16. Parkour

Oops, first slip up of the blog. I’m falling behind a bit in my posts due to playing Majora’s Mask during the day and hanging out with friends at night. Well I’ve been going for two weeks, and honestly that’s longer than I expected to last. I’ll try to up my count and post two pages per day until I’m caught up.

Enough of that, today I want to talk about parkour. I wanted to create a character named Anna that was agile, flexible, and fast. So I figured she would have a hobby that would teach her those skills. At first I was leaning towards her being a gymnast. But then realized the character was such a loner she probably wouldn’t last on the team for very long. So after spending a fair amount of time a month ago researching uneven bar and floor routines, I come back again to start looking into parkour techniques.

Parkour is a French term, meaning “the art of displacement”. This sounds a lot more like something studied at Hogwarts, but it’s cool none the less. To my surprise and happiness, a person who does parkour is a traceur. A majority of the terms in parkour are French, with a lot of different ‘sauts’ or jumps, and words like ‘demi-tour’ for u-turn and ‘passement’ for vault. I never learning such an active hobby could sound so fancy!

But I had to clear away a few misconceptions first. Parkour is separate from acrobatics. Acrobats do the fancy flips and spin around in the air. They like to have a flair of style when they perform. Parkour is all about getting from point A to point B, and a building or a fence happens to be in the way. Traceurs focus more on the economy of movement and getting past obstacles. I think I prefer the parkour mentality. It also helps that while researching this topic on the Nerd Fitness website, they keep mentioning that parkour is great for escaping zombies. Here’s the website, which is a very informative read: http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2010/08/12/the-definitive-guide-to-parkour-for-beginners/.

There’s also a lot of philosophy tied into this sport. One of the primary founders is Williams Belle, and he describes this sport as a form of expression. It means becoming one with the world around you rather than just passing it by. It also means overcoming mental and emotional obstacles along with the physical one. Erm, I can take or leave the philosophy. I can understand being passionate about something, and finding peace in a hobby. But that sounds like a little much for a beginner to swallow. I do however believe that it improves confidence, critical thinking, and, of course, physical fitness. You have to have all three or else you would probably have a lot of bruises and pulled muscles by the end of the day.

But perhaps the one thing I learned from this is the dedication to the craft. You’ve probably seen dozens of videos of awesome parkour, free running, and acrobatic moves. But the fitness website from above outlines the basics needed before tackling 6 foot high walls and 5 foot jumps. First comes the exercise (I read that with a little groan.) with sets of 10 squats, 10 leg lifts, 10 push-ups, 10 pull-ups. Then comes ramping up the number and sets, moving up to 100 of even more difficult exercises, like box jumps and clapping push-ups. Looking at the traceurs do jumps and flips with ease is apparently not as effortless as it appears.

I liked learning about this sport a lot. And this particular blog post has helped me with my character Anna a lot. Understanding the dedication necessary for parkour gave her a determination and confidence I did not imagine her having. As well as a lovely quirk where she throws herself out of windows in front of others. I look forward to developing her more, and perhaps learning a bit more about basic parkour.