Parkour/free running

[garcia1000]

Hey guys,

Anyone here do either of the above things? I have read up on them and watched some videos. I find it very interesting. Here's some questions for you guys:

Is the risk of injury high?

Will it cause long-term damage to joints, or will it improve the healthiness of joints?

Which is more important, strength or flexibility?

How difficult is it to pick up?

What would be "prerequisites" for this? For example, it would definitely be helpful if you knew gymnastics before picking this up. Any other things that would help?


I've been doing yoga exercise for half a year and I am increasing my joint and tendon flexibility. I don't think I am ready to take up parkour or free running yet, but you never know!

Would love to hear from people who do this.

[Noodles.]

Yes, damage, both, difficult, not really.

[cts]

the vids are pretty sweet

[plzleenowhammy]

assassin's creed

[Yeti]

garcia,

I think you would be better off exposing this thread to a wider audience in OOT, or finding a dedicated parkour forum somewhere. It seems too specific of a topic for EDF.

[El Diablo]

Yeti: However, one of the EDF mods is a super fan of parkour, so perhaps this thread will do OK!

garcia: I think this is one of the coolest sports around. Gymnastics is definitely a very helpful base skill to have. There are plenty of parkour clubs in tons of cities now where anyone can get started, but the more gymnastics training/experience you have before getting started, the better. In terms of being able to do stuff, strength is hugely critical (as is flexibility). But in terms of preventing injury, flexibility is probably more important. Wikipedia has a bunch of good background info, and there are tons of great videos on YouTube. David Belle and Sébastien Foucan are two prominent parkour guys who have tons of great videos up. I started a Parkour video thread in LOL a while back. This Russian video is one of my favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxv8SS1XU_8

[ QUOTE ]
Yeti: However, one of the EDF mods is a super fan of parkour, so perhaps this thread will do OK!

garcia: I think this is one of the coolest sports around. Gymnastics is definitely a very helpful base skill to have. There are plenty of parkour clubs in tons of cities now where anyone can get started, but the more gymnastics training/experience you have before getting started, the better. In terms of being able to do stuff, strength is hugely critical (as is flexibility). But in terms of preventing injury, flexibility is probably more important. Wikipedia has a bunch of good background info, and there are tons of great videos on YouTube. David Belle and Sébastien Foucan are two prominent parkour guys who have tons of great videos up. I started a Parkour video thread in LOL a while back. This Russian video is one of my favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxv8SS1XU_8

[/ QUOTE ]

ED, I think they are from Latvia.

Sound is pretty cool

[aufbruch]

OP,

Initially try to think of Parkour as a philosophy of movement. Sébastien Foucan has made great efforts to make sure that it is understood as a discipline/school of thought as opposed to a 'sport' (ignore film roles/sponsorship deals). The main principle being that partaking in parkour comes from investigating our urban environments in new ways with our bodies - thus creating an accessible and ultimately 'free' physical philosophy.

Depending on how you want to approach your environment will decide what you will consider 'prerequisites'. If want to attempt incredible drops or roof gaps then your nerve is more important than your flexibility for example. Athletics, martial arts, yoga, dance and even contact sports are often referenced as teaching traits desirable to practitioners.

There are a few things you will find incredibly useful - strength, flexibility, nerve - but also stamina, focus, co-ordination, grace and persistance.

There are several simple building-block moves which are easily practiced in fairly private spaces and often used. Things like being able to improve the length and height of your jump, various styles of clearing rails, perfecting gripping onto ledges out of jumps etc. etc.

Finding others who are involved or want to be is vital to your progression. You are attempting to look at everything from a new perspective and other people are the best way to guide you into this. Even if you don't regularly run with them, community is an important aspect.

At the end of the day, your environment will affect how you move. Try to think of the experience as entirely fluid. Your style will progress over time - you don't have to spin and flip. I would rather watch a smooth runner every time than one who flips everything. Nobody can give you too many tips because it's your body to play with, however at some point in time your joints will be upset and you will get injured. Scrapes/grazes are standard, as are bust ankles from sketchy landings. Minimise it by warming everything up - you use muscles you wouldn't believe. Treat it with respect and you should have a blast.

Oh and Channel 4 in the UK did a cool documentary on this with some OK interviews with Sébastien Foucan. Probably worth a watch. Hope this helped.

[goofball]

In that video when that guy jumps backwards and does a front flip - that's really [censored] hard. It's much much harder than it looks and I imagine it looks fairly hard.

When i was coaching gymnastics I had a coworker who was super into this kind of thing so i screwed around with it a little, but never anything close to the level in the video. My coworker would do much crazier stuff than i would.

[skillzilla]

will this make you look like a tool?