parkour competition on the weekend

It's one of those things that's amazing *because* of how insanely repetitive it is. It's not easy to maintain level, square and plumb over hundreds of square feet of wall, even if these guys make it look that way. Even spreading the mud on the blocks takes a fair amount of practice to do well, and most guys only ever learn to do it in one direction so they're fucked if they get put on the wrong end of the wall: you end up tripping over them as they wander into your work area to finish their spread.

As for the weight of the blocks; they're actually easier to level and plumb than bricks because the weight of them accomplishes most of the work. It's more of a matter of not setting it down too hard or too crooked and then giving it a little tap to iron out the kinks. Any of the masons you see beating on their blocks in this video either fucked up badly or don't know what they're doing in the first place.

And this video only tells a small part of the story; nobody's on a scaffold, or having to work cuts into their walls, or worrying about the mixer breaking down again, or the tenders letting the mud harden up in the barrow or on the boards. The tenders don't have to move the hundreds of blocks that are needed in the course of a day into place, or tear down yesterday's scaffold and move it to tomorrow's work area while they move said blocks, and mix the mud, and make the cuts and....

Yeah, I'm a masonry nerd.