Topic: Tracure with a dilema

[Xeno Gonzalez]

recently a Tracure posted this on facebook and asked my opinion, I found it interesting and yet..... sad
i would like others pinion
he writes.....

I always wondered this while training.

Who has the right to honestly call themselves the "Professionals" or "Experts" of this discipline? The Founders? The Ones with Experience? The Ones That Take Charge? The Flipper? The Cat Passer? I do not believe that we should call each other "Professionals" or 'Experts". Everyone within their own right is an expert of their respected level. To me a level is not dictated by what others can do COMPARED to you but based on what you, alone, can do.

TO ME (take note I do not reflect any other idea except my own crazy ones) it seems that we evaluate Parkour Generations, Urban Freeflow, David Belle, Sebastien Foucan, and others as authoritative figures of the sport. People, myself included, would kill to have a chance to sit down or train with Belle or Forrest or Stephane with no remorse or regrets. My concern is that to me Parkour/Free Running is a way of release, a freedom that knows no bounds but only your imagination and effort as well as commitment.

My concern is: This is something free to all, so why do we pay with money to learn, why do we force others who wish to learn pay ridiculous amounts of money that the first generation never had to, they only paid with blood, sweat, and time. Why do we gather under a banner recognizing ourselves as part of the Tribe, 3Run, PK Gen., UF, MXF, MFR, Costa Rica Parkour. Why not just practitioners of this art or discipline. No lines or boundaries, no territories or sanctions. No one has claim to the ground we step on, everyone has claim. No one has claim to the techniques and ideals that this discipline puts forth, all have claim. Why do we sit around and idolize LiveWire, Danny Ilibaca (spelling?), David Belle, Forrest, the Vigroux brothers, Dan, Kirby, or others?

I do not believe that in order to succeed, or evolve we should say "I can do what he does" or "I tried what he got down" or "I did that move that he did, it was awesome". But instead we should say what we could not do before, how far we have come from the first day we did our first vault or precision, how much more efficient we have become as a whole, not compared to others.

Please, I may be incredibly wrong so please tell me your thoughts of this, I like being wrong; means I have that much more to learn.

[Anguish12]

Why do we gather under a banner recognizing ourselves as part of the Tribe, 3Run, PK Gen., UF, MXF, MFR, Costa Rica Parkour. Why not just practitioners of this art or discipline. No lines or boundaries, no territories or sanctions. No one has claim to the ground we step on, everyone has claim. No one has claim to the techniques and ideals that this discipline puts forth, all have claim.

I agree with most of what yuor saying, just that every group dedicated to Parkour I think means in more of a sense that they are from a specific area, not that they have control over that area. Who is to say that I couldnt go to say San Francisco(spelling?!) and do parkour?
No one! I've never heard of any Parkour group say that no one can Train somewhere unless they are part of their group, and hopefully never will!

[Jeremy Osborn]

Not my state forum, sorry if you dont want my input, but i have also thought on this subject before.

I sort of agree with the "Who has the right to call themselves experts" statement. I personally believe no one traceur is "better" than another, but at different levels of skill.

And yes, we do see Belle, Foucan, ect. as the authoritative figures of Parkour. They are the people from which Parkour originated from, and so the authority is deserved. They put countless hours into creating this, figuring out what worked and what didnt, not to mention the injuries probably acquired from figuring this out. In any case, the respect is deserved IMHO.

I have never seen anyone charging money to teach Parkour. The reasons we make Parkour teams is because it makes it seem professional, and instead of saying "Oh, were just a bunch of friends practicing Parkour", you can say "Oh were the Tribe, were just practicing, do you want to join in?" What sounds more official, and which one would you feel more comfortable getting information from?

And I completely agree with the last statement.

Just my thoughts on the matter  

[Graham Hughes]

I don't consider Belle, Foucan, Generations, etc as authority figures.  I see them as seasoned practitioners.  This makes their words carry a little bit more weight, but doesn't make them the "kings of parkour" or anything like that.  They've just been doing it longer.

