Topic: PARKOUR VS FREERUNNING

[David Jones]

Gabe-- I LOVE YOU....

...It happens to the best of us. lmao.
Yeah, in complete agreement with Gabe. This thread is a lot better than I thought it was going to turn out. Thanks Daniel for starting this thread up.

[Harry Smith]

I agree with Gabe, but can we still use the term freerunning? The reason is freerunning is more of American word then parkour. Freerunning is easy to say/spell for Americans. (Free+running how can you possibly spell that wrong?) whereas parkour is hard to say if you hear it the first time let alone trying to spell it.(wait did he say parkwhore?) So my question is can we use the terms interchangeably?

[Daniel Arroyo]

Yeah absolutely, I actually use both words interchangeably.. I treat them as one and just use them when I feel it's appropriate..

[Nick Kelly]

While I agree with the sentiment of what you say, telling a beginner "it doesn't matter" and "they are the same" is simply not sufficient. The beginner is curious and needs both definition and experimentation to progress in my opinion, and not until there has been significant practice does your model work - "Forget it and go train" .. to the beginner this is virtually meaningless and will always be no matter how well it is explained.

  My $.02

Just to add my $.02:

To me, it seems the "definition" of freerunning is really a purpose for training (seeking freedom of movement, artistic expression etc). I feel like giving a name to one or two purposes to train may limit those new to the discipline and makes the process of finding their own purpose to train less open ended, at least initially.

But like others have said, I'm glad to see how this "debate" has evolved over the past few years. 

[Skills]

Here is something i wrote under the name Art of Displacement.

The Art of Displacement-
Translated from the French term L’Art du Deplacement.
The Art of Displacement is a discipline in which a Motion Artist (practitioner of AOD) trains and develops their mind and body to become able to move through urban and natural environments in the most effective or creative/aesthetic manner. Motion Artists train with many variable purposes but, our collective goal is simply to overcome or interact with obstacles. The fundamental physical components of The Art of Displacement are running, vaulting, rolling, climbing, and jumping. There are also other forms of displacement in which the Motion Artist will be able to discover through their own mental and physical training, these forms of displacement can be described as expressive. In order to achieve full range of movement Motion Artists are advised to achieve mastery of the fundamental movements. The skills and mindset learned from this discipline are helpful not only to that individual, but to the others they come in contact with. Such things as helping someone with heavy bags or getting to work faster, on the other hand these skills may never be used, just as a martial artist may never get into a confrontation, a Motion Artist may never need to run to the aid of another. The Art of Displacement has a set of values that become instilled in the Motion Artist such as self-development, respect, courage, consistency and strength. These values come from training and work their way into overall lifestyle. Aside from these more in depth definitions of The Art of Displacement, the main factor is that your training must be sustainable; simply, maintaining your ability to move, and be helpful; in order for The Art of Displacement to be truly become a lifestyle it should not take from your overall physical health in any way. The Art of Displacement is a serious discipline and therefore should be treated as such.
NOTE: In order to truly understand The Art of Displacement you must actively practice it.

-Joseph Best
-Art in Motion

[Corndogg]

Freerunning is painting through movement using the environment as your canvas.

[John Conway]

Freerunning is painting through movement using the environment as your canvas.

No it's not  I hate art and painting, to do these activites, because of my past experiences.
I am no motion artist, simply, a traceur.

[NikAs]

Freerunning is painting through movement using the environment as your canvas.

No it's not  I hate art and painting, to do these activites, because of my past experiences.
I am no motion artist, simply, a traceur.

It still could be that for him.

[John Conway]

Freerunning is painting through movement using the environment as your canvas.

No it's not  I hate art and painting, to do these activites, because of my past experiences.
I am no motion artist, simply, a traceur.

It still could be that for him.

Yes. For him. All I was saying is not for me. 

[Corndogg]

  Not for me either, I just thought it was an interesting idea and sentence.  I'm not a freerunner   

[Jerald Donald Konkel]

I Thank you all for Opening my eyes.......

when I first Started training Parkour, I had a clean cut View on Parkour and freerunning, Convincing myself that they were totally different, and as time went by and I trained more, I started to realize that the differences, are still there, but are very small and un-important. and the two are basically the same. I like to compare it to apples, you eat out of one type of apple, then you eat of of another kind of apple, you might notice they look the same, but there are differences. maybe the first apple is green, the second is red. the shape of both apples might be a little different, the taste of the two apples might be a little different. But they both grow from a tree, and both of them are APPLES. But you may prefer one over the other. 

In my opinion, and from what I read, here are my "personal Definitions" of what Parkour and freerunning are. If I'm wrong, please tell me.

=============================================================================================================
Parkour: a Way of training your body and mind to move from A to B through an environment while efficiently and Practically Moving over obstacles in your way.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Freerunning: a Way of training your body and mind to Move from A to B around an environment while Expressing yourself by Flipping or spinning over obstacles in your way. 
=============================================================================================================

And I consider A and B to be Dynamic, meaning they are subject to change. and they don't always have to be physical, as some of you have pointed out. A could be Me or where I'm currently at, and B could be the guy I'm chasing, or someplace Safe if I'm being chased. A could also be my current situation, or Condition. and B could be a higher level of condition or a better situation. and the path we take from A to B is not important, as long as we get to B, or make progress toward B, that's all that matters, the Path is just the Result of the Situations.  One traceur/Freerunner could have the same A and B but the path would be different. or the same traceur/freerunner could be put back into the same A and B scenario but take a different path every time.

