Topic: Parkour in the X-Games...

[Dan Elric]

Competition is inherent in parkour

Now take that finger off the caps lock   and listen to this

   As traceurs, we all strive for self-improvement, and to do so successfully in the long term, we have to be smart about it. This means we have to know our limits, and know how to gauge progress so that we neither hurt ourselves in haste nor grow stagnant, satisfied with maintenance. Our focus (in terms of the quantifiable goals we set) should be constant self-improvement about all else, and to the exclusion of all else.
   Now, what is competition? It is the defining attribute of a setting or situation in which the determined goal is to exceed, outdo, dominate (etc.) a peer in some demonstration of skill or ability. At first this seems to be complementary to the idea of self-improvement - after all, a little competition pushes us to try harder, right? Right (no sarcasm in case anyone reading this is confused). However, not all competition is beneficial to the parkour lifestyle - only smart competition.
   Competition against other people is very un-smart. Every body is different, so to set a standard for YOUR body based on what someone else's can do is nonsensical, and such a standard will almost never be exactly aligned with what your goals would be based on the criteria in paragraph 1. When, then, is competition complementary, and even essential to parkour?When you compete against yourself.

There is only one traceur you should ever strive to outdo: yourself two weeks ago.

Ahh, thank you.  I am glad you agree with my point (and came to this conclusion by yourself!).

[Spencer B]

I sense that a reference slash link to Blanes Dilution article is in this threads future... But just think about it... We already get our fair share of daredevils and dangerous (to themselves) n00bs, who never last in Parkour. Why? We are such a relatively small global community comprised of people who actually have discipline and the intelligence to know their limits, etc. that when somone who is just there for the kick of 'jumping of roofs' shows up, he is effectively corrected, and if not, is left to learn the lessons of physics and gravity the hard way.

However, if it becomes globally recognized then there will be more non-disciplined people getting in, and then the general perspective of Parkour would belong to majority. And voila, that's how it happens.

[Dan Elric]

However, if it becomes globally recognized then there will be more non-disciplined people getting in, and then the general perspective of Parkour would belong to majority. And voila, that's how it happens.

This is why I want to become a parkour instructor.  If someone were to learn parkour from the internet parkour's philosophy would deteriorate, but if taught from an individual the philosophy would hold true.

[Mathew C]

However, if it becomes globally recognized then there will be more non-disciplined people getting in, and then the general perspective of Parkour would belong to majority. And voila, that's how it happens.

This is why I want to become a parkour instructor.  If someone were to learn parkour from the internet parkour's philosophy would deteriorate, but if taught from an individual the philosophy would hold true.

Everything I learned (aside from 'understanding comes with times and experience' stuff) about parkour, I learned from the internet...

[Spencer B]

Teaching the philosophy of it wouldn't work if the person just wanted to be competitive and a jerk about it. I learned E_V_E_R_Y_T_H_I_N_G I know about Parkour from the internet

It all ties back into my second post... It all[ depends on the person... Although virtually anybody who can or is a serious traceur tends to be more methodical, empathetic, cautious,... The people called wimps, or who are picked on their early years for there desire to know/learn, etc. We tend to be the misfits of the world, people who often have a different view of society as a whole, etc.

I'm going to stop talking now, before this becomes an incoherent rant, but I think you get the idea.

[bengaltiger]

Parkour is being pulled closer and closer to being the next skateboarding. I believe we should fight this current.

I totally agree. If parkour goes in the x-games it will become way too popular, and more and more people will get into the fad until its not even a fad anymore, its a permanent thing and most of the new traceurs will just want to impress girls and not even participate in the other great aspects of this art form. For example, this website. They will either act like cocky jerks on here, or they will ignore parkour communities altogether. It would be complete and utter chaos. If anybody wants that kind of future for parkour then your reason is beyond me and maybe, just maybe, you're the kind of person we're trying to prevent from ruining parkour.

NO PARKOUR IN THE X-GAMES!!!!!!

[Dan Elric]

Teaching the philosophy of it wouldn't work if the person just wanted to be competitive and a jerk about it. I learned E_V_E_R_Y_T_H_I_N_G I know about Parkour from the internet

It all ties back into my second post... It all[ depends on the person... Although virtually anybody who can or is a serious traceur tends to be more methodical, empathetic, cautious,... The people called wimps, or who are picked on their early years for there desire to know/learn, etc. We tend to be the misfits of the world, people who often have a different view of society as a whole, etc.

