It seems obvious that practicing basic skills will pay off for any practitioner of parkour, freerunning, etc. but often even advanced practitioners have not mastered the basics of movement before trying more complex tricks. Many of these people never seem to develop the ability to flow between movements and objects and end up simply doing a series of disconnected tricks. This is fine; however, I personally strive to move beyond just “fine”.

Alright, so the point of this blog post is to teach you something about movement. The first skill that you will want to acquire is a high quality landing. Check this out: American Parkour Landing Tutorial. So mainly, you’re going to want to have good leg positioning and absorption as to avoid any injury. And please, don’t think that since you’ve watched a video on landing and rolling that you can jump off of a roof without injuring yourself… these skills should be practiced close to the ground. Once the skill and leg strength are present, then one can progress to higher jumps.

So, you’ve got a basic idea of how to land now, but you want to take it to some thing more structurally interesting… well I have a great video for you:

Remember, you now have an idea of how to land and fall safely, but you should also practice your roll! And DO NOT roll along the spine, roll across okay?

That’s it for today, learn your landings and ALWAYS land as silently as possible.

- travesty intl.

There is a trend that many of us have been noticing (it’s been going on for as long as we can remember) relating to many of the new people coming to club meetings, and even many people who have been coming for quite a while. That trend has been a fundamental misunderstanding of how to grow and improve in Parkour; and I daresay that up to this point we officers have not been doing a good enough job in clearing up the confusion. Many people have been showing up to meetings expecting to immediately learn how to do incredible moves, and most of these people are the ones that don’t come back after having their expectations be let down after their first training session. Let me make this clear, we can try and teach you technique for days, weeks, or even months, but if you do not have the necessary strength/flexibility/etc to perform the technique then all of our teaching will be fruitless.

The base from which all Parkour flows is your body. Training technique without training fitness is like trying to build a house with only a hacksaw, a bucket of rusty nails, and a rock for a hammer; you just won’t have the tools to adequately do the job. I am definitely not saying don’t show up if you’re out of shape, in fact if you are please come more often so you can get more out of training. What I am saying is don’t expect to magically improve without “working out”. Improving in Parkour is a struggle and takes effort and it’s only when you put in that effort that you’ll see good results. If you don’t know where to start in working out please ask any of us officers, we are all more than happy to take some time to go over exercises and workouts and we can even write up a plan for you if you want. After all, we’re here to help.

Parkour can be the most rewarding experience in your life; you just have to put in the effort. In time you’ll come to realize that that concept doesn’t only apply to Parkour, but everything you do. But before you do something, whether it’s trying a new technique, doing your homework (or not), or anything else in your life, ask yourself why you’re doing it. Find out why it’s important to you that you do it. Only once you know that answer will you be able to put your heart and soul into whatever you choose to do. So, if you want to show up to meetings and watch everybody else improve quickly while you watch, so be it. I’ll be there to crack jokes and have a fun time with you regardless. But if you really want to improve yourself in both mind and body, get ready to put in the effort.

As always, find your way.
-Scooter

First I just want to congratulate everyone on a great fall semester. I believe that as a group we all progressed physically and mentally. I look forward to continuing this progress next semester.

That aside, I wanted to talk about vacation. I know that as it gets colder and starts to snow, most of us will not be going outside to run up walls and vault tables. This does not mean that we should get lazy however. It is very important that everybody stays in shape over vacation so that when we resume practice next semester we don’t have to play catch up and get back in shape. There are a number of things you can all do to ensure you don’t get fat and lazy over break. If you’re lucky enough to have a gymnastics gym close to you it is a great place to practice flips and you can do all sorts of crazy vaults on their equipment. Assuming most people won’t have access to a gymnastics gym you can still stay in shape. If weight gyms are your thing, you should check to see if your local gym has a college vacation special, where you can just get a membership for the month or so that you are home. If you don’t like gyms you can get a copy of P90X, which is a great fitness program. It is a little expensive but ask around and you may be able to find a friend you can borrow it from. You could also just lift some free weights in your basements or bundle up and go for a run. At the very least do some pushups, sit-ups, and plyometrics on your stairs 4 or 5 times a week. Taking this step will keep everyone in prime form for another great semester of parkour.

Good luck everyone and I hope you have a great Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate) vacation.

Seth

Sebastien Foucan (the man accredited with the founding of “Freerunning” and host of the website http://www.freerunningtv.com/) recently interviewed the accredited founder of Parkour, David Belle. The two have been friends since childhood and trained together for many years, and lately both have become aware of a shift in the reasons why people involved in these disciplines train. Back when they first started training these men, and the rest of the Yamakasi, trained in an effort to strengthen themselves and the people they trained with. Their name, “Yamakasi”, originates from the African Congolese Lingala language meaning loosely ‘Strong Man, Strong Spirit’, and it sums up the original and still core aim of their discipline – to be a strong individual: physically, mentally and ethically (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamakasi). However, Sebastien, David, and other pioneers of these disciplines have started to vocalize their thoughts on this shift in attitude. For the interview follow this link to see Sebastien Foucan interview David Belle.

