Topic: What are you going to do if Parkour turns into a entirely competitive sport?

[M2.]

Yes, I agree, change is coming, most humans are "un-competing" themselves into diabetes and hundreds of other forms of death, god forbid they go do an active sport because they might lose.

As for video games, yes, they are playing by themselves, are they not playing to WIN? Is the object of the video game to go around and work collaboratively with as many people as you can find?


"but it's still a fundamentally bad situation because it's based on the idea that not everyone can succeed"

No, it's not. It's based on the idea that if anyone tries hard they can win, and if you don't try hard you may lose.

I'm sorry, but it will always be the case that the people who work harder for things CAN and SHOULD have those things and the people who don't wont have them.

If you took all the money in the world and divided it evenly among every person (everyone wins the same amount) do you think that in a week everyone would still have the same amount? I'm sorry, but the idea of "everyone wins equally being the new way of thinking" just doesn't and isn't going to work.

If it was true, why would anyone try? they wouldn't, we'd all sink to the same level of mediocrity.

There are thousands of every day examples where thinking "everyone gets a prize for trying" just doesn't work. It is the de-evolution of our society. Humans are the only species who spend the vast majority of their resources fostering the weak instead of working to become stronger.

Your statement about competition and innovation simply isn't true. Calling something nonsense doesn't make your point valid.

"it doesn't change the fact that it doesn't have as many benefits as cooperation" - if you're going to call something a fact, please back it up with at least one statement that supports that. 


I find it interesting that it seems in every place where a competition involves winning by being fastest, you call it "arbitrary". the concept of being faster, by human locomotion or by mechanical means is probably one of the oldest concepts we have. Even tribal societies have competitions, they are a mimicry of life and frankly a chance to practice useful skills.

I would find it hard for you to say you "practice parkour" without saying that you aim to be "faster". ""Er" implies more fast than something - presumably with your standpoint, yourself - but what's the point of being faster? Isn't that "arbitrary"? Wouldn't it be more useful in your life in this modern age if you spent that same time studying marketing or business or reading or helping the homeless?

Can you say that life itself is not based in competition? Are there humans that are vying for the same resources as you? How will you get those things that you need? Is it possible to do that in a collaborative society? I would argue "not any more" - there's too many people and not enough resources. Through technological innovation (probably from racing) we have put ourselves in a state where collaborative "tribal" living is simply not an option. That works when there are sufficient resources per capita, and clearly as we multiply ourselves into the billions the earth is simply not ready for that.

You may argue that being collaborative has more benefits than being competitive - but there is simply nothing to support that. If the goal is to improve something, competition shows which things are most improved, therefore lighting the way for how to become more improved. There is no collaborative model that supports this process. Can two people work together to lift weights so that both become stronger? Yes, but one person can't make the other stronger, only their own force applied does that. Can two car companies work together to make better brakes? In a sense they do, and their testing ground is the racetrack, and when one is better the technology gets adopted and adapted by others and the whole society advances.

Can you show me an example that is strictly collaborative (and has no competitive element) that works?

[20draws10]

Can you show me an example that is strictly collaborative (and has no competitive element) that works?

The biosphere as a whole, the universe as a whole, the laws of physics(as far as our knowledge has proven so far). Depending on your views, the after-life? Maybe?
Thats all I could think of. So basically, they are all things we don't have control over. So I don't know if they really count. 

But yah, I completely agree. Competition forces advancement to happen at a much faster rate. I shouldn't say forces because there will always be exceptions and variations, nothing is ever definite, but I don't know how else to word it.
I'm not going to lie, when I'm doing parkour with other people, I am always trying to more or be better than them. So I guess you could say that parkour as it is now can be competitive. Unless your like super hard core into the belief system behind it. But then couldn't you consider that competition against yourself? Because you are trying to better yourself.

But I think for parkour to become a competitive sport it would most likely become a race. Which wouldn't it just be a race, and not parkour? Given you would use parkour techniques during the race, but would it still be considered parkour? I mean its still about keeping the flow and efficiency and everything but, it would be about doing it better/faster than the other person. So idk.

And this is already starting to happen. Did anyone see the Ultimate Parkour Challenge that MTV made? They made it into a competition to see which group could make the best/coolest video. Then they had like a free running section where they where judged on their performance/tricking abilities. Then finally they had a race. It was fairly epic I must say. Those guys where basically amazing. But back to the point. Parkour is already starting to become competitive. Whether or not it will catch on, thats up to society. My guess is no. Most people I talk to about it say its to extreme for them and they'd rather watch football...most people, not everyone though.

