Getting up early of a weekend is never one of my strongpoints, but always somehow I manage it. I can’t vouch for the state of mind I will be in, but my body will always oblige by being in the promised location at the specified time.

The last beer I had in the bar to celebrate my friend Rachel’s birthday causes my head to reel. Well less the beer itself and more the time I am inbibing it – 4.30am. This is only my third beer but the late hour and the excitement about the following day leaves me restless on my bedroom floor. I have no bed at the moment. But that’s ok cos I don’t specialise in sleep. My room is more a studio with floor-space on which to sleep than a real bedroom.

I’m up and packing at Sparrow’s Fart. The morning sunlight stabs at my eyes through the curtainless windows. Food and clothes, sufficient to last me what is going to be a physically demanding day, get stuffed into my daysack and I jump a bus into town. I manage to call Paul, Anton and Ste before falling into my usual public-transport stupor, my head lolling and bouncing against the window in time to the poorly-driven vehicle’s lurches. I learnt this the hard way. Even fifteen minutes spent in neutral on the bus is time well spent. If there is one useful skill I have acquired then it’s this. I have the gift of being able to fall asleep within moments, even when I don’t really need it, in the strangest and most uncomfortable of places. And I can make that sleep count. So when I need to be alert, I have an overdraft I can call upon at a moments notice. A reserve.

Today I need it. And a can of Red Bull to kick-start it into life. A shiny new hire car is flashing its lights at me, inviting me to put it through its paces. With a car full of traceurs it flashes its way through the bank holiday traffic, leaving a preoccupied Manchester behind in its wake. We have no business there today.

Parkour is not about doing the same movements parrot fashion until you’ve got them nailed. It is all too easy to get carried away trying to do bigger jumps, better kongs, more impressive climbs. Forgetting that such feats in themselves are but a means to an end, tools in your box. I look into several areas of my life and see huge parallels. It’s not the songs a DJ plays but how he plays them, the feeling behind his choices and the direction he chooses to carry you in. Seemless fluidity, attempted grace, compelling motion. It’s easy to play impressive tune after impressive tune, or to flip somersaults, and then look over your shoulder to see if everyone saw what you just did. Finesse and form come from the little things. The simple things. No one will jump up and pat you on the back say well done. You learn to do that for yourself. Self-pride and self-confidence come from self-knowledge.

I put another CD on and the motorway miles are fodder for my wheels.