Tuesday, July 22, 2008

My Parkour Slideshow

Cerate your own path

We know how it is at ground level, we've been passing by at ground level for years, we know the roads were made for us, but no one ever took this way- David Belle

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Overcome Obstacles

This is a clip from a Japanese game show. The guy in it goes through a sick obstacle course that demands Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, & Accuracy. All of which are listed as the "10 general physical skills" as outlined by CrossFit. What makes them unique here is that it is done outside the box AND even outside the box of CrossFit. To perform these skills under constant variables such as various terrains, weather conditions, with spontaneity, and so much more can be called nothing less than a art. There certainly is a art to parkour. Those who have experienced it will agree.

Friday, July 11, 2008

The Outside In: Female Parkour

A great explanation, description, and perspective from a female practitioner of parkour. I could not have worded it better. This video truly shows that parkour is for everyone.


Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Impossible?

If you believe...you can break the laws of gravity. You can beat time. There are those who dream they can fly while sleeping, but there are also those who can really fly when awake...

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Methode Naturelle... The Grandfather of Parkour

Georges Hébert (1875-1957) was a pioneering French physical educator, theorist and instructor.
An officer in the French Navy prior to the First World War, Hébert was stationed in the town of St. Pierre in Martinique. In 1902 the town fell victim to a catastrophic volcanic eruption and Hebert heroically co-ordinated the escape and rescue of some seven hundred people from this disaster. This experience had a profound effect on him, and reinforced his belief that athletic skill must be combined with courage and altruism. He eventually developed this ethos into his personal motto, "Etre fort pour être utile" - "Be strong to be useful."
Hébert had travelled extensively throughout the world and was impressed by the physical development and movement skills of indigenous peoples in Africa and elsewhere:
Their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skilful, enduring, resistant and yet they had no other tutor in Gymnastics but their lives in Nature.
While still at sea, Hébert began to systematise a method of physical culture training patterned on the abilities of the indigenous peoples he had encountered.
Upon his return to France, Hebert became a physical education tutor at the College of Reims, where he began to define the principles of his own system of physical education and to create apparatus and exercises to teach his "Natural Method". As well as the "natural" training regimens he observed in Africa, he was inspired by classical representations of the human body in Graeco-Roman statuary and by the ideals of the ancient Greek gymnasia.
The final goal of physical education is to make strong beings. In the purely physical sense, the Natural Method promotes the qualities of organic resistance, muscularity and speed, towards being able to walk, run, jump, move quadrupedally, to climb, to walk in balance, to throw, lift, defend yourself and to swim.
A training session consists, then, of exercises in an outdoor environment - a course of greater or lesser distance (a few hundred meters to several kilometers), during which, one walks, one runs, one jumps, one progresses quadrupedally, one climbs, one walks in unstable balance, one raises and one carries, one throws, one fights and one swims.

This course can be carried out in 2 ways:
1 - the natural or spontaneous way; i.e., on an unspecified route through the countryside.
2 - within an especially designed environment.

All of the exercises can be carried out while progressing through this environment.
(info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_H%C3%A9bert)