"My knees and feet hurt so BAD!"
"Why is that bro?"
"Well, I just did an enormous Parkour Double Backflip"
"Woah, what is a Parkour Double Backflip? I know what a backflip is, but a Parkour Double backflip must be SICK!"
"Trust me, it is...So first, you go out to a railroad station right?"
"OK!"
"Then you do a double layout off of a two story building and land on your feet without rolling or anything!
"..."
"..."
"DID YOU GET THAT THING ON VIDEO?"
"Of course I did!"
- Aaaand Scene -
Need I say more...really?
First off.....that little conversation back and forth. Completely inaccurate. Second, he must be fine considering he kept running AND flipping. If his ankles were trashed from that jump I doubt he would've done anything but lay there. The ground was really soft judging from the sound of the landing. He's pushing his limits, like everybody that trains in the art of movement. So stop ragging on this guy. Do a double layout, then maybe you have the right to trash this guy.
ReplyDeleteGranted, the little dialogue at the beginning is a little exaggerated, but there's a difference between pushing your limits and doing things that are needlessly dangerous. For one, an injury doesn't always present itself immediately. How are his ankles 6 months after this video? Or 5 years afterward? The point of this post is to show that first, it has a pretty awful title (parkour double back-flip?), and second, this isn't movement that represents the parkour philosophy.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone is arguing that doing a giant double layout like that isn't impressive. It's not parkour though. And guess who's going to watch this and be under the impression that everyone who trains parkour does things like this? Way too many people. Haven't you ever been training and had a random passerby ask you to do a backflip? That's misrepresenting parkour, and that's the point of this blog.
Also, just because it really aggravates me, do you need to be able to do everything in order to have an opinion on it? What does one's ability to do a double layout have to do with the ability to see the misrepresentation of the discipline?
The title really shouldn't be an issue. Because as David Belle pointed out in a very long and thorough status on Facebook, "Thank you to all the practitioners of Parkour, with or without acro it doesn’t matter..." It's all movement at the core of it all, efficient or more for show. It doesn't matter what it is used for. I'm so sick and tired of people differentiating between the two disciplines. Freerunning...Parkour....it's all the same. It's not a misrepresentation of the discipline. It's arrogant when you say that flipping or acro is a "misrepresentation of Parkour. Because it isn't. The Yamakasi, David Belle, Seb...all the founders agree that it is purely movement. Whether you strive for efficiency or flair is your own business. But the sooner people get off this argument about separating it into two disciplines there will never be true unity period. Also, as for the last part, I find out more often than not that people will trash talk someone simply because they have accomplished something that they haven't or never could/woud try in a million years.
ReplyDeleteWell you completely misinterpreted what I said. I like your perspective on parkour, but that's not really what I was talking about. Also, I'm done arguing with you over the internet. Some people, like myself, finds that videos like this encourage dangerous behavior and an extreme sports sense of thrill seeking. I don't want parkour to be like that.
ReplyDelete