What are good urban places to practice?

[pressureguy]

I actually ran a school for over a year outdoors in a local park. The park has a covered picnic area approximately 40 feet by 40 feet. It has only one wall in the back and the other three sides are open air.

When the weather was really nice, we would move to one of the three baseball fields or one of the four tennis courts.

One thing that was nice was the park was never busy in the mornings, that way we weren't "advertising." We were just there to have fun.

I have built a very slowly growing association for people who train and teach outdoors and in places like garages, parks, and backyards.

Check it out if you get a chance.

pressureguy

http://www.backyardmartialarts.org

[CheekyMusician]

I'm lucky in the respect that I live relatively near my church (it's about a 15 minute walk away) and my parents have church keys, so if there is no one using the church halls, I can go up and practice on my own. We usually go up about an hour and a half before church starts on a Sunday so my mum can set up the halls for the Sunday School, so I can practice kata while the place is deserted. I've also got a fairly spacious garden and I live in a cul-de-sac away from main roads, so the only people who might see me are neighbours.

I don't know about your situation, but if you're at school or Uni etc. they might have halls that you can use. Of course, it probably means getting up early or staying there later, but it's something to look into.

Some people have already said forests, and I know a few people who train in those kind of areas and love it, so that's worth a shot, too.

[Goju_boi]

In the middle of the highway naked,j/k.Just go to a park at times when there not many people or in your garage

[Scand]

If I have to train outside the usual place, I equip my trainers and head outside. When it's warmer (something like 16/20+ celsius degrees) I might as well let the trainers have a nap and just jump out there without socks or shoes. I have pretty much space around here. There's this river some 30-40 metres counting from our backyars and erm, pretty much of plain grass on the way.

If I'm feeling extreme, however, I can jump onto my bicycle (or just go jogging) as there is a pretty human-free forest aprox. 2-3 kilometres away from my home. And that forest is pretty large, meaning that you are completely free to train whatever stuff you'd like to with absolutely no one seeing.

For urban territories: check for empty parks earlier at mornings or later at evenings. There is a good chance that you'll find a few.

[Chaz]

Parking Lots...might be better with a partner though.