Having finally survived the school day, Ben was joyfully running to the train station, he managed to take the earlier train, which went to the central station.
Arriving there, Ben changed trains, he was on the way to the old university of Vaihingen, where the meeting point of the few tracers in Stuttgart is.
Finally arriving at the station of the university, he searched for the tracers. The old university was quite huge, it had everything you needed for Parkour like walls, high staircases, many different buildings.
After looking around for a while, he saw tracers jump from one high building to another. He naturally was astonished, he knew what tracers were capable of, but he thought that the small community of tracers in Stuttgart wouldn't be too impressive.
As he was observing the jumps of the tracers, he counted five tracers, which was a high number if you consider that today is Monday and everyone is working or studying.
Ben wasn't interested in why these people didn't have other things to do, as he wanted to learn a lot from them.
Ben ran to the last building, where he saw the tracers. He climbed swiftly the stairs up for a whole five minutes before arriving on top of it.
The tracers had built their head quarter on top of that exact building. In the beginning, their headquarter was just a good place to train, but the tracers brought a table with chairs, seat pads, drinks, and constructed a tent to protect of shield sun rays, rain, and wind.
As the tracers saw Ben walking to them, they frowned and readied themself to run. They suspected Ben to be a cop since it wasn't the first time that the police tried to stop them. Tracers were an eyesore in the eyes of the sociality, they basically didn't care to use the property of others and risked their lives every day by doing Parkour. In a sociality with strong norms, Parkour became ostracized and unpopular.
Ben, who saw their reaction, stopped to walk, deposed his backpack, and changed his clothes.
Today, was a sunny day, so Ben just decided to change to his sports outfit before the tracers and show them that he wanted to become a tracer.
While Ben changed his clothes, the traces talked low about his actions.
Jeff: „Why does he take off all of his clothes?"
Steven: "Pervert, he just changes to his sportswear!"
Carl: „He probably wants to join us."
Luke: „Who does he think he is? We don't teach amateurs!"
Ben just finished changing and as Luke didn't try to quieten his voice, he heard his statement. Ben was indifferent about that statement as he already trained his body enough to do Parkour and would learn as fast as a talented person with his skill.
Ben approached them a little and greeted them.
„Hey, guys, nice weather today to do sports!"
Luke asked with strong hostility: „What do you want?!"
Ben: „ Same as you!"
Luke: „What do you mean?"
Ben: „I want to learn more about Parkour and improve my movement."
Carl: „So you want to join us?"
Ben: „Yeah. My name is Ben and I would love to learn Parkour."
Markus stated arrogantly: "We don't teach beginners! If you want to learn Parkour, learn by yourself."
„No wonder, nobody is able to learn Parkour as no tracer wants to teach it. That being said, I already learned all the knowledge on the internet and I am confident to learn very fastly, if you don't want to give me a chance then I will leave!!!" said Ben sarcastically and provocative.
Steven: "You can stay for now. How about doing basic parkour training to show us your physical level?"
Ben inwardly thought how easy they were to manipulate. He responded:
„Sure, what does your basic training consist of?"
Steven: "10 Bodyweight Squats, 10 Push-ups, 10 Leg lifts on your back and 10
Pull-ups."
The basic training was a good test, but what most people would have misunderstood is that the training had to be done with a certain amount of sets. The tracers wanted to at least see 5 sets as it would qualify him to be able to learn basic exercises. Due to his book knowledge, Ben understood that he had to impress them and planned to do 5 sets with each time 20 reps.
Ben did these 5 sets with 20 reps in a very controlled manner with only 30 seconds break, which blew the tracers away. They know understood the confidence of Ben.
Jeff was the first to speak: "Not bad, bro. I could see that you already trained your body diligently."
Luke was still against letting Ben join them: "He would still need a long long time before reaching our level, we don't even know if he will leave us after his first bruise."
Carl was happy to be able to largen their group: "I think we should let him join us. He is right that we have a responsibility to teach new tracers."
Carl: "We should vote about Ben joining our little group, who agrees with it?
Nobody voted against Ben joining except for Luke. Luke wasn't a bad person, he just had a feeling that Ben wanted to use them and that Ben didn't truly like Parkour.
Luke's feeling was quite precise as everything was true, if it wasn't for the use of Parkour in the future and them being able to fasten his learning capability, then he would have just sneered at them for choosing such an unpopular hobby.
Ben: "So guys, do you have a group chat for Parkour? When are you meeting here?"
Jeff: "Naturally we have a group chat on waou. Everyone comes when he wants, we aren't a club with obligations. We mostly come here on the weekend, but also do it Monday and Thursday afternoon, but like I said some of us are always here."
After Ben gave his waou number to Carl, Carl added him to the group chat.
Steven:" As we still have time, Ben, what do you want to learn today?"
Ben beamed with a smile and said which basic exercises he wanted: "I want to learn Landing properly, the Two-Handed Vault and the Precision Jump."
Steven was surprised as most people would directly want to fly, while they couldn't even land properly. Steven taught Ben, while the other tracers run around the university.
At approximately 7 pm, most of the tracer already left, Ben was still improving Landing, the Two-Handed Vault, and the Precision Jump. Ben was a little over the moon, he wanted to try intermediate exercises as he controlled the basic moves well enough.
Steven impressed by the rapid improvement, poured cold water on Ben: "I have seen tracers get a couple of bone breaks, sprains, and one concussion. Every time, it was because someone got a little overconfident and pushed beyond their current training and ability. So you should continue to train the basics first and next time we can try the intermediate ones."
Ben was touched by Steven's teaching and care, he responded: "Thank you for today, I will train hard and become as skilled in parkour as you."
With that, Ben went back home, planning to train hard each day.
Arriving at home, his parents were worried sick, Ben forgot to inform them that he would come home later. It was just 8 pm, but Ben never came late at school days.
Karo: „Where have you been?"
Ben was thinking that he shouldn't make his mother worry by saying doing parkour, so he said: "Mom, Dad, I am really sorry! I helped Alex and Jonas to improve their houses as we have to handover the project next week. I didn't plan to help them till 7 pm, but their project was poorly constructed so it took more time."
Tilo: "As you just helped your friends, we will disregard it, but next time you have to inform us."
While dinning, his parents were having a conversation with his sister.
´I didn't think about it until now, but what pretext should I use for the next time? I probably can use the project pretext another time. I can also say that I trained at school for our graded exercise in sport, which is in 4 days. I planned to go with the tracers on holidays to train Parkour, but what excuse would I use for my parents. I can't always use my friends as an excuse."
Ben was having a headache over this issue so he decided to ask the other tracer about a solution.
Before going to bed, Ben did his usual routine of stretching and reading books.