I'm going to stop talking now, before this becomes an incoherent rant, but I think you get the idea.

I understand.  But I'm simply saying that the internet isn't the best place to learn parkour.  It took me a year to fully understand most of the philosophy.  When someone learns over the internet there is no stopping them from learning a roll and going off of a huge drop and rolling improperly.  There was nothing to stop them from doing so.  That's why you see all these kids totally misunderstanding parkour.  I'd say APK does have an excellent parkour community, but I've seen communities that are absolutely despicable.  We learned from the internet and turned out just fine.  Even still I'm going to learn from PKGen and Majestic Force so that I can instruct people.  The age of learning from the internet will be over soon.

[Stephanie Belle Hagan]

I learned everything I know about parkour from the internet, as well. Granted I found a few traceurs close to home that I trained with for awhile, but for the most part, my lessons were learned from good 'ol APK. 

There are times that I wish that I could rewind time, go back before I had even heard of parkour, and learn parkour from a traceur in 'the real world' instead of the internet. I wonder how I would be different today, what skill level I would be at, where I would stand in the parkour society, etc...  It's something to think about.

[Spencer B]

Teaching the philosophy of it wouldn't work if the person just wanted to be competitive and a jerk about it. I learned E_V_E_R_Y_T_H_I_N_G I know about Parkour from the internet

It all ties back into my second post... It all[ depends on the person... Although virtually anybody who can or is a serious traceur tends to be more methodical, empathetic, cautious,... The people called wimps, or who are picked on their early years for there desire to know/learn, etc. We tend to be the misfits of the world, people who often have a different view of society as a whole, etc.

I'm going to stop talking now, before this becomes an incoherent rant, but I think you get the idea.

I understand.  But I'm simply saying that the internet isn't the best place to learn parkour.  It took me a year to fully understand most of the philosophy.  When someone learns over the internet there is no stopping them from learning a roll and going off of a huge drop and rolling improperly.  There was nothing to stop them from doing so.  That's why you see all these kids totally misunderstanding parkour.  I'd say APK does have an excellent parkour community, but I've seen communities that are absolutely despicable.  We learned from the internet and turned out just fine.  Even still I'm going to learn from PKGen and Majestic Force so that I can instruct people.  The age of learning from the internet will be over soon.

Okay, you are missing something completely... If you were teaching a traceur in real life and he wanted to go jump off a third story building, simply because he though he was big and bad simply 'cause he knew how to roll, then how would you stop him? Physically? Would to resort to violence if he just wouldn't listen to reason? Or would let him hurt himself, and let him that way?

If someone is reasonable and intelligent and they can be talked down fairly easily, but if they are the type of person that we want to keep out of parkour, then they WON'T listen and will do it anyway, with or without somebody actually being there.

[Dan Elric]

Teaching the philosophy of it wouldn't work if the person just wanted to be competitive and a jerk about it. I learned E_V_E_R_Y_T_H_I_N_G I know about Parkour from the internet

It all ties back into my second post... It all[ depends on the person... Although virtually anybody who can or is a serious traceur tends to be more methodical, empathetic, cautious,... The people called wimps, or who are picked on their early years for there desire to know/learn, etc. We tend to be the misfits of the world, people who often have a different view of society as a whole, etc.

I'm going to stop talking now, before this becomes an incoherent rant, but I think you get the idea.

I understand.  But I'm simply saying that the internet isn't the best place to learn parkour.  It took me a year to fully understand most of the philosophy.  When someone learns over the internet there is no stopping them from learning a roll and going off of a huge drop and rolling improperly.  There was nothing to stop them from doing so.  That's why you see all these kids totally misunderstanding parkour.  I'd say APK does have an excellent parkour community, but I've seen communities that are absolutely despicable.  We learned from the internet and turned out just fine.  Even still I'm going to learn from PKGen and Majestic Force so that I can instruct people.  The age of learning from the internet will be over soon.

Okay, you are missing something completely... If you were teaching a traceur in real life and he wanted to go jump off a third story building, simply because he though he was big and bad simply 'cause he knew how to roll, then how would you stop him? Physically? Would to resort to violence if he just wouldn't listen to reason? Or would let him hurt himself, and let him that way?

If someone is reasonable and intelligent and they can be talked down fairly easily, but if they are the type of person that we want to keep out of parkour, then they WON'T listen and will do it anyway, with or without somebody actually being there.

