Topic: parkour... so misunderstood

[Degenerate Prophet]

I think when most people see parkour they think of it in the same way as they would graffiti. Not saying it makes sense, but that's what it feels like.

[dilet2e]

I happen to be reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie... seems to me some of his principles would be useful here. There are chapters on how to talk to people who are disagreeing with you, how to win people over to your point of view, etc. I can't be more specific because I've barely absorbed it myself. But this book is available everywhere, including libraries. 

[Degenerate Prophet]

Jedi mind tricks... mwa ha ha.... 

[quagnoth]

H :'(ay chris another thing happend chase and eric got kicked off csu? When will the day come that we can train in piece.

[toxinsedge]

Parkour is all about freedom of the body and of the sould. I believe that if "No Parkour" signs were put into place it would ruin our self expression and freedom. We as traceurs would not be able to express ourselves. We would not be able to set forth specific goals for us to overcome. Parkour is a natural human activity and by taking away that activity and putting up a "No Parkour" sign would be like having a "No Breathing" sign. Parkour is relatively harmless compared to skateboarding in that the objective is to overcome and clear some obstacle and to be able to adapt to whatever enviroment you are in. By banning parkour or by putting "No Parkour" signs into place destroys the traceurs hopes, dreamsand ultimately destroys the sport and the ideaology of the sport. 

[David Jones]

People may not ever understand us.









We should cut ourselves.

I....I already do. 

I know.  I watch you in the shower.

Can I join you?

[Degenerate Prophet]

Parkour is all about freedom of the body and of the sould. I believe that if "No Parkour" signs were put into place it would ruin our self expression and freedom. We as traceurs would not be able to express ourselves. We would not be able to set forth specific goals for us to overcome. Parkour is a natural human activity and by taking away that activity and putting up a "No Parkour" sign would be like having a "No Breathing" sign. Parkour is relatively harmless compared to skateboarding in that the objective is to overcome and clear some obstacle and to be able to adapt to whatever enviroment you are in. By banning parkour or by putting "No Parkour" signs into place destroys the traceurs hopes, dreamsand ultimately destroys the sport and the ideaology of the sport. 

Honeestly, if they did do that, do you really think that'd stop us? If anything I'd train harder so I don't get caught when they call the police.

[toxinsedge]

Parkour is all about freedom of the body and of the sould. I believe that if "No Parkour" signs were put into place it would ruin our self expression and freedom. We as traceurs would not be able to express ourselves. We would not be able to set forth specific goals for us to overcome. Parkour is a natural human activity and by taking away that activity and putting up a "No Parkour" sign would be like having a "No Breathing" sign. Parkour is relatively harmless compared to skateboarding in that the objective is to overcome and clear some obstacle and to be able to adapt to whatever enviroment you are in. By banning parkour or by putting "No Parkour" signs into place destroys the traceurs hopes, dreamsand ultimately destroys the sport and the ideaology of the sport. 

Honeestly, if they did do that, do you really think that'd stop us? If anything I'd train harder so I don't get caught when they call the police.

I dont think it would stop us... but why break the law and run from the police cause then all that you are doing is giving parkour a bad name/reputation and making it harder for everone else in the sport to practice. Personaly i dont believe that they will start mass producing "no parkour" signs. I was just going from a hypothetical stand point. If this were to happen in my town or training grounds (no parkour signs) then i would just respectfully move on to a different area to practice. In that way it wouldnt stop us.

[Degenerate Prophet]

-But think about it. when crap like that happens it's only because on a mass scale it's not approved of anyway. Thare's not that many good parkour places anyway. Sadly, the good ones are the places where signs like that would end up. I mentioned on another thread it feels like people view parkour in the same light as they do graffiti. Do you know anyone who wants you tagging in their neighborhood?

