Sunday, 29 March 2009

• Why I am Involved in Parkour

  
  

  I have never, ever been an athletic sort of person. The closest I ever got was when I was ten or so and played street hockey with my best friends once a week. That being said, I have almost ALWAYS been a physically active person.
  

  I never really had any sort of talent in any of the things I did (things ranging from ballet, to competitive swimming, to kickboxing, to rollerblading, to biking) , but I enjoyed being active and healthy and full of energy.

  Over the past couple of years, some of that love for movement faded in the wake of my new-found passions for poetry, music, and academics. I'm not sure why, but some way I think this is related to me flipping out this past summer when my boyfriend Jonathan told me he wanted to get into Parkour (If you have no idea what Parkour is, go here for a basic rundown: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkour); probably stereotypical cultural stigmas that I thought surrounded the activity were involved as well ( i.e. urban "street" life). I was utterly disdainful of his choice to participate in something that I considered trendy and ridiculous, and turned my nose up at his choice of activity.

  In July, somehow he managed to drag me along to a national Parkour jam in San Antonio; I could see this was important to him, so I agreed to tag along, although I had never felt more out of my element. Almost as soon as I got there, I realized there was a whole lot more to "this Parkour deal" than I ever could have imagined. I expected to be surrounded by urban jocks with inner-city accents and shiny cars blasting heavy-on-the-bass rap. What I found was an incredible range of variety in the lifestyles, ages, ect. of the people there (although there were about 10 guys for every girl I saw), but what most impressed me was that these people were calm, mature, and oddly philosophical about Parkour; to them, it's wasn't just a way to get around, it was the way they lived their lives. They were incredibly kind, accommodating, and encouraging to those new to this phenomenon.

  For these reasons, (and because I was terribly out of shape and sick of just biking the same old routes over...and over...and over...) I was immediately hooked. I don't necessarily see Parkour as a way of life, but I do think that it is useful and perhaps should be taught in self-defense classes (in the case of escaping a pursuer), and it's amazingly good exercise; not to mention way more fun than exercise should be allowed to be. Mostly, I think I am still involved today because of the Parkour community in Texas, specifically in Houston. I love being around individuals who aren't just surviving, who aren't just bumbling about in their mundane lives, but are actually living, growing, dynamic people who are never satisfied with the same ol', same ol'. This is meant in an emotional and mental sense of course, but also very literally as a physical: these people's bodies are literally building muscle and muscle memory, being trained new ways to move and becoming more refined overall in the way that they get around.

  I think this video, supplied by the Texas Parkour website (www.texasparkour.com) and an official selection for the 2008 Austin Film Festival, explains most of what I'm trying to say, sans the personal coloring: texasparkour.com. The guy doing most of the talking, Matthew Lee Willis, is a guy who I am acquainted with, who taught me some of the Parkour moves I still use today.

  Are you into other forms of activities such as parkour to stay in shape?  If so, what do you do?

  
  

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