Parkour

I just found out about this fascinating thing called parkour.

Parkour is the art of quickly and efficiently getting from one place to another (also used in a chase, to escape pursuit). Basically, you train your body to peak physical condition, and utilize any objects in your surroundings to make for a speedy trip. This includes running along walls, jumping over cars, leaping from rooftop to rooftop (very dangerous, and only reccomended for professionals).

Now, I know what you are thinking… “What?!?”

So I present to you two things that will give you a good picture of what the heck parkour is.

The first is from the movie District B13 (thank you, O!), and stars David Belle, founder of parkour (he’s the running dude). As it is a movie, it’s overly dramatized, as parkour does not usually involve so many leaps from rooftop to rooftop, but it does indeed contain many real things from parkour, such as climbing up poles, pushing off of things, wall runs, precision jumps, rolling when you hit the ground to avoid impact damage or loss of momentum, and much more And it’s totally badass, too.

Without further ado, I present to you (since a picture’s worth a thousand words, and a video’s worth a thousand pictures)…



And a great Wikipedia article that explains the whole thing well….

Parkour – Wikipedia

Note that you may come across the term freerunning. This is not parkour. It is a similar, related art, but is not parkour. The two are most decidedly different. In the words of an article I found on the topic…

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So you want to get started in Parkour or Free running. The videos are out there... people doing insane jumps between buildings, over railings and through cities. These trained experts are probably practicing either parkour or free running. Parkour is a form of movement that stresses efficiency and speed. The point is to get from spot A to spot B as quickly and efficiently as possible. Free Running is similar but it also involves aesthetic movements such as flips, spins, and many other forms of 'flair' (traceurs, practitioners of parkour, usually frown upon movement "wasted" on aesthetics). Also, Free Runners usually don't have a set path.

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Parkour is all about efficiency and speed, whereas freerunning is like parkour that has mutated into an art form. Parkour ensures that no energy is wasted or misdirected, whereas freerunning is more like an exhibition.

Parkour is much more practical.

I plan to get involved in it. My being in cross-country/track ensures that I already am in good shape, have good stamina, and am good on my feet (as well as already having developed leg muscles).

Time to see what it’s like. :goodjob2:

its cool shit, though its hard as hell dude. I've take your working on your roll?

gonna need a good pair of shoes for tat shit

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Originally Posted by Soldier

its cool shit, though its hard as hell dude. I've take your working on your roll?

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Starting from the ground up. Working on the basics now, like spatial awareness while moving fast (traceurs have a much sharper spatial awareness than ordinary people, if they didn't they would bump into things, misjudge jumps, etc. because they have to think very quickly.).

Oh, and grasshoppa: I gotta good pair of shoes. :thumbup:

Cool, I'll have to look this up further. I've found I need some sort of physical discipline in my life, and this seems much better than the half-assed mashup of shit I have going on right now. I'd love to hone a good impact roll as well.

What's the workout regimen like to get your body into said peak physical condition? Any good links you found?

www.parkour.us may help. :)

if you got really good at this you could make a career being a stunt double or something

http://flipcatch.files.wordpress.com...in-parkour.jpg

I saw that first video in a French class a few years ago, thought it was awesome. It'd take me years of training to be able to do that :P

I'm prepared to invest years, and long summers of training.

When that training and practice pays off, it's gonna be cool as fuck. :cooler:

This week I'm working on wall runs (running horizontally along a wall, like a fricking ninja) :P

make sure to update us with your injuries.

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Originally Posted by grasshoppa

make sure to update us with your injuries.

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A few scrapes to my right knee and my arms and hands, while attempting to scale and climb a tree without thinking first about exactly where I was going to place my feet, what I had to do to haul myself onto the protruding limb, etc. :P

The first few times were epic fail, but now I can climb that damn tree like a pro!

It's sort of part of my training, I guess. It factors into getting over/around obstacles, making use of your environment, quick thinking/spatial awareness etc.

But as far as other things go, no injuries as of yet :D

I'm not one of those idiots who (with no previous experience) goes,
"YAY parkour!!1!!11!" and tries to jump down from the roof of a two story building or something like that. Although I did practice my landing technique when jumping out of the tree (it's as tall as... well, about 3/4 of a story).

I'm taking it slow instead of rushing and killing myself.

I've always wanted to be trained in the arts of the samurai/ninja, a Japanese fetish perhaps.. Not sure if I have enough patience to train my body that much..

Running on walls I thought would be cool as shit,anything done in Ninja Gaiden would be insane..

One of my best friends and I have been doing this for about a year now. I'll have to post some of our videos. It is very liberating. Even though I'm not too great.

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Originally Posted by WakataDreamer

I just found out about this fascinating thing called parkour.

Parkour is the art of quickly and efficiently getting from one place to another (also used in a chase, to escape pursuit). Basically, you train your body to peak physical condition, and utilize any objects in your surroundings to make for a speedy trip. This includes running along walls, jumping over cars, leaping from rooftop to rooftop (very dangerous, and only reccomended for professionals).

Now, I know what you are thinking… “What?!?”

So I present to you two things that will give you a good picture of what the heck parkour is.

The first is from the movie District B13 (thank you, O!), and stars David Belle, founder of parkour (he’s the running dude). As it is a movie, it’s overly dramatized, as parkour does not usually involve so many leaps from rooftop to rooftop, but it does indeed contain many real things from parkour, such as climbing up poles, pushing off of things, wall runs, precision jumps, rolling when you hit the ground to avoid impact damage or loss of momentum, and much more And it’s totally badass, too.

Without further ado, I present to you (since a picture’s worth a thousand words, and a video’s worth a thousand pictures)…



And a great Wikipedia article that explains the whole thing well….

Parkour – Wikipedia

Note that you may come across the term freerunning. This is not parkour. It is a similar, related art, but is not parkour. The two are most decidedly different. In the words of an article I found on the topic…



Parkour is all about efficiency and speed, whereas freerunning is like parkour that has mutated into an art form. Parkour ensures that no energy is wasted or misdirected, whereas freerunning is more like an exhibition.

Parkour is much more practical.

I plan to get involved in it. My being in cross-country/track ensures that I already am in good shape, have good stamina, and am good on my feet (as well as already having developed leg muscles).

Time to see what it’s like. :goodjob2:

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I guess you watched the special features on Paul Blart Mall Cop too? :p

I've known about it for a while, it's cool. Just look up "free running" on youtube, there's tons of videos.

I've worked on my roll a bit, damn this stuff doesn't come naturally at all to me. I'll need to work hard if I want to get any good at a single move. For now I'm mainly just running and lifting to get more in shape.

Oh and spockman, is that a frame from Paprika in your sig? If not, what is it?

Hehe. Yeah, it's Paprika. ( :

Mostly, I just hurt myself whenever I go out and do parkour.
It's fun, but I don't have much skillz.