[M2.]

How is the biosphere as a whole not competitive? Do you not believe that some species survive and some don't? Do you believe in evolution? Do things EAT other things? Do creatures compete for a limited supply of resources?

I personally can't call lions eating a zebra collaborative - it is in a "biosphere sense", but the zebra didn't like that game. If you don't consider that a won and lose situation (one got protein and nutrients and the other lost it's life) then I don't know what is!!

[20draws10]

How is the biosphere as a whole not competitive? Do you not believe that some species survive and some don't? Do you believe in evolution? Do things EAT other things? Do creatures compete for a limited supply of resources?

I personally can't call lions eating a zebra collaborative - it is in a "biosphere sense", but the zebra didn't like that game. If you don't consider that a won and lose situation (one got protein and nutrients and the other lost it's life) then I don't know what is!!

That is why I said the biosphere as a whole. Not the individual components of it. The biosphere, if look at as a singular component, is not competing for or with anything else for anything. It is isolated from everything else that requires the resources it needs to survive.
Components within the biosphere (your lion and zebra would fall into this category), yes, they are competitive. But as a whole no it is not.

Oh, and as for the evolution. It would be difficult to find a stronger believer in it. <- If you use your admin powers and lock this thread because I said that I believe in evolution then I will be very displeased. This is a good debate that I am quite enjoying. Its slightly off topic, but thats not the point. And the fact that you as an admin asked me the question should be reason enough to not lock it.

[NOS - from Parkour Mumbai]

As a species, we have plenty of everything we need.

Dave, that's the second thread you've made that statement in, and I'd like to call you out on that. Sure, it is very easy for you to say that, sitting in one of the 'developed' countries of the world where everything is found in plenty, it is also very easy for me to make statements like that sitting in upper-class India. But neither of us have faced the true meaning of the word 'deprivation' or 'poverty' first hand. There are still plenty of places in the world (obviously there would be in my country, that's a well known fact, but if you look hard enough you would see examples of it in yours as well) where people still have to fight, or to 'compete' for access to those same provisions and resources.

Secondly, from an ecological point of view, No, we do not have plenty of everything we need. Human needs are growing exponentially, so is human population, whereas the resources in this world are limited and are depleting at a fast pace. Pretty soon the utopian situation that you describe will become completely opposite, and you might find yourself competing with every other human in this world, probably even putting to use your hard-learned parkour skills to get yourself a shred of those same scarce resources that you now take for granted.

(Edit - Sorry, Mark already made that point above before me, didn't read that before responding to your post.)

Competition exists in lots of places, but it's still a fundamentally bad situation because it's based on the idea that not everyone can succeed

That matters only when success or winning becomes 'everything' and the person becomes obsessed with attaining it.
If not, winning and losing are fundamental parts of nature, they are two sides of the same coin and success is not something to be excessively proud of, neither is failure something to get depressed about.
Again, I would suggest reading a bit more on Taoist philosophy to understand the dualistic nature of life.

[NOS - from Parkour Mumbai]

Oh, and as for the evolution. It would be difficult to find a stronger believer in it. <- If you use your admin powers and lock this thread because I said that I believe in evolution then I will be very displeased. This is a good debate that I am quite enjoying. Its slightly off topic, but thats not the point. And the fact that you as an admin asked me the question should be reason enough to not lock it.

Don't worry man, you'll find the people here are a lot more open minded, do not believe in doctrines and propoganda, and take the time to go to the root of the problem to solve it in an amicable, civilised and scientific manner (as long as you do not defy forum rules and go into an all-out political or religious discussion). If it is related to the discussion, your mentioning the word 'evolution' won't get this thread locked.

This is one of the reasons I enjoy posting here instead of on the other 'international parkour/freerun forums' out there.

[sparta98]

Dave, that's the second thread you've made that statement in, and I'd like to call you on that. Sure, it is very easy for you to say that, sitting in one of the 'developed' countries of the world where everything is found in plenty, it is also very easy for me to make statements like that sitting in upper-class India. But neither of us haven't faced the true meaning of the word 'deprivation' or 'poverty' first hand. There are still plenty of places in the world (obviously there would be in my country, that's a well known fact, but if you look hard enough you would see examples of it in yours as well) where people still have to fight, or to 'compete' for access to those same provisions and resources.

