Parkour

[Spirit_Of_Fire]

What exactly is Parkour?

 

[Platinum117]

PArkour is something you should definitely learn from a more experienced person. and i suggest you take their advice, i didnt and i had to have knee surgery. Not to put you off parkour or anything lol.

 

[Fallingwater]

The idea of parkour is a lot more appealing to me than most (any?) other sports, but considering the low, low opinion I have about sports in general that's not saying much.
Still and all, I'd probably try it out, but it seems to me it carries much higher risks of loss of life or limb than, well, sports in which you don't jump over/under/from very hard, tall and bone-breaking things.

 

[teisjm]

Haven't tried it, but it looks fucking awesome. Though i hate running.

The "getting over stuff" part could be kinda fun.
I used to do sports climbing, and won the junior national championship at age 15, (and came in 10'th in the adults 2 weeks later) so if theres a climbable obstacle, i can prolly get over it, even if most people wouldn't consider it climbable.

I'm planning on starting at martial arts this fall, and since they'll prolly force me to run, learning some parkour would actually be nice.

 

[ViolentlyHappy91]

What exactly is Parkour?

Parkour is getting from point A to B as fast and effectively as possible, using the surrounding environment and jumps, leaps and vaults. It's a discipline, a sport and a good workout. Look it up in wikipedia if you want to know more, or just visit one of the parkour forums.

 

[Nargleblarg]

I would do it only if I gained super biological powers and needed to kill people.....oh wait this sounds familiar

 

[TopHatTim]

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.

Im in really good shape and i cant really do 30 minutes of it...

andi havnt seen anyone do it in the UK yet...even though tis suppsoed to be popular

 

[ViolentlyHappy91]

The idea of parkour is a lot more appealing to me than most (any?) other sports, but considering the low, low opinion I have about sports in general that's not saying much.
Still and all, I'd probably try it out, but it seems to me it carries much higher risks of loss of life or limb than, well, sports in which you don't jump over/under/from very hard, tall and bone-breaking things.

Start small, that's all the advise I can really give you apart from practice, because usually, it's not dangerous.

 

[teisjm]

What exactly is Parkour?

Parkour is getting from point A to B as fast and effectively as possible, using the surrounding environment and jumps, leaps and vaults. It's a discipline, a sport and a good workout. Look it up in wikipedia if you want to know more, or just visit one of the parkour forums.

It's what you do when your blink/teleport device is broken.

 

[Spirit_Of_Fire]

What exactly is Parkour?

Parkour is getting from point A to B as fast and effectively as possible, using the surrounding environment and jumps, leaps and vaults. It's a discipline, a sport and a good workout. Look it up in Wikipedia if you want to know more, or just visit one of the Parkour forums.

Sounds interesting, I might just see if there are any in my local area.

 

[traceur_]

Am I the only person that finds parkour rather silly? I had some friends who did it in high school and I joined them once or twice but frankly there's no point in it as a sport. When going some where if there's a fence in my way I'll jump over it sometimes but to call that a sport seems a bit off to me. Yeah it looks cool to jump over a car but why do it in practice outside of parkour? I could jump a car and all but why not just walk around it? The fact that you're putting yourself in the way of injury when it's not required is just silly. There is no purpose of it outside of itself, unless we go to a post apocolyptic future filled with tracking robots that can't understand the concept of elevation while floating you don't use it outside itself. You say you can use it to jump a fence that's in your way but sometimes fences are there for a reason, like to keep tigers or changelings in (or more realistically to keep people out). To me it seems a bit twatish and conceited.

However I will say that it's decent exercise (there's alot better ones though) and it does look good, but really it's more of a way to show off how cool and hip you think you are.

Of course parkour isn't necessary in all situations, using it as you described is indeed overkill. However it is very useful in overcoming obstacles that cannot be overcome by mundane means. It's all about shortcuts, when you do parkour for a while you really do see the world in a different way, little shortcuts that you never saw before or deemed significant become very obvious and useful. It's also about efficiency and speed. I would wager that a traceur could vault a fence faster than a non-traceur could jump it and could climb a fence much faster than non-traceur. Vaulting conserves energy because when you vault, you put less energy into the jump and absorb less force on impact with the ground because when vaulting, the body does not travel as far vertically. There is also the slight bit of control one has when vaulting since you can make last second adjustments.

Because, at a fundamental level it is about escaping, at any location with an intended access point, a traceur can exploit many other points through which to exit and/or escape.

Spoiler: for example

A confrontation, during which violence would be inevitable, occurs at this location, do you a)run away via the stairs which are about seven meters away if my memory serves or b)vault this rail and get a big head start on your pursuer and/or would be attacker

Could you explain what you mean by "there is no purpose of it outside of itself"? I don't understand.

 

[Zillar]

There's a parkour club in my town, and I'm seriously thinking about joining. I'm not very strong at all, though, so I'm kind of worried. I don't think I would ever really do it, you know, as in jumping over rooftops and whatnot. Just maybe learn the basics and practice in places where I wouldn't die from a hobby. I'm not that hardcore.

 

[HardRockSamurai]

It sounds like a really great way to stay in shape and look awesome at the same time. Me on the other hand, I'll just stick to swimming.

 

[letsnoobtehpwns]

I really want to do it but I can't jump far enough. I run distance for my track team but I don't do the long jump.

 

[DarkRyter]

I'm neither fit, nor cool enough to participate in parkour, but I can still listen to French synth pop.

 

[Ophiuchus]

There's plenty of it going on in London. I wanted to get into it a while back but the recommended exercise regime really put me off.

Now... I just think I'm too old. I figure it's best to get into that stuff when you're young, starting out a couple of months short of 26 isn't exactly ideal.

 

[Hedberger]

I do something that resembles parkour, sort of, despite living 100 kilometers from nearest town. Me and some friends try to get into abandoned industrial buildings. It's really interesting actually and involves a lot of climbing. We rarely try to be acrobatic though.

 

[Leaper]

Am I the only person that finds parkour rather silly? I had some friends who did it in high school and I joined them once or twice but frankly there's no point in it as a sport. When going some where if there's a fence in my way I'll jump over it sometimes but to call that a sport seems a bit off to me. Yeah it looks cool to jump over a car but why do it in practice outside of parkour? I could jump a car and all but why not just walk around it? The fact that you're putting yourself in the way of injury when it's not required is just silly. There is no purpose of it outside of itself, unless we go to a post apocolyptic future filled with tracking robots that can't understand the concept of elevation while floating you don't use it outside itself. You say you can use it to jump a fence that's in your way but sometimes fences are there for a reason, like to keep tigers or changelings in (or more realistically to keep people out). To me it seems a bit twatish and conceited.

However I will say that it's decent exercise (there's alot better ones though) and it does look good, but really it's more of a way to show off how cool and hip you think you are.

Actually, for most of the people I know (and for me) it's not just a sport, not just simple jumping around. It's a discipline, even a way of life. It's about controlling yourself, expresing yourself, overcoming your fears and obstacles. We don't do it to be able to jump over fences, we, dont do it to show off, we do it because we think its simply beautiful. When you watch how experienced traceur improvises and just moves around in space surrounding him so freely and fluidly you start to realize how much meaning is behind this discipline. The guys who invented it called it L'art du deplacement (art of movement) not without a reason.

 

[Pigletdude]

Been training parkour for 3 years, infact just got back from a jam, very tired now. Cat get ups bloody tire you out.

 

[Tharwen]

Borderline off-topicness to follow:

If there is a game about walking for the Wii, why not a parkour game?!?