Parkour is a physical activity that consists in overcoming obstacles on the road. Parkour is an extreme sport and certainly an extremely demanding and spectacular form of movement. Check the definition and genesis of parkour, learn the basic running techniques, and find out what the difference between parkour and freerun is.
Contents:
- Parkour - definition
- Parkour - games and movies
- Parkour - learning
- Parkour - beginnings
- Parkour - training
- Parkour - safety rules
- Parkour - glossary of terms
- Parkour - what skills does he develop?
- Parkour a freerun
Parkouris not only "flying around the city", but most of all a sport that strengthens our psyche, so it's never too late to learn parkour! No wonder that parkour can also be found in computer games or movies.
Have you noticed a group of people jumping over fences, evolving on poles and running over roofs and walls? These are the tracers who practice parkour! This spectacular sport is about overcoming obstacles in our way, and which path the traceur will choose depends on his experience and imagination.
Learning parkour is not the easiest one, but it is definitely worth it - this sport teaches not only physical strength, but also mental strength. The definition of parkour has long since begun to extend beyond the usual form of outdoor activity. Parkour is first and foremost a sport that reflects life and the difficult situations encountered on the way to the goal. It teaches perseverance, overcoming internal fears and shows that if we only want to, we can overcome every obstacle. Find out more about parkour!
Parkour - definition
Parkour is a physical activity from France. Parkour was created by the French actor and athlete David Belle.
The term "parkour" was coined in 1998 and is a neologism from French and Latin. Parkour means "the art of traveling" and this is what the sport is all about. The idea of parkour is to efficiently overcome obstacles encountered in the city. The most important thing is to do it as simply as possible without losing strength and speed. It is the latter principle that strongly separates parkour fromfreerun with which it is often confused.
Worth knowingA man who practices parkour is called a traceur and a woman is called a traceuse. In our country there are also polonized names of runners - tracer and tracer.
Parkour - games and movies
Parkour has become such a popular and interesting sport that several feature films have been made about it, and some even starred by David Belle himself. Parkour movies include "Yamakasi - Modern Samurai", "Yamakasi 2: Sons of the Wind", "District 13", "Ultimatum District 13", "Brick Mansions Best of the Best". Two English documentaries were also made: "Jump London" and "Jump Britain" depicting freerunning that emerged from parkour and turned into a separate sport.
The most famous game in which we can find parkour is Assassin's Creed, in which the hero runs around the city, climbs buildings, jumps on roofs and performs various other stunts. However, the plot of this game is very different from parkour. We can successfully call the parkour game "Mirror's Edge" and "Mirror's Edge Catalyst", where we play the role of a courier called Faith, who is a tracer. Other parkour or background parkour games include "Minecraft Parkour" "Vector", "Spire", "Hover" and "Dying Light".
Parkour - learning
Learning parkour will be rewarding and safe if we don't train on our own. There are many traceura clubs and associations in Poland, and meetings there are free of charge. Some of the clubs include Krakowski Parkour, Parkour Białystok Association, Flow Motion Sports Club in Poznań, Parkour United in Warsaw, Parkour Wrocław, Movement Sports Club in Gdańsk and Gdynia.
Parkour is classified as an extreme sport and not everyone can afford to practice it. The adventure with parkour should begin after the final stage of adolescence, i.e. after the age of 18. Then our body, fully formed, may be exposed to new tests and more difficult sports challenges.
The science of parkour can be practiced everywhere: in the city, in parks, old factories, or even in the mountains. There are many specially adapted parks for parkour training in Poland, which allow for independent training or participation in outdoor activities.
The first lessons always start with the assessment of mobility and learning basic parkour techniques, e.g. roll, monkey, precision jump. Basic exercises to improve the technique are also performed, e.g. jumps, push-ups, pull-ups, squats, jump-landings, handstands, forward and back flips. Over time it moves on tomore and more complicated techniques, and their skillful combination consists of the so-called the flow of the run.
Parkour - beginnings
The genesis of parkour is difficult to define. The sport started more or less when a group of children from the French town of Lisses played in the yard by climbing trees, clothes pegs, roofs and gates. Children practiced effective jumps and techniques of overcoming obstacles encountered on their way. The official parkour creator David Belle was in this group.