Secondly, from an ecological point of view, No, we do not have plenty of everything we need. Human needs are growing exponentially, so is human population, whereas the resources in this world are limited and are depleting at a fast pace. Pretty soon the utopian situation that you describe will become completely opposite, and you might find yourself competing with every other human in this world, probably even putting to use your hard-learned parkour skills to get yourself a shred of those same scarce resources that you now take for granted.

(Edit - Sorry, Mark already made that point above before me, didn't read that before responding to your post.)

That matters only when success or winning becomes 'everything' and the person becomes obsessed with attaining it.
If not, winning and losing are fundamental parts of nature, they are two sides of the same coin and success is not something to be excessively proud of, neither is failure something to get depressed about.
Again, I would suggest reading a bit more on Taoist philosophy to understand the dualistic nature of life.

I agree with him in part, we do have everthing we need, it just isn't where it is needed. Selfish governments don't always understand the concept of sharing or cooperation(refering to all governments not just the ones in the best position to help) in a way I understand the reasoning that they use, but on the other hand reasoning isn't always moral or right.

[jp2ykz]

He addressed that directly in the second paragraph that you quoted from him.

He said "Secondly, from an ecological point of view, No, we do not have plenty of everything we need. Human needs are growing exponentially, so is human population, whereas the resources in this world are limited and are depleting at a fast pace."

Check this out to get some numbers and see the facts of this discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth

Now, there are arguments that say that we won't exceed the "carrying capacity" of the earth because of technological advances. Which in many ways I agree with. But the fact is that it is a real and pressing problem and it seems a bit beyond possible even in a idealistic world, to just share and split everything evenly.

-----------------

That is why I said the biosphere as a whole. Not the individual components of it. The biosphere, if look at as a singular component, is not competing for or with anything else for anything. It is isolated from everything else that requires the resources it needs to survive.
Components within the biosphere (your lion and zebra would fall into this category), yes, they are competitive. But as a whole no it is not.

Don't want to get too nerdy and I agree with you for the time being but just for the sake of argument what about aliens. Ever seen star trek or other sifi I think if we contacted other civilizations we would likely be in competition??

---------
I know this is a bit on the political side but I think it goes back to competition in a broader scene and as long as we are keeping in the general and not get specific we can stay within the realm of relating it back to competition in parkour.   

Back a bit it seems Dave that you are leaning toward Communism as bases for your thinking. This is not necessarily bad and I think that it has unfair negative connotation because of Hitler and Stalin.

My basic outline is that Communism (no competition) or Capitalism (pure competition) are on two opposites sides of the scale. I don't see either one as inherently good or bad. (Just as a side note) No government in history has ever been 100% one or the other there is always some combination of the two. Socialism is somewhere in between and as a matter of history most governments that call themselves socialist fall mostly on the Communist side of the scale.     

My general thinking on the topic is that a closer to the middle of the road approach leaning slightly one way or the other depending on the country and the culture would be optimal. This way there would be sufficient progression and advancement while still maintaining or making compassion and morality, as societal mechanisms more manifest.   

This, middle of the rode approach from what I have seen is generally the most successful in most world systems. I think that this is also quite germane to competition in parkour. I am open to argument on this It's just an observation based on what I've seen learned and been exposed to.       
   

[M2.]

... Thread being carefully moderated

[Andy Keller]

... Thread being carefully moderated

... by a few of us.

[M2.]

Andy you are like some kind of shadowlord mod ... Thanks!!!

[DaveS]

Mark, both winning and losing are built in to competition. Even if everyone puts full effort in some win and some lose. I agree, everyone needs to work hard to achieve things, but in a competitive environment you get lots of people who work hard and who still don't achieve anything, because someone else who has worked hard got their first as a result of starting from a more advantageous position. Effort is no guarantee of success in a competitive environment, whereas it is in a cooperative one.
People try in cooperative environments because they still need to. Cooperation doesn't mean one person giving stuff to another, or even giving stuff to everyone, it means two people working together for mutual benefit.
The whole concept of winning/losing doesn't exist in nature. Success/failure exists but win/lose is different. You don't win at picking an apple, or drinking water, or building a home. You succeed. In life you face challenges where you either succeed or fail, not games where you can win or lose. The concept of 'winning' involves something separate from the action itself, some kind of extra importance beyond the activity itself, some kind of artificial rules structure or goal.

Advancement comes as a result of facing difficulty. You are challenged, and you improve in response to facing that challenge. That works with any form of challenge, it doesn't have to be competition. There are plenty of challenges present already without having to create more.

