Pirates and Parkour: Part 2

We’re about to suggest setting aside Mirror’s Edge and Tomb Raider while you give parkour a try for real. Before starting we must state that: PARKOUR, FREE RUNNING AND TRICKING ARE EXTREME SPORTS WHICH REQUIRE PROPER TRAINING AND TUITION TO PERFORM SAFELY. The spectacular parkour seen in movies is the result of lots of training and tuition, so don’t watch a couple of videos on YouTube and go out and injure yourself!

There is plenty anyone can do to start to become sufficiently athletic and mindful to become a traceur or traceuse. There is also plenty of low level, fast parkour that can be as efficient or ‘true’ to parkour as some of the more stunt or trick based athleticism.

Parkour and free runnings’ roots lie in our natural instinct to climb, jump, clamber and explore as kids. Walking along walls, jumping fences and climbing trees is great fun but before long young kids are told to ‘get down’, ‘hurry up’ and ‘grow up’.

Acrobatic play soon becomes limited to the restricted area of the play park, and ‘athletic’ kids are encouraged to specialise and conform to the highly regimented ‘anything goes – at any cost’ world of international sport. Many more kids are simply left with the impression that they’re sporting failures, because they don’t excel in competition at an early age.

Parkour and free running escape many of the difficulties linked to ‘traditional’ competitive sports. The ‘gym’ is everywhere, the competition is self-competition and cheating means cheating yourself. From a traceur’s or traceuse’s point of view it is simply neither efficient nor sufficiently self-disciplined to become distracted by competing for trophies.

Thanks to JB London for the Creative Commons image.

So how do you go from walking along a wall when you’re five to becoming a traceur/ traceuse? The requirements include athleticism, spatial awareness, tuition and access to places to train. Parents who allow an extra ten minutes for clambering around on the way to the shops or set up obstacle courses in the garden in the summer can help at a key stage.

From there kids need to find sports and activities that can contribute.  Cheerleading, rock climbing, gymnastics and diving are all sufficiently dynamic to help. As are most martial arts, which often share the type of self-competitive or self-disciplined mindset found in parkour.

Access to opportunities to develop basic skills ‘on the ground’ are also important. Adventure playgrounds, parks and woodlands can be ideal places to learn basic moves without height or concrete.

Thanks to pdeperio for the Creative Commons image.

The next step up can be the hardest to arrange. Sooner or later parkour calls for tuition. There are some regions where that’s available at a reasonable cost. There are many places where no tuition is available or not until you’re a teenager.

Local authorities, schools and youth clubs could bridge the gap here by taking responsibility for developing an accessible pastime, which encourages athleticism, self-control and thought before action.

Some schools and clubs still use a physical education game called ‘Crow’s Nest’, ‘Captain’s Coming’ or ‘Battleship’. Kids follow a series of ‘orders’ such as:

“Climb the Rigging”: pretend to climb a rope ladder

“Captain’s Coming”: stand to attention and salute

“Admiral’s Coming”: stand to attention and salute until told not to

“Man Overboard”:  pretend to jump into water and swim

“Port/ Starboard/ Bow/ Stern”: run to left/ right/ front/ back

“Sharks”: get back to the start line in the centre

There are many different versions of the game with lots of different commands. It offers exactly the right types of exercise and enough fun to help to develop the skills required for parkour.

One variant called Pirates involves setting out gym equipment such as ropes, mats, benches and vaults to form an obstacle course. The gym equipment becomes the ‘ship’ or ‘deck’ and a couple of ‘pirates’ pursue the ‘crew’. Commands are largely gone and players who have been caught are allowed back into play after a quick ‘time out’.

This is similar to the approach taken during gym-based parkour sessions, where a course is laid out and students learn the skills needed to get round the course before trying out the course.

We don’t know if we’ll have encouraged anyone to put down the game controller but we’ll live in hope and finish off with a few links to sites that offer information about parkour training:

http://www.urbanfreeflow.com/

http://www.americanparkour.com/

http://www.britishparkour.org.uk/index.php

http://www.parkourgenerations.com/