Their fear is that people these days are wandering away from the deeper meaning of Parkour and Freerunning. They see all of these kids who are introduced to these disciplines by videos on youtube and immediately they think it’s all about producing the best looking and flashiest video edit, being able to do the biggest tricks and sickest flips. Wisely Foucan and Belle are both extremely hesitant to call this shift “bad” or a “negative” thing, they merely say it is just different from how they see things. Being someone who sees eye to eye with them, I agree with their phrasing. It is not inherently “bad” or “worse” to train in Parkour and Freerunning for the, at least partial, purpose of showing off, it merely makes the disciplines mean something different to the person training for that reason. If what you value is being the first to throw triple-flips with impunity for the sake of being put on adverts and featured in movies, more power to you. But if you seek something else, like to strengthen and grow as an individual and help those around you do the same, Parkour and Freerunning offer that as well.

What it comes down to is figuring out what you want from Parkour and/or Freerunning. For the officers of this club, they mean to us what they mean to Foucan and Belle. We wish to grow from the experience, both physically and mentally, and even have fun while doing it. Parkour and Freerunning are amazing in that they can give you just about anything you seek provided you put in the effort.

So, I’ll leave you with this, listen to why other people train. Listen to the Foucans, the Belles, the Shieffs, the Ilabacas, the 15 year olds who just watched 100 youtube videos in one day and decided they want to start training, the gymnasts, the breakdancers, and even the “e-runners” -those self proclaimed experts on these arts who have not trained a day in their life but can rattle off the top youtube videos like they’re scripture. Listen to all of them. But, never, NEVER, take what they say as the absolute truth about Parkour or Freerunning. That is up to you to decide. Take that knowledge you get from listening and use it to formulate your own ideas and opinions about what they mean to you. As the title of Sebastien Foucan’s book wisely says: “Find your way”. PK/FR are not static. They are fluid and can be as complex, simple, profound, or shallow as you make them.

Find your way.

-Scooter

Today I want to share a few ideas and a few quotes from leaders of the human motion revolution. But before that I want to share a video that was recently posted on youtube: Drozd 2010

What is the human motion revolution? It is a concept really, movement for social betterment, in freeing your body you can free your mind. Sound far-fetched? Well, let me explain, (if you have seen the matrix this might make a little more sense) Americans (can’t speak for the rest of the world) are easily trained to act in a certain way, even if acting in this way isn’t going to positively influence their life:

“Be aware of every action that you’re doing… life is training… everything is my training… emotion is a choice as well.” Daniel Ilabaca (1)

One example is the problem of excess weight we have in the county, 1/3 of this country is overweight and 1/3 is obese. Really, look it up. By letting advertisers convince you to eat unhealthy meals you are not free to see the truth, if you gain too much weight you’ll die from the effects of excess weight. By choosing to eat in a way that suits your body you have freed yourself from certain chains. But what reason is there to change? Because it will be hard, it will have moments of failure and some pain, hmm this reminds me of parkour:

“When I think about all the physical training he went through I tell myself “Is that the price to pay to get that good? Fuck it’s really hard!” Many people pay to get trained, but I reckon if any of them would have trained with him only one day, none of them would have ever come back. That’s how hard it is. So many people try to train easy “Come do Parkour! it’s really cool!”. But if tomorrow I made you do real training, you would end up crying. That’s what you need to know: you are going to cry, you are going to bleed and you are going to sweat like never before. I can’t lie to you about that. Now if you come telling me “Hey I want to learn Parkour, but go easy on me, I don’t want to push too much”, well go do something else! It is for warriors. A training method for warriors. It is not like “I want to learn how to fight; but please don’t hit me too hard because I don’t like it”. If that’s the case, go do something else! If you want to be a real warrior you have to go through hard times.” David Belle (2)

For those of you who never exercised, who never played sports, try personalized movement… don’t be discouraged! UMass parkour is open to non-warriors! David Belle is speaking of a high level of proficiency that is definitely optimal but not required. People are simply meant to move, it has been so since our evolution:

“he find indigenous people in the jungle and ah yes, they are strong and they jump and to find food they chase and oh oh oh, and they climb and after he developed ten techniques exercises to have d’tente, the long jump, you have high jump, quadropedie (walking on all fours), notation, nager swimming, climbing, lancer (throwing), rah rah rah, (mumbling his list) you have defense like fight. On the internet you can find all this. Methode naturelle, George Herbert. He invented the method. It was a long time ago. This is the origin of our discipline, the real discipline, nobody can to discuss about this” Sebastien Foucan (This quote is from when his English was not as proficient – thanks scooter) (3)

Humans become depressed and unhealthy when we don’t move, the status of my country proves this fact. As a supporter of the “Health @ Any Size” concept, I think everyone just needs to get out and exercise regularly, simply: move. One way to move is parkour. However, once you can do parkour, your lifestyle changes to suit the way you’d like to move. You are able to free your body while using your mind creatively even in everyday situations. If you’re interested, an easy way to start parkour is to learn some of our techniques(often safety vaults, quadrupedal movement, balance, climbing, jumping, rolling, landing, cat leaps, more vaults, cranes, sprinting, jogging, wall kicks etc.):

