Parkour

[Trivun]

Never trained but Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia made me try it out, sometimes do it on the underground near my house

 

[sorry user name taken.]

Always wanted to try it.

Would be a useful skill once the aliens come. Or the fast zombies.

Agreed

 

[Lunar Shadow]

I am currently getting into shape to do this, as I did some very basic parkour (some vaults over a table so i didn't kill myself) but I can't do it for very long. I am also startingto learn how to actually vault and land.

 

[Monkfish Acc.]

I live in a rural village. No trees, no interesting objects, just houses and fields. I could try vaulting cows, but the farmers around here really like their guns, and really hate teenagers.

 

[mokes310]

I love watching it and talking to people who do it. I find that it's a very underappreciated athletic ability, and people who do it are extremly talented. However, I don't see myself participating in it. True, I'm a pretty athletic guy, I decent at most sports and enjoy a good work out, but my coordination leaves much to be desired. I grew up playing ice hockey, so I have great balance on skates, but my own two feet are my worst enemies when skates aren't present. I'd probably find myself face-planting into a brick wall before my first jump ever happened.

Kudos for those of you who do it, from a big fan who's gladly on the sidelines!

 

[traceur_]

thanks for bringing up a subject so dear to my heart.

parkour has definitely changed the way i view the world, literally and a bit philosophically, i found out about parkour after seeing a segment on a show called Ralph TV about the new and wonderful discipline. The next day at school I started jumping around while receiving looks of "what the fuck?" from passers by and found that is was really fun. Soon after that I convinced my friends to give it a go and they too discovered the awesomeness.

the best part of learning parkour is self discovery, what most people don't realize is that they're are actually physically capable of doing things that will amaze them, before i started i had no idea i could climb a wall 50% taller than me or even Kong vault, discovering a new ability you never knew you had is truly satisfying.

The only thing i hate about the videos and such is that for some reason whenever someone is shown screwing up a move they for some reason they become loser wannabees for not succeeding.

 

[Dilla]

NOTE - THIS IS NOT A FLAME OR HATE POST.

Parkour and free-running have always interested me. I'm a skate boarder, have been for around 10 years now. Over the last year or so, various spots I visit to skate at in London have been coming more and more popular with free-runners. A lot of the time I see young kids jumping jumps I don't think they should be trying.
The point to my post is a general musing. What is the point of Parkou/FR? From what I've seen it's a very limited past time.

I'm not so ignorant as to dismiss it straight away, I've just never seen the appeal. As opposed to skating, which can be considered competitive. Which appeals to me. Personal enjoyment is great and you don't need any other reason to do something, if you enjoy it. I just wondered what people's various reasons were for taking up the aforementioned past-time?

 

[Zersy]

Are there any other traceurs here? If so, share any stories, training tips, etc. here. A few questions to get the topic started
1. Has parkour changed the way you looked at the world?
2. How do you feel about the publicity and growing popularity parkours been getting for the past few years?

My personal answers:

1. Since I started training, I've got some funny looks from non-traceur friends, when I see a building, railing, wall, or alley, and say "I want to climb/vault that", stop what I'm doing, and do it. I've been unable to look at a building without thinking how it would be for parkour.

2. I think it's great that lots of new people have been getting into parkour because of its recent publicity in movies, games, youtube, etc. However, I do worry that people who see the videos on youtube and movies will try to go too far, too fast, leaping buildings before they can do a decent vault or landing. I'm also worried about the corporate interest being shown in parkour. Parkour always has been noncompetative and noncommercial in spirit, and I'm worried that it will go the way skateboarding did. K-swiss even made a parkour shoe. Seriously, all you really need is a shoe with decent grip, and spending lots is a waste of money, because hard training chews through shoes like there's no tomorrow.

Edit: Also, people who want to get started in Parkour, feel free to PM me, and I can send you links to some good sites with tutorials and friendly communities.

i use to do parkour quite alot

until that faithful day .....

it was a simple frog jump from a rail

it was winter so everything was slippery

i already nailed it earlier in the day so thought heck why not again

my friends a re are watching

(it's dramtic cuase it's the fact that it's such a small surface i'm jumping off of the i have to land like a 3 metre fall with slipping when i touch the ground)

anyway i take the run up

jump on the rail both hands and feet are on it

THEN

WHAM !!

total slip i land on the bricks under then crash below the 3 metre landing

during the proces all the impact when to my left arm

when it was over icould instanlty feel a HUGE pain in my left arm

i take off the sleeve and there's a HUGE GAINT cut going down my forearm

it's not the blood dripping but a giant cut from wrist to elbow

it's hurting like hell cause it's so deep that it toched the NERVE !!

anyway i'm in shock and can't stop shaking

but the pain is HORRIBLE the nerve in my arm won't stop burning

i have'nt done much parkour after that

but i still see buildings as a cheelange looking at ways i can limb them

but atleast i got a scar from the lesson i learned

"never do parkour in winter"

 

[Rolling Thunder]

I'm a rugby player. My acceleration is limited to a straight line, I corner like a bus and if I see an obstacle I tend to try and crush it rather than leap it. 2 metres and 100 kilos is not the best physique for running, let alone falling.