Speed is useful in some situations, but the 'point' of useful training is not to be faster, but to be able to get past the difficulties you face easier. I agree, if you consider speed on its own it is arbitrary. That's why we don't consider it on its own, but practise it in a relevant context.
Marketing and business studies are pretty useless as far as I'm concerned, as you need a thorough understanding of neither to get food, warmth, shelter and happiness. Reading however is fantastic, and reading the right book or information will probably be far more useful than getting a little bit faster. For me, I think helping others learn how to become more capable is the mot useful thing I can do. There are lots of other useful things too, but there seems to be a definite shortage of good teachers so I've chosen that.

Collaborative efforts that work without a competitive element? Informal Parkour training. Charities. Families. Cooperatives. For example, Wikipedia.

NOS, the earth has plenty of resources to support the current number of humans. The problem is that there are a small group of humans who have taken control of most of the resources and insist on using them for things we don't really need. You could spend all day listing the products and professions that we see around us in wealthy western society that are utterly useless. Get rid of those, get rid of the man-hours spent producing, refining, advertising, maintaining and destroying them, and you've got a lot of free resources and most of the world's population free to work on using them efficiently.
The earth actually has a net gain in resources from the Sun's energy and bits and pieces from meteorites. The resources we 'use' aren't gone, they are just changed into another form. If we stop messing about with the earth's natural cycle and work with it, maybe even help it, it can be self-perpetuating. Exponentially increasing the population isn't a human need (nor even a current reality if you check the wikipedia links JP provided). Sure the earth can't sustain an infinite number of people at once but it won't have to, and it can can sustain a stable population indefinitely.

The best way to operate is to take advantage of natural processes. For organising human society, it seems fairly clear that means working with human nature rather than against it, but there is substantial disagreement in the whole nature vs nurture discussion, about which traits fall into which category.
For me, the only things that have been proven to be part of human nature are a need for food/warmth/shelter/happiness, a great ability to adapt, and a desire for improvement.

[M2.]

I can agree with some of your points on "succeeding" but to say there is no win or lose in nature - or that the concept of winning involves something extra than succeeding, I'm afraid that feels to me like you are using your own definitions, in which case of course nobody can argue.

This seems like a contradiction to me -
"but in a competitive environment you get lots of people who work hard and who still don't achieve anything"

and then
"Advancement comes as a result of facing difficulty. You are challenged, and you improve in response to facing that challenge. That works with any form of challenge, it doesn't have to be competition. There are plenty of challenges present already without having to create more."

The second statement doesn't mean that competition DOESN'T present a challenge, just not one that you personally favor.

In my opinion, anyone who works hard at anything gains something and that thing is the reason my life is built around parkour. People work hard, train hard, they build something for themself that cannot be gained any other way, nor can it be taken from that person by any means. - This seems to be in line with your second statement, but your second statement makes your first statement untrue in my opinion.

[Muse_of_Fire]

Dave, it seems to me most of your issues with competition stem from a couple of things:

1. You are operating under the premise that there are fixed, immutable values attached to winning and losing

2. You are making it into a zero-sum game, i.e. operating under the premise that "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" (to quote Wisconsin's most favored son).

To elaborate...

Yes, there are values to winning and losing. Winning is all "Yay! We won!" and it feels good to win, and of course society places all sorts of values on it as well. Losing is not fun, and society places all sorts of value judgments on losing (for better or for worse). But this is not ALL there is to winning and losing. If you are focused only on the product, you miss out on pretty much the whole point, which is that even through the process of winning or losing, there is still learning, adaptation, cooperation, and development going on. In other words, if you are focused on the process, then winning and losing are merely outcomes that can inform your training. You seem to be operating from a standpoint of focusing only on the product (winning vs. losing), and limiting your perspective to that.


It seems to me that your beef with competition isn't about competition, it's that you're focused entirely on the idea that winning is good for the winners, and consequently, losing must, by extension, be "bad" for the losers, and this is patently not the case. (Going by normal sports examples, not by examples in nature such as lion vs. zebra). Losing is not "bad" for the losers except maybe in a temporary sense of feeling disappointment. But people who engage routinely in competition understand that losing is a possible outcome, and if they're worth even ten seconds of their training, don't let losing have any effect on them except for how to learn from the experience and become even better at their craft.

People who aren't motivated to succeed under those circumstances are under no obligation to compete. People who are, are going to, and it can't really be stopped.

You are assuming that if there is a winner and a loser, that the loser has gained nothing: "You get lots of people who work hard and still don't achieve anything." Not true. They didn't win, but they still achieved all sorts of things. They worked hard, they got stronger, they tested their own mettle... arguably these are the same things we achieve currently when we train without competing. If, at the end of that, someone gets the privilege of walking away with a trophy or a t-shirt or a title or even a little gold star sticker, simply because they voluntarily signed up for the chance to do so, and happened to do the best job, so what?

