My goal with this video was to show, not the extreme moves nor the
exhaustive conditioning and drilling that go into successful parkour,
but the actual feeling you get when moving and training, especially by
yourself. It's often not loud and exciting and fast-paced, but quiet
and peaceful and smooth ... you see yourself taking multiple paths,
imagine how you will position yourself in the air, and in that last
moment before you start to run, the whole world seems to stand still,
waiting for you to Go. I wanted to use the tripod because it allowed
me to show that stillness ... in most of the shots, I am the only thing
moving through a completely static environment, and to me that really
captures what it is to be a traceur.
I spent three years on this project, working almost entirely alone,
filming only on cloudy days and wearing the same clothes in every shot
- in the summer, when it was 100 degrees out and weeks would pass
between cloudy days, I often felt like giving up, but I really believed
that I had something new and unusual to show people, so I kept plugging
away at it. The project was a fantastic way to focus my parkour,
because in order to make it well-rounded, I had to balance my actual
training, and bring up some of my weaker skills; at the same time, in
order to get some of my "dream shots," I really had to buckle down on
my conditioning and strength training, to break some significant
barriers. Some of the moves in this video were envisioned three years
ago, and only became possible for me in the last few months.
If I had to offer one piece of advice to anyone, in their training, or
in making their own video, it would be to truly take time out of the
equation. If you have a vision, if you have a plan, don't sacrifice it
just because it seems too far off, too difficult. Parkour is a
lifelong discipline, and there is no reason to rush - and the same
holds true for a video. The internet is full of them, no one will
notice or complain if you take an extra year before releasing your own
- but that extra year could make all the difference in terms of how
close you come to really saying something meaningful.
-TK17 http://www.americanparkour.com/videos/Go%20-%20TK17.wmv < Right Click > Save As
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