American Parkour

Your swim team sounds exactly like mine did.  I swam for 6 years and was captain for 2 of those in high school.  We had a lot of swimmers who joined in the same situation you are (little to no experience), but by the end of the year those same people had picked it up and improved their individual times a lot.  Swimming is just something you have to get used to.  Kinda like when you start parkour your not really used to using your body the way you have to, but after you get used to it you will improve rather quickly to a point.  Everyone finds their stroke eventually.  Personally, I hate swimming freestyle but breast stroke came very easily to me.  In my opinion you should stick with it.  It is a great way to stay in shape and work on breathing control (which is actually very important while running too). 

After I started parkour, I began to get in even better shape and my swimming improved, so you at least have that under your belt already.  Plus what if your getting chased by a murderer and need to cross a lake 

alright we are now a good way into the semester here and I'm getting into a pretty good routine.  Unfortunately right now that routine does not include parkour.  I haven't really trained since school started.  Mostly because I've been busy but I really want to get back to it.  And everyone knows training with other people is always more fun.  So if your at USC hit me up so we can meet up sometime.  I plan on getting back into a regular routine no matter what, but its always great to train with friends.

hey guys. im at usc now, and columbia is a much bigger town then where im from. any place suggestions, or any one want to try to meet up

ill try to look around today.  i guess tuesday afternoon we can meet at the russel house and look around and ill try to teach you some

hey guys.  i moved in to usc yesterday and classes don't start till Thursday.  any one else around here who wants to meet up.

Sounds cool guys. I've actually been training for about three years, but I've progressed slowly because I'm busy and have to figure things out myself.  Well Cuxim, I guess that part answers your question. I started with a friend of mine after seeing some youtube videos.  Figuring out stuff on your own sounds scary, but with all the online tutorials and stuff your not really on your own if you know what i mean.  I have actually had some experience teaching people and I think its fun to train with people of different skill levels.  It would be great to meet up this fall.  Just remember guys start slow and train safe.

Actually, I was not trying to devise a competition as much as point out how utterly impossible to create a good competition is.  If you take a second look at my first post you will (unless I did a really terrible job of conveying my thoughts) see how I proposed a very simple, maybe overly simple, competition and talked about how the competition was flawed. I'm very sorry if I did a very bad job putting my thoughts down in words, but I feel we have the same basic idea at least.  However I could be completely wrong.

The most basic definition of Parkour is moving quickly and efficiently from point A to point B using whatever methods of movement necessary.  This may not be the most elegant definition even conceived, but i feel less elegant definition is needed to understand it; kind of like a building block to other better definitions. 

A very important part of this simple definition is the phrase "using whatever methods of movement necessary."  All competitions (that I'm aware of at least) have a set of structured rules stating what can and cannot be done.  Because Parkour uses whatever methods of movement necessary, there is no way to effectively create a set of rules without limiting something.  Rules are limits and therefore every rule put in place limits what a Traceur can do during the structured competition.

A very simple Parkour competition would be running through a obstacle course.  It sounds simple but there are rules that change the way you would treat the obstacle course in competition.  If you were truly trying to go from point A to B as quickly and efficiently as possible and suddenly came across a large obstacle course designed to be difficult you would/should just go around it. However one of the most basic rules of an obstacle course is that you actually have to go through the obstacle course.  This rule is a major limit on the methods of movement a participant is allowed.

I am not necessarily against competition, I just feel that would be very difficult or even impossible to create a competition that truly encompasses what Parkour is about.  With every new rule, there is a new limit, and eventually a competitor is limited to moving in a way that does not fit the previous basic definition in any way.

ok. i pretty sure i found the article for you. but im not so sure it will help the staying stretched part as much as just training in general.

http://urbanescape.xtreemhost.com/?q=node/60

yea i started playing prototype today, and its fun, just not as fun. im thinking of going through inFamous one more time to go the evil path