Parkour is the art of moving in the most fluid manners while getting from point A to point B. It is a really kewl life style and am just trying to promote it a little bit to give those that do not like organized sports or even if they do just another fun thing to get into. It is another thing to do instead of just staying inside playing videogames all day (not that there is anything wrong with that) lol.
I will post some links to some sweet videos in a bit and am open to any questions or concerns about my topic including to try and help you guys with certain moves the best I can.
501st you can damage yourself you are right. I am not promoting for people to just go and jump off a building right off the bat. It is about self improvement. You start off with basics and if you don't want to go further than that then you don't have too. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder right? Anything can be art to someone. Just because you are completely against it doesn't mean it isn't art to others.
It seems to me that you just think it is jumping and running. There is so much more to it than that. People enjoy it for the conditioning, positive motivation in others, and the simple thrill of it. To me it is almost an extreme type of yoga if you will. You can agree that many respect yoga as an art form can you not? When I practice parkour I really get a chance to clear out my mind and just do something that I enjoy.
O and i have a pretty extensive background with sports and have seen kids become paralyzed and very badly injured playing soccer,baseball, and rugby. I bet that there are less injuries in parkour than in other sports. There isn't any peer pressure in it. If someone doesn't want to do somethign they don't have to there are many differnt ways to accomplish their goal which means it is physical self expression and expressing yourself in anything is art in my opinion.
Okay, here is what free running or parkour(I think it's French) is. It's gymnastic moves applied to everyday objects. what you do is like run up a wall do a back flip, or jump from building to building doing flips. or just sliding through bars. It's very muscle intensive, but it looks fun. You have to be in shape because most of it require you to run, because you need the momentum to be transfered to the next trick.
A more suddle type of this is referred to as"tricking" you basically do the same tricks but you don't run all over the place.
[url=http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Has_anyone_ever_been_killed_playing_football] This link isnt just broken necks, it contains actual deaths from football. Tennis, basketball, and volleyball usually involve sprains and even torn ligaments which can disable an experienced athelete for weeks.
Waterpolo players usually experience facial bone fractures which are also very serious. So, all sports come with their own dangers. And like Blitzkrieg77 already said, there is no pressure to attempt something in parkour.
Many would say that George Bush is an idiot and he's the President. So even if one were an idiot, they could do anything, even play football or basketball etc. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. Obviously, as in my case because I have a GPA of 3.8 in high school.
Also, where do you gather your information about most people? How could you possibly know about the opinions of most people? That's just an absurd statement to make.
Wow, whoever would have thought there were so many haters. Just to let you know, I came very close to deleting a number of posts in this thread because they come dangerously close to unacceptable flaming.
But I didn't, because since I'm a traceur myself (oh, snap!), that might constitute conflict of interest.
I think my points are as follows:
a) Parkour and free running are, like any other activity, something you can do for the love of it.
b) I like it because I'm hyperactive and am interested in notions of kinetic flow, but also because I'm always looking for ways of physical fitness. Also: ninja.
c) Parkour and free running are, unfortunately also like any other activity, something you can do because you think it's cool. This is generally associated with increased risk.
d) Risks of doing parkour/free running are, like many other activities, very significant. Even if you're not being an idiot, you can break bones. You can cause yourself permanent damage. You can die as a direct result of practicing parkour/free running. While deaths are minimal, serious injuries are common.
e) You can also do all of d) without even doing parkour and have people say that you were doing parkour, and personally I find this ignorant not to mention rather annoying. Therefore you'll find that a number of parkour communities distance themselves from hooliganism and encourage a kind of social responsibility. I can safely say that as a traceur I discourage tresspassing, any criminal disturbance of the peace, and not researching your route before you jump into it.
A more suddle type of this is referred to as"tricking" you basically do the same tricks but you don't run all over the place.
Tricking is often associated with free running but is not the same thing. They both require high athletic ability, though. Tricking is in fact acrobatic martial arts, free running can be thought of as an acrobatic marathon, or a really fancy urban version of steeplechase.
first of all, parkourist isn't even a word. and you obviously don't have a complete grasp of the full concept of parkour or free running. i would recommend actually researching it before deciding you hate it.
This thread seems to have degenerated into a flame war. Parkour and Free Running are both sports. They are difficult and both require speed, agility, balance and strength.
But like any sport, you can hurt your self if you try something out of your skill level or just something that is plain stupid. Just because someone gets hurt doesn't mean every one gets hurt or dies. Like many other people said, there have been many injuries in lots of other sports. But these are mostly all regrettable accidents, or people trying something before they are ready. This teenager probably tried something out of his reach. It's very sad, but it can happen in any sport.
its just gymnastics in public. if i saw someone doing it though i would think they had mental problems. ***not a joke*** try joining gymnastics if you like this...its just weird to do out in public
First of all it is olympic* and second it is a non-competitive sport which means the only way it would be in the olympics is if they made it competitive with time trials.
Anyways I'm done arguing. I just finally got down palm spins and am working on doing kong vaults. I don't even monkey vault much lol.
wow man do you freerun? i didnt really think anyone else would be freerunning....i ask everyone in my local town/city if they know what parkour or freerunning is..they all said no..so yeah i have been freerunning/parkour for along time now