[toxinsedge]

I completely agree. For some reason parkour is looked down upon, for what reasons i know not. For the most part we as traceurs attempt to 'leave no trace' and try to be respectful as possible, and yet we are still looked down upon within society. They seem to see us as punks who care for nothing but themselves when actually it is the complete opposite. I think that we as traceurs should begin educating the world about the true ideaology of parkour and its true motives. that is why i believe running from the cops is something we must not do as it will make the police and society look at us as felons and punks. I think we slowly need to start bringing parkour and its true motives into the realm of society. I think the best thing for one individual traceur to do to is to train and still remain respectful, calm, responsible, and helpful to try to bring a positive light to parkour and to make it so that people dont see it as grafitti but yet as an art of freedom.

[Chris Salvato]

Supposing it doesn't get banned and fall under illegal connotations ...which isn't unlikely.... Look at what people can do with parkour. It's like anything, the more you expose something, the larger the audience. The larger the audience, the more people who'll use it to their own ends. If that happens, imagine the types of things people would do with it. Parkour would be an extremely useful tool to achieve unlawful ends. As such it will be looked down upon even more, possibly to a dwindling PK population and we'd end up like the Runners on Mirror's Edge. -And don't think that ain't possible -in the near future even. All it takes is one coup, one power-crazed lying president, one nuclear massacre, one minor shift in any major balance of power. It's not thought about much, but literally, our lives are at the hands of some crack mental cases in other countries who have enough money to get their hands on nukes. Hostile takeover. From there it wouldn't even be PK being looked down upon. It'd just be the freedom of the expression itself under the guise of it being a threat to law enforcement. -But America could say that as it is now. Yer average cop probably couldn't catch half of us. It's just good that most of the people on this forum seem to be well-to-do and respectful. Excuse me for my negative thinking, but it's true. People look down upon anything that doesn't show us in divine light. Religious people tend to be horrified and will argue to the death against us coming from primates. Dinosaurs? Fabricated. Evolutionary theory? Hogwash. If is true, parkour is one of the purest ways of expressing it. There's no point because people were created by God so your argument doesn't work.
See where this is going?
As you can see, there are dozens of unfavorable situations. Where defiance would be the only option. It's ridiculous. The world is ridiculous. That's why I run. I don't need the world dictating what I do. Paths in life should be dictated between you and and Fate.

Moving along....

[Christian Greene]

Chris... your karma is 303!! Too bad you live in the 719!

[Spirit]

I Think we should start making the parks mentioned in the thread.  Like a Ninja warrior obstacle course or something of the sort.  If we get people to see the sport more then they may be more willing to accept us.

[dstrat33]

we just gata work through it you know. like skate/snow boarding was hated for years before it became accepted and still around my town skateboarders still have a bad rep they just think we are people jumping off things and we dont have any experience with it things will get better its just a matter of when

[Andrew Mumu Trahum]

parkour parks, great for training i guess... but not for running

[Slpy]

This, of course, is what came to mind as soon as someone mentioned a "No parkour" sign :



I do believe that one day, parkour will become as... commonly known as skateboarding is today. If there's a skater practicing his kick flips or whatever, no one asks him "What are you doing?", because everyone knows perfectly well what skateboarding is. It's very well-known, as are its damaging effects on some property, which is why "No skateboarding signs" are commonplace. However, this does not mean that once parkour grows more well-known, there will be more signs like the one above; as someone pointed out earlier in this thread, parkour generally does not leave any marks on or damage anything.

On a different note, I have no clue where Rock Ridge is, but the entire time I was reading this thread, the stuipid Rock Ridge theme from Blazing Saddles kept running through my head...

Damn man :/ is this a real sign?

[jaycee]

Back when I was in California, we had an officer tell us that we couldn't train on any city property. We were at a school at the time (on the weekend), so I can sort of understand why they wouldn't let us practice there... but you're really gonna tell me I can't practice vaulting over picnic tables at the park down the street? ^_-

I usually get to be the guy who goes to explain what we're doing ('cause I'm in the military, which causes cops to interact with me like an adult rather than a kid) and often we just get told to be careful and not be disruptive.