American Parkour

So.. I don't think this has been asked/answered yet. M2, why were you not on with the Tribe? I was rather disappointed when I learned you weren't. Was there any certain reason?

All in all, that is basically what I was getting at. Thanks Swap.

Ugh... Okay, I'll try to sort everything out from my point of view right here so you guys will get off my case.

    As long as I have done parkour, I have trained myself for efficiency. If the time comes that I need to use my skills, I want to be ready. That's what I train for. My training is not parkour. It in itself is not efficient. I do not call my training parkour; I call it training. I do not, however involve flips, tricks, or acrobatics in my training. I do not try to make anything look pretty. From what I've seen, freerunning always involves at least one of the aforementioned skills. Call me a purist if you will, I just call myself a traceur.
    If you do freerunning, at least primarily, I believe that calling yourself a traceur shows hypocrisy, but this sentiment brings me to my next point.
    Through my involvement with the parkour and freerunning communities supplied by this website and others of it's kind, I have concluded that arguements such as this normally stem from conflicts in mindsets between traceurs and freerunners. If you ask a traceur (that is, someone who only or predominately practices parkour) if there is a difference between the two, he/she will generally say that there is and explain the efficiency versus entertainment theory. However, if you ask a freerunner (that is, someone who only or predominately practices freerunning), they will generally deny any difference. They generally have starkly different mindsets. The general traceur thinks of training constantly and efficiency whenever confronted with a task involving their skills. The general freerunner thinks about the next big thing they can pull off and how to make what they can already do prettier, flashier, or cooler.
    It's a difference in ^1.show yourself and do it when it counts and ^2.show yourself, then show everyone how cool what you can do is.
    To reinforce my views on parkour and freerunning being different, I will say this. They have evolved separately. One thing can not be the same if part evolves at a different rate than the other. Parkour's evolution does have an influence on freerunning's, and vice versa. However, they have grown to be quite seperate of each other's evolutionary chain. They are like twins. They start out the same. They keep many similarities. But they gain different personalities based on different experiences. Therefore, they are different people. Since parkour is based on efficiency, it does not change when someone comes up with a new flip or trick. Freerunning, on the other hand, does. It has a new layer added to it.
    On the labels of parkour, freerunning, and movement, I have an analogy. Consider art. In this scenario, ART is equivalent to MOVEMENT. It encompasses a wide variety of subcategories. Let's say that PARKOUR is equivalent to.... REALISM ART. Then let us say that FREERUNNING is equivalent to... ABSTRACT ART. So ART=MOVEMENT, REALISM ART=PARKOUR, and ABSTRACT ART=FREERUNNING. We all consider realism art and abstract art to be different and would agree that they take quite different techniques, skills, and abilities. We all would also agree that both are still classified and generalized as art.
    I, as a traceur, do not appreciate it whenever large influences, such as MTV's Ultimate Parkour Challenge, do not provide a distinction between the thing that I love (parkour) and what I do not hold such feelings for (freerunning).


***This post reflects my personal opinions, and therefore can and will not be considered fact.***

Who really cares? I'm pretty sure almost all of us on this forum practice both Parkour and FreeRunning, so who cares? As long as we know what were doing, and the general public knows were not vandalizing stuff then were all good. Parkour and FreeRunning aren't the same things in my opinion, but then again I could care less about what you call it.
A backflip off a railing is just a backflip off a railing. So technically it's street gymnastics and not freerunning, so why don't we all start arguing over the concept of freerunning and street gymnastics? If no one cares about those names, why do we care about the insignificant difference between Parkour and Freerunning?
All Parkour really is is running with vaults added in, so equally, we could call it running with vaults. But we don't.

As far as the art of movement definition goes, I entirely disagree. Yes it's movement, but if we called it the art of movement it would be denouncing other arts such as dancing and martial arts. Those are both arts, and they involve lots of physical movement. Dancing deserves the title "Art of Movement" just as much as FreeRunning does.

And what about those 3Run guys? Do they trick, do Parkour, FreeRun, or do they do street gymnastics? They do what they do, it's doesn't matter what it's called. That's how the Parkour community should be. Impartial to what it's called.

One benefit of everyone calling it by one name would be that when security is like "Hey! No Parkour!" You can be like "Well sir, I'm actually free running."

As far as competition goes. I am stoked for the idea of competition in Parkour. I hope they will hold Parkour/Free running competitions like they hold Skate competitions. In nearly every place. I enjoy competition, actually I love it. I know all you purists are unna jump one me "NO NO NO!!! Pro Parkour is AGAINST competition!" To you I say this: Sports evolve. In North America they capitalize. I highly doubt that in the beginning people held Karate competitions, but then one day some guy was like "Hey! I can make some money, and people can have fun competing." If you don't want to compete, then don't compete, and it won't effect you much, if at all.

Swap

1. The difference is very significant. If you don't believe so, maybe you should read up on that a little more.

2. If parkour was running with vaults added in, then you could call hurdle races parkour. You could go around in circles doing completely inefficient things and call it parkour.

3. Parkour is not a sport.
Definition of sport: an active diversion requiring physical exertion and competition
Parkour was made to be a discipline. It was not made to be a sport. It is too broad to be a sport. You can not accurately make a competition that covers all of the aspects of parkour.

I'm just tired of people trying to say that parkour and freerunning are the same. The simple fact is that they aren't.

That was horrible. I'm not even going to sugar coat it. I was watching it, disgusted, waiting for the speed round. I said "Well, if they're against the clock, it has to be efficient." My mistake. The "two skills" rule was a joke and an insult. Why in the world would any tricks or flips need to be performed? They aren't efficient. Just change the dang name, MTV.

I', in the Huntsville area. I know it's pretty far north, but what can a guy do? =-]

Anyone up for a spring break jam in Huntsville around Sunday/Monday?

easily the wall run...i've watched way to much matrix for it not to be my favorite

Vertical or horizontal?

Don't quit on me guys.  I need some more.