Essentially, after reading your arguments throughout this thread, what it boils down to is that you disagree with competition because with competition, there is a winner and a loser, and winning is inherently good, and losing is inherently bad. These are false, limiting premises for an argument.

[DaveS]

'Winning' is not 'succeeding'. They are two different words, but there's no point arguing about the definitions of words.

By the values of the competition the people who don't win have achieved nothing. The whole point of a competition is to create a closed system in order to try and quantify a single, specific achievement. Sure, competitions do often contain challenges that help you improve to do other things, but by definition competitive people are focusing on the principles of the competition instead of the wider demands of life.

By creating this closed system competitions encourage the idea of competitiveness. To win you don't need to consider anything outside the boundaries of the competition, and if you want to stand a good chance of winning you want to focus as much of your time on the competition as possible. It's part of human nature to adapt to the the situations we are presented with, and if you're in a situation that demands only one area of focus then you will focus on only one area.
Not everyone who enters competitions is competitive, but for those who aren't there are all the usual drawbacks and even fewer benefits.

[NOS - from Parkour Mumbai]

Dave, it seems to me most of your issues with competition stem from a couple of things:

1. You are operating under the premise that there are fixed, immutable values attached to winning and losing

2. You are making it into a zero-sum game, i.e. operating under the premise that "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" (to quote Wisconsin's most favored son).

To elaborate...

Yes, there are values to winning and losing. Winning is all "Yay! We won!" and it feels good to win, and of course society places all sorts of values on it as well. Losing is not fun, and society places all sorts of value judgments on losing (for better or for worse). But this is not ALL there is to winning and losing. If you are focused only on the product, you miss out on pretty much the whole point, which is that even through the process of winning or losing, there is still learning, adaptation, cooperation, and development going on. In other words, if you are focused on the process, then winning and losing are merely outcomes that can inform your training. You seem to be operating from a standpoint of focusing only on the product (winning vs. losing), and limiting your perspective to that.


It seems to me that your beef with competition isn't about competition, it's that you're focused entirely on the idea that winning is good for the winners, and consequently, losing must, by extension, be "bad" for the losers, and this is patently not the case. (Going by normal sports examples, not by examples in nature such as lion vs. zebra). Losing is not "bad" for the losers except maybe in a temporary sense of feeling disappointment. But people who engage routinely in competition understand that losing is a possible outcome, and if they're worth even ten seconds of their training, don't let losing have any effect on them except for how to learn from the experience and become even better at their craft.

People who aren't motivated to succeed under those circumstances are under no obligation to compete. People who are, are going to, and it can't really be stopped.

You are assuming that if there is a winner and a loser, that the loser has gained nothing: "You get lots of people who work hard and still don't achieve anything." Not true. They didn't win, but they still achieved all sorts of things. They worked hard, they got stronger, they tested their own mettle... arguably these are the same things we achieve currently when we train without competing. If, at the end of that, someone gets the privilege of walking away with a trophy or a t-shirt or a title or even a little gold star sticker, simply because they voluntarily signed up for the chance to do so, and happened to do the best job, so what?

Essentially, after reading your arguments throughout this thread, what it boils down to is that you disagree with competition because with competition, there is a winner and a loser, and winning is inherently good, and losing is inherently bad. These are false, limiting premises for an argument.

Muse, that's precisely what I was trying to say, but I just said it in brief. Thanks for expanding upon it.


Dave, once again, you seem to be closed to the idea that when you use the word 'competition', the persons engaging it in are only obsessed with winning, where a lot of times that is not the case.

[DaveS]

NOS, I've just explained that part again. Competition doesn't guarantee competitiveness, but artificially created competition encourages it. Competitiveness is the more fundamental problem.

[M2.]

by definition competitive people are focusing on the principles of the competition instead of the wider demands of life.

Well, there you go assigning your value to something and stating it like a definition. Nobody can argue if you're going to use things in your head as definitions.

How many football (soccer) programs focus on teaching youth values? Martial arts? Parkour? Are there not competitions in these things? Do not even the people who participate in the competitions learn the values through the practice and participation in the sports?

[Skipper]

I spend wayyy too much time reading all this. Meaning all of you are spending way way wayyyy too much time arguing over it.





that is all

[Seth Horner]

I'll continue to do what I love most.