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Parkour


888ball

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I was always thinking about making a topic about this, but my topics tend to get ignored and I doubt it would generate interest. But I saw a Parkour userbar in Slayer's sig so i guess at least one person will be interested.

Le Parkour (also called Parkour, PK) is a physical discipline of French origin in which participants attempt to pass obstacles in a smooth and rapid manner.

Parkour is said to be l'art du déplacement, or the art of moving (from A to B.), consisting of uninterrupted forward motion over, under, around and through obstacles (both man-made and natural) in one's environment. Such movement may come in the form of running, jumping, climbing and other more complicated techniques. The goal of the practice of parkour is to be able to adapt one's movement to any given situation so that any obstacle can be overcome with the human body's abilities.

Source: Wikipedia

I got interested in Parkour or free running straight after the documentary "Jump Britain" was aired in the UK. I guess what i saw inspired me, ive always like climbing, assault corses and jumping things, but i was inspired to take this to the next level. I decided to become a "Traceur" (a practitioner of the sport). I tried small jumps and vaults at first but after some training and dedication, i can now do large jumps followed by rolls and a number of advanced vaults and other rather cool moves.

Me and my friends like to train occasionally although Warrington is probably not the best area for it, we have plans to make a video which i will post when its completed and i will also post some shots of us.

And incase your interested, around two weeks ago just after lunch in my school i decided to try a monkey vault over a rail on the top some stairs, ive done it before although i guess i lacked concentration. Just as i was in the peak of my vault, i clipped my feet and fell from head height flat on my front with my arms out, I busted both wrists and my right elbow rather badly three hours in hospital later, i think i learned my lesson.

So if your interested in starting or you already are a practitioner im interested to hear from you.

If you want good information and tutorials Urban Freeflow is probably the way to go.

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Yeah, I've been practicing PK for a year now. How long have you been practicing?

Dunno what to say, didn't expect anyone to know what PK is. Anyway, I'd like to see your video when it comes out. I've recorded a video with my crew but I haven't captured it to my comp (gotta install new drivers) so I haven't edited it yet, but I'll give you a link if you're interested.

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I thought its too risky but i liked it though

Well, if you learn the basics first (roll and landing) and a few common vaults, then move on to more complicated moves (wallspin, one-handed reverse, kash...) you won't bail. I never had a serious bail. I insisted on learning roll and landing first, then move on to vaults and combinations.

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Yeah, I've been practicing PK for a year now. How long have you been practicing?

Around a year and a half i think. Since Jump Britain, whenever that was.

Geez i never did the roll... :nope: I was too afraid :weird:

The roll should be learnt very quickly, you will find it very useful. Before the first one i did i had drank a litre of lucozade so i was rather hyperactive and wasn't really thinking straight. The roll isn't exactly a fixed technique to learn, it should come naturally from the momentum of your jump. If you dont have enough momentum, you will feel it, otherwise it shouldnt hurt at all or you will ignore it because of the adrenaline. After you start doing them then you should start working to perfect your technique, but the roll isnt exactly one of those things that must be flashy and perfect, as long as it serves its purpose well. Try watching some videos of rolls for examples, i find trying to learn it from text is very difficult.

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Geez i never did the roll... :nope: I was too afraid :weird: But can you do it well? And the harder things you talked about?

Yep, I can do it on concrete just like that. It's pretty much about doing is sideways so that you don't hit your shoulder on concrete and to do it quicky as well.

And yes, I can do things like wallspin, kash, one-handed reverse, one-handed palm spin, 270 Tic-tac... but I don't use them at all except kash. All these moves are very easy to do (270 tic-tac is quite hard to learn and wallspin looks so scary to do it first time) but as I said, they look good but have no use in flow, so basically, they're crap.

Anyway, here are vids Vaults 101 and Vaults 102 that list almost all vaults in PK for those who don't know what parkour is.

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Hmm... Don't you think the Olympics should consider this as one of their 'sports'? I mean, it's really awesome, one of my school cliques does it. I never get bored watching them. B)

I think its too.... I dont know.... Too unique to be olympics? I mean like its same as "snowboarding" on sand in desert. Too... different.... But its one of the best 'sports' i think... :yup:

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Parkour is not a sport. Whenever it comes to sport, that consideres competition. There is no competiton in parkour. Parkour is a skill.

Just like ice-skating, they get judged on a scale of 1 to 10. Depending on how stylish they do it.

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Just had to annouce, I've transfered video clips to my comp and I'll proably start editing it today and post my vid here in a few days. Bad thing is that stupid guy from my crew has overwritten my footage (we shooted with his camera instead of mine, unfortunately) and put some of his crap on it instead of those older things that kicked ass (I jumped from 4m on concrete and a few times from 3 meters) and he put crap like monkey vault on 1m high rail and him running up the stairs :thumbsdown: (on top of that he has applied video filter while recording) . So now I have only 30% of good footage and I'm not enthusiastic about editing it anymore, so I might just do a few basic editing techniques and finish it.

@Eddie: How can you rate the amount of flow in vaults? It's not about style. There are things called "style vaults" (like thief 360, dash 180, vert to turn...). They are fun to watch and preform but not the point of Parkour. The point is to move from point A to point B as fast as you can without avoiding obstacles, not to score 10 points by preforming thief 360 or barrel vault on the way.

Edited by Slayer
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