Sunday, January 09, 2005

Free Running

I just learned about a sport that I never knew existed: an "urban sport" called Parkour, or Free Running. Wikipedia describes it as "an activity in which participants... attempt to clear all obstacles in their path in the most fluent manner possible. The ultimate goal in parkour is to ‘flow’ along one’s path, for the entire journey to be as one fluent movement with no pauses or breaks.... Free runners believe that there is path to every obstacle which is achieved through forward movement." Some video clips can be found at Le-Parkour.com.

I caught the end of Jump London on the Learning Channel just now and it was fascinating. Three guys spent a day practically flying all over London, climbing up and leaping between buildings, and scaling various landmarks like the Globe Theater and the HMS Belfast. They were like ninjas. The strength, agility and endurance it takes are incredible. And I definitely like the fact that there is a lot of focus on the flow of what they're doing -- they aren't just trying to get over a lot of buildings, but to do with with style. It's beautiful.

I feel like I should really go work out now or something.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hate to post anonymously. Anyhow, I just wanted to mention that this somehow came up during French class the other day, free running that is. It was interesting and I meant to check it out. Thanks for reminding me. :)

Kevin
boison.org

Anonymous said...

Hey man thatts great I free run all the time. Its lots of fun and it gets you in really good shape. A message for those who are thinking about starting start small and practise the fundamentals, then add your own style to it.
Visit this site
http://www.urbanfreeflow.com/

And this link will give you a list of the fundamentals to practise and how
http://www.urbanfreeflow.com/fundamentals/fundamentals.htm

SpAD.e of FreeStyle