The StuSie

It ain't Spiderman, but he's jumping buildings in a single bound...

I always thought that freestyle walking was a funny thing one did after a night of copius drinking. A heel grab here, a 360 there, and so forth...but during my latest travails in England at the Rodriguez-Casado household, I was informed by Marco (Cristo's brother) that there exists a much less humorous (if not more impressive) form of freestyle Bewegung. Apparently, it has gained in popularity following a handful of television spots in Britain and beyond by various sports companies such as Nike. As the founders were most likely not drunk at the time like we freestyle walkers, they came up with the much more creative moniker Parkour.
The French founders of Parkour, or 'free running', Sebastien Foucan and David Belle, are actually phenomenal athletes, and their sport consists less of heel grabs and spins, and more of jumping massive gaps between tall buildings, climbing seemingly unclimbable walls, and generally making like Captain Picard and going places in the city and in the country where no man has gone before. When I watched the first video I pretty much thought it was fake, because its no longer necessary for people to take these kinds of risks when we have computer animation and all that other new-fangled technology stuff to wow unsuspecting audiences. But, in fact, Parkour is about fitness and a philosophy of fluid movement, and the kind of mastery of the body that these guys achieve allows them to do things that seem completely impossible. What makes Parkour even more interesting is its philosophical connection with eastern thought and fluidity. On his website, Foucan has yin yang symbols and various quotes relating to harmony and other for-me-incomprehensible metaphysical whatnot. When looking at the videos it looks like, as with the monks of Tibet, the pro-Parkour fellas have managed to become superhuman in some respects. Now, I'm sure that they injure themselves like any athlete, but it's clear that the level of flexibility and strength they have limits these injuries in comparison to, say, a 400 pound NFL lineman who has a heart attack when he has to run a few laps.
Parkour is based upon a rather limited number of 'moves', which when mastered allow the runner to pretty much go anywhere. The 'cat leap', for example, is used for gaps where the goal cannot be reached with the feet. The runner jumps, catches and holds his body weight by the edge of the wall, then pulls himself up onto the other side. If anyone has ever played Prince of Persia or Tomb Raider on the computer, you already know this one. When jumping gaps with drops in height (sometimes exceeding 15m horizontally and 3 to 5m vertically!) the runner transfers any downward momentum into forward momentum by dropping into a roll. In general, all of these moves demand a combination of gymnastic ability and raw athleticism and strength (not to mention some diamond-hard cajones).
In a way these free runners sound like a sort of transcendental, overachieving and more ambitious form of skateboarding street punks. You can be sure that they're not slipping off into the alley after a hard day of cat-leaps for a doobie, and they've exchanged the loose-crotched trousers of their cousin street punks for sweat-wicking, high-freedom-of-movement sport pants. There is no question that these guys do some pretty amazing stuff, and I'm interested to see if, and how rapidly, this movement finds a larger audience. The best Parkour videos can be found at the following website. Check 'em out: Parkour Videos.

posted by der Mistfink @ 04:02