You misunderstand.  He wouldn't disregard what we tell him, he wouldn't have known in the first place on what not to do.  When instructed personally you can cover the subject completely, so he would know not to take drops.  He would know that by taking large drops without much training he would be looked down in the parkour community as opposed to what the logical assumption to be which is looked up to.

[Tim LaVere]

You guys are thinking to hard into this. Just as Sebatien Foucan states there is no wrong or right way to do freerunning. Its your own way your own choice. If you chose to do competition than thats your choice and other practioners of freerunning/parkour should be supportive. But if you do choose to do compition than just keep in mind why your doing it. Dont do it for glory or popularity, do it to make yourself better. You may win a metal or somthing, just dont let it get to your head. That is my thought on it. besides as someone said above compition drives us make sure its driving you in the right direction.

[Shae Perkins]

These threads are really getting old...

[PKAB]

Instead of spectating about ruining parkour in overconpetitive games why dont you get youre local group of Traceurs and play a friendly nice game of roof ball. God I love parkour roof ball.

[Alec Furtado]

All of this is dependent on one psychological assumption that the majority of people that will see the competition (I think we are picturing something like Barclaycard?) will get and stay into it "for the chicks/thrills."

One, I doubt anything as crappy as Barclaycard would survive as an X-Game, if the producers even allow it in the first place. If anything, it would need to be a Ninja Warrior style obstacle course challenge.

Two, I doubt any amount of money and funding by any corporation could outweigh and supplant American Parkour, PkGen, etc. unless they actually brought down the servers. Anybody who actually cares to get into it and doesn't just try to jump over a table and then go back to whatever else they were doing will come to us. I'm not too worried.


Yes, a Parkour Competition really does not work, but there is competition in parkour. Well, there can be. Case in point, how the entire thing started with DB, Seb, and his friends challenging each other to do things. It's about the individual but competition is a GREAT tool to motivate improvement. It gives you a reference point to push yourself further. It creates an extra challenge. The goal is to beat the other guy with the purpose of improving yourself. That's why a good training partner is also a good friend that will look out for you and help make sure you keep working hard, challenging you, providing an aspect of competition. So please don't absolutely condemn competition... it can be a good thing.

[Pave_the_Planet]

I'm sure this has been said a bunch before, but I am really against pk being in some sort of "extreme sport" competition. Firstly, because the extreme sports types are a bunch of jocks, and they would ruin pk. And second, because I feel it goes against the spirit of pk to make it into a competition and add a scoring system.

[Leon Mederos]

People make far too many stereotypes. Not all extreme sport "types" are jocks, not all traceurs who compete are jerks, not all traceurs who train properly are disciplined and respectful, etc etc.

Media perpetuates these false truths and they spread like wildfire.

Competition can be horribly done, or it can be a beautiful thing - all dependent on the mindset of the individuals involved. I think the most fun I've ever had in a competition was a rock climbing competition, where everyone was really supportive of each other and we all pushed ourselves to do really awesome things. Of course, we all pushed for safety but that's because we all normally train with safety in our daily lives. At the same time, I'm seen some disgusting competitions where the only issue was who will win! Needless to say, the participants in those competitions were no people I would enjoy friendship with.

Going back to the X-Games reference, I wish I could hang out with the likes of Tony Hawk, Bob Burnquist, Danny Way, Shaun White, etc. They're all probably a bunch of awesome guys - do you think they perpetuate the notion that skateboarders are all punk kids that love disrespecting people? NO! These people fight to give skating a proper name, just like we all struggle to keep parkour in as brilliant a light as possible. If a parkour competition was done right (I enjoy the idea of a ninja warrior type competition!) and it had the right competitors (once again, I'd love to be a part of it ) then it could be a huge push towards stabilizing parkour as a deep discipline and art form, not just a sport where crazy kids jump off things 

Please share your comments/concerns about my opinion, I'd love to hear them all!

[David Jones]

'Nuff Said.

[hillexallen]

Parkour is by definition non-competitive, because that's how David Belle created it. So, if there were parkour in the X-Games it wouldn't even be parkour, technically!

We can't let companies take over parkour! They have no right to use the name of our discipline to make money off of competitions while giving us a bad reputation, the same reputation that skateboarders were given by the same companies!

Who is with me? Fight competition, fight commercialization!

[Sat Santokh]

'Nuff Said.

You're a tool.  Either contribute to the meaningful discussion taking place or keep your childish posts to yourself.

[danhezee]

You're a tool.  Either contribute to the meaningful discussion taking place or keep your childish posts to yourself.

  I think most of the users on this site are kids.