Parkour

[ViolentlyHappy91]

This one is simple. How many of you do parkour or would like to get into it? The basic thing is to get more people into the art of parkour by offering information on jams in the cities that you live in.

For me, I'm from Toowoomba in QLD, Australia. The group here does Sunday afternoon jams in town from 12pm onwards and Saturday morning jams from 9am until mid-day. If you're in the area, let me know and i'll give you more info.

 

[SharPhoe]

Parkour/Free-running isn't incredibly common or popular in the States (to my knowledge), but it seems like a cool activity to stay fit.

It's too bad I'm totally not cut out for it...

 

[Mr.Pandah]

I would love to get into it, unfortunately, I'm built like a twig and any attempts to make myself a little bit bigger in order to gain some of the muscles needed for it, never work out.

That and my fear of heights...Any tips for getting into it would be cool though, I'd love to give it a shot regardless.

 

[ViolentlyHappy91]

Parkour/Free-running isn't incredibly common or popular in the States (to my knowledge), but it seems like a cool activity to stay fit.

Pretty much this. You must get into amazing cardiovascular shape for it, i wish i had the patience to get into that work out. Ill just stick to mine for now. Its definitely cool though.

You don't need to be in good shape for Parkour, absolutely anyone can do it, which is why it's such a great thing.

 

[Spleenbag]

How exactly does one parkour? Do you just say "OK, let's do it, Leeroy Jenkins" and start running over, under, and through things?

 

[Lord Raiyu]

Go all Altair on them. Or Ezio because he has a cape.

 

[ViolentlyHappy91]

I would love to get into it, unfortunately, I'm built like a twig and any attempts to make myself a little bit bigger in order to gain some of the muscles needed for it, never work out.

That and my fear of heights...Any tips for getting into it would be cool though, I'd love to give it a shot regardless.

Getting into shape for parkour is just doing more and more parkour, there's no real way other than that. It will work all of your muscles at the same time, so it will improve your overall fitness at a steady rate. As for the fear of heights, I have that too, start on ground, and you'll gradually gain confidence to proceed to larger things.

 

[Lord Raiyu]

You do need good hand-eye coordination. Time for a video game marathon.

 

[ViolentlyHappy91]

How exactly does one parkour? Do you just say "OK, let's do it, Leeroy Jenkins" and start running over, under, and through things?

Pretty much, yeah, just stretch before hand to avoid injury, and learn how to land. If you do gymnastics, it will help a lot, but it's not needed. Start with simple vaults and work your way up.

You don't need to be in good shape for Parkour, absolutely anyone can do it, which is why it's such a great thing.

Oh im sure it helps though. Definitely need to improve my verticle and long jump for it.

Long jump and high jump come with time. You'll learn to move your body in a way that will increase the jumping height and distance.

 

[Kubanator]

I'd do it if I could find some local groups. I live in the suburbs of Vancouver in Canada.

 

[skcseth]

I used to do it around Charlotte, NC and parts of Monroe. Haven't been out in a few months though.

 

[runtheplacered]

How exactly does one parkour? Do you just say "OK, let's do it, Leeroy Jenkins" and start running over, under, and through things?

Haha, this made me laugh. But yeah, I was sort of wondering the same thing.

 

[ViolentlyHappy91]

You do need good hand-eye coordination. Time for a video game marathon.

Not really. Hand-eye coordination will help a lot, but it will improve while doing parkour. If you're not confident with your coordination skills, throw a ball between you and a friend and that's about all you need.

 

[Spleenbag]

Just went and Wikipedia'd up on parkour and freerunning. Sounds interesting, although I'm not a very active person. If I ever got into a sport-like thing, that would probably be it.

Addendum: This will cement myself as a lazy out-of-shape nerd but it must be said: do people ever parkour while walking/jogging as opposed to full-out running? What I mean is, all the same cat-crawls and vaults and rolls, but at a slower pace...does this ever happen?

 

[Glerken]

It sounds really fun. And I think I would be pretty good. Unfortunately it's not popular in Arizona, so I have no way of really getting in to it.

 

[ViolentlyHappy91]

Just went and Wikipedia'd up on parkour and freerunning. Sounds interesting, although I'm not a very active person. If I ever got into a sport-like thing, that would probably be it.

One of the greatest things in parkour is that there is no competition, that's why it's one of the better sports to do. If you're holding competitions with parkour, you're doing it wrong.

One thing that most people don't realize, is that they've done parkour before in a way. Ever jumped over a fence to get somewhere faster? If so, you've done parkour, even though it's simple, it's still parkour.

 

[ViolentlyHappy91]

It sounds really fun. And I think I would be pretty good. Unfortunately it's not popular in Arizona, so I have no way of really getting in to it.

That's why I made this thread. Hopefully you'll find others to do it with, if not, practicing alone is still good.

 

[Spartigus68k]

We have a parkour club at my high school in Boulder Colorado.
And i know CU and the local gyms have parkour classes.