Par for the Course
One of the many reasons I love the Internet, in spite of the fact that it eats great quantities of my time: it holds so many surprises. In fact, it creates surprises.
In the case of parcours (or Parkour), here is a sport created by an inventive athlete with probably too much time and testosterone, and literally spread, virally, via the Internet.
Parcours (by the course, or route, in French) "is a quasi commando system of leaps, vaults, rolls, and landings designed to help a person avoid or surmount whatever lies in his path," explains Alec Wilkinson, in an article in the April New Yorker. Parcours is also called "the art of displacement." The object of parcours is to move from point A to point B as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body
There is something slightly zen about parcours. Explained by one practitioner, most of the time you aren't "doing" parcours, you are practicing. The actual doing of it happens when you engage on a path, or way, and follow it. Most of the time, you are practicing moves that allow you to fluidly traverse that path, whatever may lie in your way - walls, railings, steps, drops, etc. Wikipedia explains, "In addition, since parkour's unofficial motto is être et durer (to be and to last), efficiency also involves avoiding injuries, short and long-term."
The young man credited with inventing parcours is a suburban Parisian, David Belle. Watching Belle, it's clear that he has a gift for something - perhaps just making the physically impossible seem easy. He runs up the side of a wall, somersaults off of it, runs to the edge of a roof, handstands on it, then pushes off and lands lightly on his feet ten feet down, does a forward roll and is off at a graceful trot, pausing only to spin horizontally off a basketball hoop stand. Describing it just doesn't do it justice, though, so go see it for yourself: on YouTube
or Google "parcours" or "David Belle."
While it is a sport mainly for young, urban men, there are a handful of women involved. Female practitioners are known as traceuses, males as traceurs. A related activity is "free running," an art which incorporates street stunts and tricks. "The aims of parkour are reach, the ability to quickly access areas that would otherwise be inaccessible, and escape, the ability to evade pursuers, which means the main intention is to clear their objects as efficiently as they can while free running is concerned more with aesthetics and the beauty of the certain vault, jump, etc," says Wikipedia.
Also worth watching is the widely disseminated video of David Belle taking a fall. We're reminded "He (Belle) said that this is what he lives for, this realness, this feeling that his life is real, that things can happen, that life is unpredictable."
One of the many reasons I love the Internet, in spite of the fact that it eats great quantities of my time: it holds so many surprises. In fact, it creates surprises.
In the case of parcours (or Parkour), here is a sport created by an inventive athlete with probably too much time and testosterone, and literally spread, virally, via the Internet.
Parcours (by the course, or route, in French) "is a quasi commando system of leaps, vaults, rolls, and landings designed to help a person avoid or surmount whatever lies in his path," explains Alec Wilkinson, in an article in the April New Yorker. Parcours is also called "the art of displacement." The object of parcours is to move from point A to point B as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body
There is something slightly zen about parcours. Explained by one practitioner, most of the time you aren't "doing" parcours, you are practicing. The actual doing of it happens when you engage on a path, or way, and follow it. Most of the time, you are practicing moves that allow you to fluidly traverse that path, whatever may lie in your way - walls, railings, steps, drops, etc. Wikipedia explains, "In addition, since parkour's unofficial motto is être et durer (to be and to last), efficiency also involves avoiding injuries, short and long-term."
The young man credited with inventing parcours is a suburban Parisian, David Belle. Watching Belle, it's clear that he has a gift for something - perhaps just making the physically impossible seem easy. He runs up the side of a wall, somersaults off of it, runs to the edge of a roof, handstands on it, then pushes off and lands lightly on his feet ten feet down, does a forward roll and is off at a graceful trot, pausing only to spin horizontally off a basketball hoop stand. Describing it just doesn't do it justice, though, so go see it for yourself: on YouTube
or Google "parcours" or "David Belle."
While it is a sport mainly for young, urban men, there are a handful of women involved. Female practitioners are known as traceuses, males as traceurs. A related activity is "free running," an art which incorporates street stunts and tricks. "The aims of parkour are reach, the ability to quickly access areas that would otherwise be inaccessible, and escape, the ability to evade pursuers, which means the main intention is to clear their objects as efficiently as they can while free running is concerned more with aesthetics and the beauty of the certain vault, jump, etc," says Wikipedia.
Also worth watching is the widely disseminated video of David Belle taking a fall. We're reminded "He (Belle) said that this is what he lives for, this realness, this feeling that his life is real, that things can happen, that life is unpredictable."
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