PS: How do you 'catfall'? I don't get it?

 

[RetiarySword]

I dabble a bit, I'm not all that good though. I know what you mean by 'I want to climb that!'

 

[llewgriff]

Me and a few friends we cautioned by the police for being on top of private property, so we've been a bit less ambitious now. The police did find it quite amusing when we told them what we were doing.

 

[tront]

I've been doing it for about a year and a half now. It's really helped my fitness and i dropped 10 kgs. Never had a serious injury beyond a couple of bruises. If anyone in W.A. wants to get into it pm me and we can try and sort something out.

 

[VaioStreams]

there's another traceur right here. went for a run last night. feel great. but i'm still beat

 

[Sir Pysco Sexy]

Never tried it, don't think I' quite confident to do it really. But I'll agree it is awesome to watch people run up walls.

 

[wordsmith]

When I was younger I used to do a sort of tamer version of Parkour with friends.

I even met the French guys who did the Jump London thing a few years back at a extreme sports festival.

I couldn't do it now though, I doubt my knees could take it.

EDIT: Ok just found out that those jump london guys were freerunners and thats different to Parkour.

Freerunning's similar enough for this thread. Freerunners, feel welcome! After all, it's pretty much parkour but with the emphasis on stylishness rather than directness and efficiency. Both are fun.

Freerunning is about reaching a destination in the most stylish, flamboyant and acrobatic way.
Parkour is about reacing a destination in the most efficient way, using the least amount of effort possible.

Flips are not parkour
Rolls are (force absorbing rolls only)
Styled Jumps (tuck, pike etc) are not parkour
Vaults are

You get the picture

 

[Malkavian]

I've always wanted to start parkour, but my physique has been... uncooperative. Let's just say I'm not the lightest, most agile person around.

This. I have worked up a little belly, these last 7 months, and have had virtually no exercise... It is amazing how rapidly you can get out of shape.

I'm starting in a gym 1st march, though, and when I get back in shape, it would be incredible to have a go at Parkour. If the time comes, I might just PM you, OP.

 

[Hyoscine]

NOTE - THIS IS NOT A FLAME OR HATE POST.

Parkour and free-running have always interested me. I'm a skate boarder, have been for around 10 years now. Over the last year or so, various spots I visit to skate at in London have been coming more and more popular with free-runners. A lot of the time I see young kids jumping jumps I don't think they should be trying.
The point to my post is a general musing. What is the point of Parkou/FR? From what I've seen it's a very limited past time.

I'm not so ignorant as to dismiss it straight away, I've just never seen the appeal. As opposed to skating, which can be considered competitive. Which appeals to me. Personal enjoyment is great and you don't need any other reason to do something, if you enjoy it. I just wondered what people's various reasons were for taking up the aforementioned past-time?

I think the appeal depends on what you were about before you got into Parkour. Most of my friends who train were martial arts fans or gymnasts; they're very into the expression through movement aspect. For me though, before I got into Parkour, I was very much into Urban Exploring. I'd be sat at home reading Urbex sites from another continent, bemoaning the fact that while everyone else seems to live practically on top of abandoned hospitals, I'm stuck in Chelmsford; a middle class commuter belt town where any redundant space is very quickly turned into more ugly housing or another Costa Coffee. I'd been aware of Parkour for a few years, but it wasn't till after Jump Britain got aired that I met a few guys local to me who were able to show me the ropes. What I found out very quickly was that how you interact with a place can be as interesting as the place itself, and that learning how to move can get you into places you'd never considered before. For example, being able to run across the roofs of the high street meant finding an entrance to the enormous attic space of a club that used to be a cinema, that used to be a theatre. By torchlight I got to climb about on riggings that nobody's touched for decades. All of the backstage area was intact, separated from the club by a false ceiling. One of the coolest things I'd ever seen.

With Parkour you learn how to overcome physical things that stand between where you want to get to (walls to climb, gaps to jump), and also the mental barriers that keep you from seeing the possibilities that architecture and convenient street furniture present to the curious. When you're on form, you feel like you can go anywhere.

By the way, were you talking about Southbank? I used to catch the train down sometimes for the Sunday sessions at the Shell Centre. Sucks it's all closed now.

 

[Baonec]

Always wanted to do it but have no idea how to start learning all vids and sites i find are dedicated to hardcore freerunners that can leap walls in a single bound.

 

[Dilla]

By the way, were you talking about Southbank? I used to catch the train down sometimes for the Sunday sessions at the Shell Centre. Sucks it's all closed now.

Yes, Southbank is still one of my haunts. They've shut a lot of the Waterloo side of the Shell Centre - made it un-skate-able, by putting skate stoppes on all the ledges and stair run-ups.
"South Bank" iself is still very much alive with skaters and free-runners. The banks have been made more skater friendly! You should check it out.