Currently the SF Gold video has been pushed back due to conflicting schedules for the cast to get together (yes, there are actually more than 2 people working on this thing without counting me).

In the current dead time, I decided to help out a friend who had a bunch of parkour clips he and his friends made a while back and I just spliced em together real quick and added one of his favorite hip hop songs.



Anyhow... the thing, after seeing what these guys could do... I sort of want to do it myself. They are all atleast a year or two younger than me, and have been doing this for a couple of months.

I'm 18, and in less than 7 months 19... I am about 1.87m high and weigh oh.. 87 kg.

I haven't done any real excerise in a good year.

When I was 15/16 and was in martial arts I weighed around 72-75 kg... was much thinner than now...

The thing is, if I loose enough weight and get an acrobatic base, could I start doing this type of stuff?

Where's the parkour?

I don't know... I just edited the film.... I really don't even know what parkour is...

When I was an undergrad, guys used to do that at my school. I saw one guy bust his leg (I think) while doing some acrobatic flip or some such off of a stairway. I laughed at him, because human beings have no business doing stupid things like that.

Its still... sexy

EDIT: Anyhow... the focus of the topic wasn't about the video itself, but actually about if its possible for someone like me, if I do this or that, to be able to do those acrobatics?

I'm sure you could pull that stuff off, aren't you some kind of Mexican ninja?

worst thread of 2008 it took all year to find

Doesn't Happydud do this sort of thing?

shakey cam is shakey.

Yeah. Ask Happydud.

Happydud does Parkour, this isn't parkour. Parkour is the fluid motion of moving through an urban environment in the easiest way possible. This is just flipping off of high places, or it could be called free-running, which is sort of the american, and much fancier but less efficient version of parkour. For now, register at [url]www.americanparkour.com[/url] and watch the tutorials.

[LEFT]Okay. First. Tell them to stop what they're doing. They're taking way too many big drops and their flips are sloppy and lack any semblence of technique.

Big drops are not parkour. Big drops - especially when you're 15 or 16 - are dumb. You see the founders doing these huge drops, and what you have to realize is that A) They've been training for 15-20 YEARS. Longer than you have been alive. And B) they don't TRAIN these huge drops. They do them occasionally, but don't do them often and they don't really enjoy it.

Technique is important. To quote Blane, "Power is nothing without control." Right now, your friends are just powering through their flips. They're increasing the height so they have enough time to rotate. The aerials aren't aerials, they're just tossing their legs over the side of their body. The sideflips are okay, but if they tuck tighter they can get a lot more rotation and it'll look a lot better. The webster wasn't even a webster - it was your friend falling and overrotating enough to land close to his feet (but still had to roll out).

That being said, I'm not discouraging them from training. But if you're going to train, train smart. There are SO. MANY. resources out there. USE THEM. American Parkour (APK) has a ton of tutorial videos put out by people who have been training for 4, 5, 6 years. Watch the tutorials, read the articles, learn how to actually do these things safely.*

Now, as for you. I run a class for kids (age 8-14). I train people our age (15-early 20s). I've also trained people in their 30s and 40s. There's a woman in DC in her SIXTIES.*

You are not too old. You are not too fat. Your progression might be slower, but I emphasize slow progression over EVERYTHING else. You have a long life ahead of you, there's no rush. So start off slow, and keep progressing - but slowly. This helps keep you safe from injurys, both short term (broken bones) and long term (bad knees and ankles).

Look up http://www.monosurbanos.com/ I'm pretty sure they're the primary group in Mexico.[/LEFT]

Wait. What the **** is an 8 year old doing in parkour? They already have death wishes.

SF_Gold, you can't steal parkour.

Or at the very least it would be difficult to catch some to steal.

That was very informative happydud. I've already started on a diet, and hopefully get back on regular exercise routine.

There is a parkour class down here, tomorrow we are going to start filming a new video. This time I will be present during filming, and I hope they don't force me to do anything as I feel like my bones are going to shatter.

That being said, I think starting with the rolling is cool. I could do that 2 years ago, I should still be able to do it. Cartwheels... thats another story...

The SF Gold video is troubling me as I really wanted to release it by January, but now a mid or late February release seems more likely..

I know you're into video-making, which is cool. But I'm going to make one request - please don't make any parkour videos for at least a year. There are SO. MANY. terrible parkour videos (in terms of content, not editing), the internet is oversaturated with them.

The biggest problem isn't how many there are, but it's that people will see your "three week sampler" video and think that what you're doing is Parkour - and what you (the general you, not specific you)'re doing at that point is jumping off of high things and doing flips with crappy technique.

This isn't what we want the public seeing. This isn't Parkour, but other people don't know that. All the 13 year old on the other end of youtube will know is that this video is called Parkour, and it has people basically falling off of things. So then he goes out and tries it and gets hurt, and then Parkour gets blamed, and I work too damn hard to have another international public relations disaster to deal with. Because a media outlet WILL pick up on it, and they WILL blow it out of proportion, and they WILL blame Parkour, and then MY school shuts US down because someone got injured doing "parkour" (read: jumping off of things because they didn't know any better).

