hard.

I let go and reached for the second bar. I was still too far away from it, so I landed on the balls of my feet with bent knees. I ran at the post and twisted around it.

After fifteen minutes, it felt like the skin on my hands was cracking. I was glad when Coach called for a water break. Pushing the button on the water fountain felt strange after so much swinging and twisting.

I was hoping Coach would take it easy on us after that. I was wrong.

“Ready for a workout?” he shouted. “Hands and knees, friends.”

Everyone in class groaned. That meant quadrupedal movements. QMs had us crawling on the floor.

“Let’s do the monkey,” Coach shouted, pointing to the other side of the room. “Here and back.”

I squatted and reached out with my arms to the right. I planted my hands — still aching from the bars — and lifted my feet off the ground and kicked to my right. Then I repeated it to my left. We all shuffled, left then right, across the gym floor. It must have looked funny to an outsider. A dozen kids squatting and shuffling like chimps searching for our next meal.

“Don’t give up on me now. Cat walk!” Coach yelled. “Backs straight and weight forward.”

I shifted from the side-to-side movement to a straight-ahead motion. As my right hand reached out ahead of me, my left foot followed. Then I switched to left hand and right leg. It felt like climbing a ladder laid on the floor. My pace quickened as I loped across the floor and back.

“Who loves crab?”

Coach’s jokes were not that funny, especially when it came to training. I turned over so my belly button faced the ceiling. I pushed my hips high and clenched my stomach muscles. My arms reached behind me and I walked like a moving table.

I knew what was coming next. My hands and stomach muscles were not happy about it. We still had bears and frogs left in our intense zoo workout.

“Frog legs, forward and backward.”

Coach made sure to stress the “and.” I guess there would be no breaks today. All the while, I kept thinking how this would pay off in the end. I hoped I was getting stronger. That would make my parkour better.

I squatted, bending my knees deeply. I leaned forward so my hands just touched the mat in front of me. I jumped forward like a frog, kicking my feet out behind me and reaching forward with my hands. I kicked my feet out wide. Then I had to draw them back under the centre of my body.

Everyone was slowing down now. I glanced over to see Parker going slowly. Jayden was just ahead of me. But he was not kicking very high.

The backwards frog was nearly impossible at the end of such a tough training session. I planted my hands, pushed off the mat and kicked my legs back.

“You can’t do parkour without muscles!” This was Coach’s version of encouragement. He shouted it as he walked alongside us.

He was enjoying watching us suffer, I think. I guess that’s what coaches do.

“Last but not least, let me hear you shout it together.”

“Beast mode.” It was what we called bear walking with a harder twist at the end.

“That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. Get your beast walks going. Let’s finish strong, shall we?”

I wanted to get it over with. I got down on all fours again. I put my hands out and balanced on my toes. My back was flat. I reached out with my right hand. My left foot followed. We bear walked — left-right, left-right. Then Coach yelled out, “Beast!”

I braced my arms under me and did what looked like a push-up. But one foot — whichever foot you were not using when Coach called out — was suspended in mid-air. The crawling was not so bad. The push-ups were amazingly hard.

My biceps were shaking by the third push-up. At the end of the first line, we turned and headed in the other direction. I reached out with my right hand and lifted my left foot for the first crawl. But before I could get anywhere, my left arm collapsed under me.

I fell on top of it. A shock of pain shot up to my elbow. “Ah!” I cried.

Everyone kept crawling.

Coach came over to me. “Let’s see,” he said.

I sat up, holding my left wrist with my right hand. I flexed the fingers on my left hand.

“I’m okay,” I said.

That was a lie. My wrist was throbbing. But it didn’t feel broken. I broke my wrist two years before while skateboarding, so I knew what broken felt like.

“What happened?” he asked me.

“My hand wobbled. I fell on it.”

Coach leaned down and put an arm around me. Before I knew it, I was standing.

“Get some ice on that,” Coach said as he called an end to practice.

Jayden walked past me as everyone headed for the doors.

“You’re getting a lot of attention,” he said. “Will getting hurt give you an excuse not to show on demo day?”

I forgot about my wrist. I shook it out and looked back at him. There was no way I was going to let him think I was hurt.

“Nah, I’m fine. Coach was just being nice.”

Seriously, would Jayden ever stop? What would parkour be like without Jayden making my life miserable?