[ by Charles Cameron — who is admittedly more of a mental treadmill kind of a guy ]
.

I have no, no, no idea whether this is, as it claims, video of an Al-Qaeda training camp fitness test or just — okay, way way more likely — a silly prank video —

— but we’ve all seen videos of actual muj trainings in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya, Somalia and elsewhere in which aspirant or actual jihadists demonstrate that they can play leapfrog, make their way across simple obstacles, and do mild acrobatics — sometimes with some martial arts or weapons training thrown in.

**

What I want to know is: how do those clips compare, think you, with the formal training offered by the Georgian National Ballet —

— or the sweet-flowing informality of parkour —

??