If you want to make a video now, or very shortly, fine. I can't stop you, and yes it is fun. But please don't release it. Keep it between you and your friends so in two years you can look back and laugh at how crappy you were.

Who runs the Parkour class? I'm curious - can you give me names/a website?

When you participate, remember what I said in my first post: Slow progression. Don't let them "force" you to do anything you don't want to do. Stand at the ledge, look down, shake your head and say "not today." The jump will always be there tomorrow, and tomorrow's tomorrow, and so on.

I don't know who the instructor is, I am hoping to meet him/her tomorrow.

As for the video, the problem is, these guys are going to upload it whether I want to or not. I guess I will add one of those messages that APK has on their videos.

As for another video like the one I just did, its not exactly going to be like that one. Instead I have planned to talk to these guys (in spanish with english subtitles) and ask them about their warm up, how they start, etc

Sort of like an interview.

I think there won't be anymore clips of jumping off of high buildings. But you are right, we don't want people to go off and start doing this, and then get hurt.

Posting links to APK will hopefully make people who are interested in getting started to go in the right direction.

THIS. Dud (and his APK friends) work incredibly hard to clear the name of parkour.

Just remember. Jumping off things and rolling doesn't equal parkour... Do happydud a favor and don't do anything stupid. Take the time to learn how to do this stuff properly and don't give it a bad name

Might as well direct those death wishes toward something constructive, eh?

happydud: taking on international public relations disasters

[Hopping fences joke here]

[Kirby is jealous joke here]

I really am. I wish I could do parkour so bad

I wonder if I could do wheelchair parkour...

I have no legs for weight. My arms are like sausages.

Day 1 report...

Did some rolling, climbed up a wall twice my height (while scratching a good portion of my right arm...), walked to a roof from there, and then jumped from it.

How was my day?
Answer:

so you didnt read what dud said

I did, except I was already able to climb walls and jump from roofs before I looked at parkour... its the flips and stuff that I'm not gonna try yet.

Anybody can jump from a roof.

The point is, based on that video above, you probably arent doing it right. The landings are sloppy and dangerous. Jumping off of a ledge doesnt mean youre "doing parkour." If you get hurt jumping off a roof and say you're "doing parkour" all that youre going to do is give Parkour a bad name.

I didn't get hurt from jumping off the roof... it was climbing it where I scratched myself on the concrete.

As for the height of the roof... it wasn't higher than 4m, unlike the other one in the video which was closer to 10.

Since you didn't read what I said the first time:

What mb is trying to say is that you're developing bad habits by diving headfirst (no pun intended) into it. Start with exercises like the cat balance one and rolling techniques from a foot high surface. Don't go jumping off roofs at all, you'll end up doing something bad for sure in the long run.

Note: I personally don't do parkour, I just adore and study the sport on my free time. I think you should go for it, learning parkour is a great thing to do with one's body and physique. But going too fast = bad for your body.

That's what she said.

Couldn't he sidestep the establishment and just call it Mexican Parkour?

If you're just (or primarily) into the acrobatics, you should look into tricking instead. At least with tricking there aren't *as many* problems with videos as those dud mentioned because 1) you will probably be too embarassed to put up videos for a while, and 2) "tricking" is basically is harder to blame because people will just say "lawl you tried to do flips and gymnastics and **** by yourself and got hurt" and blame it on the person.

who needs technique when you've got stupidity?

Well... the second tutorial on APK is about precise landing, but you're right, I shouldn't be jumping from a roof. The only reason I went up there was to film some shots of these dudes jumping off the roof.

I have shown them some of the points that happydud made, and they agreed 100%. You see the thing is, the original parkour team/class was disbanded because of lack of interest, and these are the guys who kept going, so thats why they don't have much training.

Essentially, they are training their selves as they go.

Tomorrow I shall enjoy another session of rolling.

EDIT: In short... there is no real instructor.

Who needs to jump up a wall and scrape their arm when you have ladders?

I'm self taught - when I started there was no one around who had any experience.*

Interesting timing, if you really are interested in what I have to say, please read this thread. It's basically exactly your argument: http://www.americanparkour.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,159/topic,14231.0/

If you're not interested in taking advice from someone who knows a lot more about this than you do, then there's not really anything further we can say to dissuade you, and I really really really hope you are one of the lucky 1% who never get any injuries.

Look at this

[youporn[D7XpqeJyECo[/youporn]

Happydud, I'm sorry if I sounded offensive or neglectful, I assure it was never my intention. I am paying attention to what you are saying. As I was reading a thread, I am know understanding that the impact on the knees and legs build up over time and can cause serious injury. From what I understand, I have to build up condition before doing jumps higher than my chest or my own height.

My own question is though, is it okay if I do an occasional high jump from time to time to get down faster from lets say a roof, or should I hang myself from the edge so I can fall the least distance possible?

Also

How will I know when I have enough strength in my legs for higher jumps? I have not had a chance to try the cat walk exercise, does it help me gain balance? I sort of have a small fear of heights, and sometimes loose my balance. My fear isn't strong enough to control me or make me freeze or whatever, but it sure does get the blood pumping.

What other exercises can I do to learn balance?