So.... back one topic, I now understand why it really doesn't matter soo much about the differences of the two. Its not as if Freerunners and traceurs will turn on each other and split off into two separate groups (that would be Stupid) this isn't Religion...... Its just a Way to train the body and mind to overcome obstacles, physical and mental. and for me, that pretty much Defines Both freerunning and Parkour.



   
   

[Jordan Strybos]

Jerald-
Just one thing: it's tracEUr. 

[Mark Toorock]

so guys, if parkour is about moving efficiently from one place to another, can someone show me a video about this?

If I type "Parkour" in Youtube, I get "about 176,000". I'd like to see a video where someone is going from one place to another as quickly and efficiently as possible and gets over the obstacles that are in their path.

My definition: "Taking the hardest, least efficient route so that when we are faced with obstacles we have a way to overcome them."

And in practice, parkour: We usually just go out of our way to seek and train on those obstacles for the sake of training.

[Team Avian]

so guys, if parkour is about moving efficiently from one place to another, can someone show me a video about this?

If I type "Parkour" in Youtube, I get "about 176,000". I'd like to see a video where someone is going from one place to another as quickly and efficiently as possible and gets over the obstacles that are in their path.

My definition: "Taking the hardest, least efficient route so that when we are faced with obstacles we have a way to overcome them."

And in practice, parkour: We usually just go out of our way to seek and train on those obstacles for the sake of training.

never thought of it like that...  good point.  But that does make sense as Parkour is especially useful when you are trying to outrun things... (Like dogs for example...  while on the phone...  Fun, but scarey)

Anyways, when you want to outrun someone, you never run in a straight line, they'll just throw something at you, whether it be a rock or a bullet, doesn't matter, you slalom...  You throw obstacles in THEIR path by maneuvering through YOUR path...

But I have used Parkour to quickly and efficiently get from one side of the school to the other when I was about to be late...  so it's not that it is never used for that reason...  just tends to be rare

-Kyle B.

[Daniel Arroyo]

http://www.youtube.com/user/Teghead#p/u/6/rFOkY1dNE-U

Pure efficiency no unnecessary vaults or jumps.

[Mark Toorock]

Daniel - GREAT Video.

As for "Pure efficiency" - I must disagree. Even in this video we can tell that many times, there was an easier, and therefore more efficient route that he could have taken. Why climb a building instead of running around it?

From 1:00 to 1:08 why vault a wall when it was clear that he could have run straight and then taken a right turn, avoiding three obstacles, this would have been faster and more energy efficient.

Of course since in most scenes we don't know "why" he was going where he was going this conversation must skim the borders between hypothetical and realistic, but that's my point exactly, is realistically the use of parkour is not to go from point a to point b efficiently, the point of parkour is to train to be able to do so.

[Adam McC]

And to add to Mark's point, there are also assorted types of efficiency. For example, the most efficient (human) way to get from New York to Maryland would be.. to walk/jog. Any running or sprinting or performing acrobatics would only deplete energy.

There is efficiency according to speed, where you get somewhere as quickly as possible.

There is efficiency according to energy, preserving your energy and expending the least amount of effort.

There is efficiency according to safety, doing movements that prolong your health, not causing any type of injury, long or short term.


The list goes on. I mean, its ridiculous. You can invent a scenario to justify absolutely any movement at all as being efficient. Backflips are efficient, and therefore Parkour, because if a man walked up to me with a gun in a 4x4 room with a locked door and said do a backflip or I'll shoot you, the most efficient option would be to do the backflip. Therefore, training backflips is preparation for an emergency, same as the kong vault is should that put bull chase us down some day.

[Dan Elric]

I do l'art du deplacement.  I do parkour.  I do freerunning.  I move.

[Alec Furtado]

Ahhhhhh why is this thread still going...

Long PKvFR thread is looooooooooooooooooooooooong. In the words of the Beatles: let it be, let it be.

We're like all saying the same thing in different ways. Ever contemplate we all have just about the exact same concept but some just must word it differently based on their background? (education, experience, age, life experiences..) It may appear that we have different ideas but what if they actually are all the *same* and we just cannot communicate well enough or have not fully discovered our own purpose/reason/ideas yet.

[Elet ET]

Ahhhhhh why is this thread still going...

Long PKvFR thread is looooooooooooooooooooooooong. In the words of the Beatles: let it be, let it be.

We're like all saying the same thing in different ways. Ever contemplate we all have just about the exact same concept but some just must word it differently based on their background? (education, experience, age, life experiences..) It may appear that we have different ideas but what if they actually are all the *same* and we just cannot communicate well enough or have not fully discovered our own purpose/reason/ideas yet.

See language IS important!!!!!!!!!!!