Hey adrenaline junkies, need a ‘new’ extreme sport to experiment with?
Try Parkour: traceurs mix extreme sports with acrobatics, and turn urban landscapes into their personal jungle gyms.*
This originated in Paris, under the wing of founder David Belle. The following is the BBC One commercial that made him and Parkour famous:
Belle on Parkour: “To make it simple, parkour is a training method that allows a person to develop their physique so that they can overcome obstacles. The more you train, the faster and more efficient you become. When training, you can create a wide range of movements. These movements help you to get through difficult passageways, between buildings and over rooftops. It’s a different way to learn to move your body.”
Major companies like K-Swiss have released parkour sneakers, advertising agencies are commercializing it, and chic gyms such as Crunch are offering classes. Heck, even Jake Gyllenhaal learned parkour for his movie role in The Prince of Persia.
How did I find out about it? MTV, one of the top influential trendsetters in pop culture (i.e. Jersey Shore madness, reality Hills obsession, and ABDC hip hop dancing craze). I watched one episode of their new series, Ultimate Parkour Challenge, and couldn’t divert my eyes from the screen the entire time (and it’s not because these guys had juicy ripped muscles, although that did help).
As we all know, MTV is a heavyweight in bringing hip underground trends to the mainstream. A few things will happen as a result of this: global youths will to be fixated with parkour, original traceurs will be pissed off at showoffs, and this sport will have a promenient contest component and may be sponsored by a big brand a la Mountain Dew.
*Parkour emphasizes efficiency; free running is the freedom of movement. Sébastien Foucan is the founder of free running.
This was also featured in the last Die Hard movie.
This reminds me of B13!! a great movie… and in turn reminds me of Jhan Carlos who was all about B13 and introduced that and free running to me. Free Running is crazy awesome.
and the guys are hot (for the most part). haha.