There’s been a lot of snow kicking around in the Northern Hemisphere lately. But we’re keeping our spirits warmed with thoughts of all the fun to be had on the snowy slopes of Europe, the USA and Canada. New Zealand, your time will come!

To share our winter cheer with readers, we thought we’d let you know about some great stuff to do on Ooh.com this winter. You can find even more Cool Stuff to do this winter in our Hall of Fame.

Here are a few of the most recently elected Winter highlights!

A fantastic opportunity to gain an insight into the Japanese language and enjoy some winter sports at the same time.

We’ve heard that winter 09/10 is going to be a massive year for backcountry (off-piste) skiing. And where would be a more exciting place to get knees deep in the fresh powder than Kashmir, India?

Backcountry skiing isn’t without risks, so take the opportunity to brush up on your avalanche awareness skills with this full day introduction to avalanches in Boulder, Colorado!

People often associate winter sports with skiing and snowboarding, but most haven’t thought of Ice climbing. If you’ve never thrown an ice axe and a crampon into a sheer face of ice, now’s a great time to head to Chamonix, France and experience the rush yourself!

That’s it for our top winter things to do roundup. These four are only a handful of the great listings you’ll find on Ooh.com, so head to the site, have a browse and see if anything takes your fancy. Of course, if you want to sell a wintery trip, course or event, you can do that too, for free! Bonus…

Quite a while ago now, we brought you news of the fast-growing Parkour scene in London. The sport, which originated in Paris, has been growing rapidly in the last few years and we’ve recently discovered a pocket of extraordinary Parkour talent in Syndey, Australia.

Ali Kadhim, of Parkroar first became involved in Parkour after watching Ripley’s Believe It or Not TV show and seeing some footage of a group of Parkour originators called the Yamakasi.

‘After I watched it, it changed my life: I knew straight away that Parkour was something I had already been doing my whole life. As a kid I was a huge monkey – I could never sit still and was always climbing and jumping off everything.’

We asked Ali what his favourite thing about the sport is. ‘It combines the grace and movement of gymnastics, the discipline of martial arts, the creativity of breakdance and it opens our eyes to use the world as our playground like skateboarders. I’ve practiced all of those physical art forms and Parkour for me just seems like the ultimate art form to practise.’

Ali is pretty keen on pushing at the boundaries of what is and isn’t Parkour and this comes across in his videos. We asked him what his favourite moves are: ‘My favourite moves at the moment are combining flips into the environment, like wall-flips and front flips off things. A lot of people don’t think flips are a part of Parkour.’

‘But, one of the main philosophies behind Parkour is to learn to master your body and mind, so in order to master it you have to learn to conquer your fears and control them. For example jumping off something can be scary enough, but when you add a flip into the equation the fear magnifies and it really tests your mind and body control.’

We also asked Ali how quickly he thinks Parkour seems to be growing. He told us: ‘If I compared it to how it was when I first started I would say it’s huge. Its been growing rapidly here and there are so many groups around from places like the City, Penrith and Hornsby. We get new students almost every week to our weekly classes and more and more are becoming interested all the time.’

Finally, we wanted to know what it’s like rocking up at one of Parkroar’s locally famed classes for the first time. ‘We start off with a long warm-up and conditioning session. The conditioning consists of things like tuck-jumps, push-ups, sit-ups and squats to name a few.’

‘After that we go through basic movements, these are always important and are never to be overlooked by anyone, that’s why we do them every class. We then teach new techniques after the basics or help students to overcome any fears they might have with any new movements.’

You can find out more about Parkroar from their website www.parkroar.com, or you can email Ali here with questions.