And while I agree that Parkour should be free, there will always be people who are willing to pay to learn from an experienced person.  As someone who's done a lot (and I mean, really a lot) of teaching for absolutely no compensation, I believe that anyone with the skills to share and high enough demand has every right to charge a small fee for their time and energy.  I teach for the love of teaching, but I can't make a living that way.  Eventually if you want to survive fiscally through parkour it'll mean making a business out of it, which is unfortunate but unavoidable.

As for "parkour teams" I find the whole notion amusing to the point of rediculous.  I have absolutely no problem saying to the police: "Yes, my friends and I are training."  As least I won't feel like a tool saying: "We're the Parkour Super Skills Team, lolh4x!!!1!"

Just my opinions though.

[Andrew Hull]

and who exactly is forcing people to pay money to learn? the simple fact is even with a dedicated gym, active pay to enter classes, and a rotating schedule of special events, there are still TONS of opportunity in nearly
every community to come out and learn for free.  Ill be entirely honest; Im planning and hoping to open a gym or two in Orlando and Tampa. But what people are paying for is access to a facility, and access to a structured class environment with someone who knows what they're  doing. They are not paying for access to parkour. Most of us here have gymnastics gyms that we frequent either for open gyms or instructed classes and I don't think anyone has a problem doing that. I also think that none of us here have paid a dime for instruction outside of a facility. And we've been at this for years.

I will happily accept people's money for my provision of a dedicated training facility, high level instruction from someone on a personal level (rather than trying to pick up what you can running after someone who's also trying to complete their own training), and for after school programs that teach the discipline as just that: a controled, self respecting lifestyle one can use to push yourself further everyday.

Who decides whether that stuff is worth money? The people with the money. If not theres still all of the hundreds of open jams and training sessions that happen everywhere, all the time. We all learned that way and I don't think we should feel the need to gun down progress towards easing access to and appropriate training of parkour through other means.

[Patrick Shaffer]

Overall i would have to say i agree. This supports the philosophy of parkour. Someone may be able to overcome an obstacle you have not but you will learn in time. Its not about what you can do for some coach or trophy, its about what you can do for yourself with no one elses abilitys in mind. There is little competition between traceurs, we keep eachother going, thats what makes this sport so much better than any other extreme sport or team sport. And if there is anyone to idolize it would definately have to be Raymond Belle and his band of brothers.

[Azoil Strigidae]

In Portland, Oregon they try to charge. Check out Revolution Parkour. Hacks.......I won't have anything to do with them.

[Jennifer]

I don't care what you call David Belle and the others--they have my full respect. They don't have to be called "Pro" or "Expert" or anything. They are who they are, and they've earned the respect this community gives them as individuals, not because of any title people have come up with to give them.

As for forming groups and teams: forming a group or team makes it easier to establish regular training times and community ties. Corpus Christi Parkour does free demos at events around Corpus, and because of this, we're in contact with much of the city council, police officers, the mayor, ect. That's huge, because we're presenting ourselves as reputable and making ourselves welcome. We have a good relationship with the local authorities, which is good for Corpus Christi Parkour, but also parkour in general.

Is it territorial? Not at all. There are other parkour groups in Corpus Christi and the surrounding area, and far from trying to push them away, we train alongside them. Everyone--traceur or not--is welcome to come train with us for free.

Which leads me to the pay-to-play thing... so far, we've never charged for a class. We do, on occasion, work with a gym. The gym charges five dollars per person, and that money goes directly to the gym. We take no part of it. But we are considering having some "pay" classes, offered alongside the free ones, for those who want them. We are also looking at starting after-school programs and such, but those will have to be paid because the instructors will not have time to properly run the programs AND work a 9 to 5.

Respect for the founders has nothing to do with titles. Groups and teams are not about shutting people out. And charging for some--but not all--of a group's classes CAN be about having the time and ability to offer more, not about greed.