Interestingly, he taught others what his father showed him after returning from the Indochina war. Initially his group was called Yamakasi (Lingala for "strong man, strong spirit"), but when David Belle became an adult, he left it and began to act on his own. Then, with the help of his friend Hubert Kounde, he created the name parkour and made it famous all over the world.
Parkour - training
The form of traceura is demonstrated by technique, strength, speed, flexibility and a sense of balance. To achieve this, you need to train systematically and consistently overcome more and more difficult gymnastic paths. Strength is trained with additional strength exercises between runs, speed is simply sprint training between obstacles, flexibility is provided by the traceur stretching, and a sense of balance is exercised while walking on walls and bars. The parkour technique is already practiced during specific movements and tricks in the encounter with obstacles.
ImportantParkour - safety rules
Parkour even includes its own rules of conduct during training, which allow you to stay safe and develop properly. Here are some rules:
- Before attempting to negotiate an obstacle, always make sure it is safe
- Don't be reckless, be careful and take your time
- Don't overestimate your skills
- Don't practice difficult techniques yourself
- Train without pressure
- Gradually increase the difficulty of the training
- Avoid high altitudes when starting your parkour adventure
- Always stay focused
- Learn from more experienced traceurs
Parkour - glossary of terms
Parkour is not a single running technique, but a whole of it, which is referred to as "flow". Parkour shouldn't be divided only into specific techniques and tricks, but neither is it a physical activity completely devoid of guidelines. Contrary to appearances, it has quite a lot of them! Popular parkour techniques include :
- Roll
It's just a forward roll, but done through the shoulder. This technique belongs tobasic techniques in parkour and is used to land and stop a run. It is performed after a long jump or a jump from a height. It allows not only to brake the run, but also to safely end a stage of it. Moreover, the roll is an excellent introduction to training other, more difficult techniques, such as forward somersault or dive roll.
- Monkey
It's a squat jump over an obstacle. It is the basic element of overcoming obstacles by means of jumps. Monkey allows you to deal with really high obstacles. It is performed mainly when you encounter barriers and bars on your way. It is perfect for combining it with other techniques.
- Kong
This technique is derivative of Monkey, but much more difficult than him. It consists of a long jump in front of an obstacle that we encounter, jumping over it and landing using the monkey technique - that is, first the hands and then the legs placed between them. It looks extremely effective and can be used when we run into a long, but quite low obstacle, e.g. a wall or a bench.
- Precision jump
It is performed by jumping forward, taking off both sides and landing in a specific location. Precision stroke is mainly used at heights to get to the other side. It is most often performed by jumping on the roofs of buildings or high walls. In the case of ground running, the normal gear is chosen rather than the precision jump for getting from place to place.
- Lazy vault
It allows you to easily and quickly overcome obstacles, especially when we encounter their temporary compaction. It consists in leaning against an obstacle with one hand and jumping over it sideways. This makes the lazy vault always a great way out of the more difficult stages of the run.
Parkour - what skills does he develop?
Parkour develops many physical and mental skills. The first ones include:
- strength increase
- improvement of physical condition
- immunization of the body against injuries and overload
- improvement of body stabilization and sense of balance
- increase flexibility
- increasing motor coordination
- improving orientation in the field
- developing speed and strength
- learning to fall safely
The skills and psychological benefits that can be gained by practicing parkour include:
- greater resistance to failure
- increasing self-confidence
- ability to deal with stress
- ability to overcome obstacles and fears
- self-discipline learning
- learning persistence on the way to the goal
Parkour a freerun
Parkour is very often confused with a freerun and it should come as no surprise to anyone - these sports are remarkably similar at first glance! However, they are so different that you can separate them from each other and create two different extreme sports.
Freerunning is a sport that derives from parkour, but has slightly different rules. Sebastien Foucan is considered to be the precursor, who defined freerun as acrobatic run. In parkour, speed and simplicity are the most important, while in freerun, tricks are added to individual techniques, which are to diversify the run and make it not effective, but most of all effective! Tricks in freerun include palm spin, wall spin and various acrobatic tricks called flips.
People practicing freerun think about the most effective way to overcome a given obstacle, and tracers how to do it as quickly as possible. Freerunning also differs from parkour in terms of the goal of training, which is designed to give you inner pleasure without deriving any external benefits, e.g. financial.