“You learn these few skills and suddenly it’s like you start to look at the world a bit open…a little bit more open I should say…and everything else out there that can sort of push you towards your goals. And don’t dream little and take the same path that everyone else has taken, there are tons of paths out there. And so, that’s what I’m trying to promote…just to be creative, just to be outgoing, just to go for what you want to do.” Dan Iaboni (4)

You should really find that movement can bring you to whatever place you’d like to be… after you learn a few skills in each “movement category” you are more and more free to express yourself. If you like dancing, martial arts, gymnastics, etc. you should still have a solid basis in environmental navigation, if you can’t move then you are a prisoner. You are a prisoner to your own body (which isn’t strong enough to support you) and you are a prison to a society where people walk along designated paths and sit more than any human should. Just my opinion of course, take your own path, I simply want to share the freedom that comes with movement with all who will listen.

- travesty international

Interviews:

(1) http://www.misterparkour.com/exclusive-interview-with-daniel-ilabaca/
(2) http://www.urbanfreeflow.com/2009/04/18/david-belle-interview/
(3) http://www.urbanfreeflow.com/2008/12/24/sebastien-foucan-interview/
(4) http://3006-f08.wikispaces.com/dan1.2

Daneil Ilabaca in Paris

For those of you who have not already found out about (and/or religiously followed) the “Brink” European Parkour Tour, here is the website: parkourtour.com. Go there. The tour was a 4000 mile journey made over three weeks and through 8 countries that sought to spotlight some of the various Parkour/Freerunning communities of Europe and educate people on the discipline. The tour guide was the marvelous Daniel Ilabaca, one of, if not the, greatest traceur/freerunner alive. If you don’t know who Daniel Ilabaca is, or how incredible his expression of movement is, just watch the video(s). Not only is his parkour beautiful and awe inspiring, but his outlook on it and life in general follows the same trend. In touring Europe and meeting the various communities he exemplified what it means to be a true traceur. Before the Tour Daniel spoke about parkour and this opportunity saying: “Parkour is about expressing your mind and thoughts through your environment and so I hope to see many different variations on the discipline. Meeting different people, experiencing their cultures and training in their cities will be a fantastic opportunity to see how Parkour can be expressed differently whilst sharing a common bond of movement.”

If you want to learn or observe what parkour is really about I suggest you watch not only the videos of Daniel moving in each city, but also the “behind the scenes” videos from each area which offer valuable insight into the minds and attitudes of traceurs/freerunners from all over. All of the footage is wonderfully well put together and the tour turned out to be the most honest expression of parkour I have ever seen on this scale. Have fun watching! I know I did.

-Scooter

Hello parkour community. Recently a couple car loads of UMass students went out to Boston to see the second part (the first being in Tampa) of the first set of freerunning competitions in America. Training with professionals was great and there were a lot of awesome kids who came out to the city like us to train. Red Bull has put up some nice photos here: Art of Motion: Boston.

As for the rest of the semester, we will be practicing regularly (every weekday but friday) and jamming on saturdays as long as the weather isn’t too unforgiving. Check out facebook group for details on practices and other meetups.

Also, we are finally starting to get some mats, soon enough we’re going to need our own training gym (the “kong vault” anyone?) Currently we have two vault boxes, two precision trainers, and a couple of beat up mats. If anyone has any old gymnastics equipment or any other useful object that they no longer use… please get in contact with us, we’ll even pick it up!

Also, if you haven’t done these two things already… please do. 1) Sign a Health Waiver (applies to anyone who attends) and 2) if you want to be an official member (applies to UMass students only) you need to join up on Campus Pulse. Thanks.

Finally, we’ve got a few things happening this weekend. We’re starting to release a series of training videos on UMPK’s Youtube Account and we’re hosting a Saturday Jam at 2:00pm, meet up in front of the Fine Arts Center.

Thanks for reading, train hard and train safely! Now go practice some movement!

Welcome back to school UMass… its time for us to start doing parkour again (if you haven’t been training in the summer). We have a couple of announcements to make, first off that today we’re going to be showing off some of our equipment and movements at the Activities Expo, check the link out for more info. Also, we have our first practice at the Fine Arts Center on Thursday, check out the Facebook Event. The first meeting is open to anyone with interest in the club, lets do parkour.

We have a few announcements to make after an officer meeting in amherst this weekend. First, we would like to introduce the officers for 2010-2011: Travis Swain(President), Marco ‘Orbit’ Casarano(Vice President), Scott Maxson(Treasurer), Marc Freccero(Public Relations Representative), and Jasper Sardonicus(Equiptment Manager). We have a few new plans for next year which we will explain during the semester. Be ready to train right at the start of the semester and if you’re looking for more information we’ll be at the activities expo. We’ll post more information on the first meetings among other things soon, so stay tuned.

As many of you know, we have started to increase the amount of training days for parkour. We now practice four days a week with a weekend jam happening almost every week. Currently we train on Mondays and Wednesdays from 5:00-6:00pm also we have kept the Tuesday and Thursday practices from 7:00-8:30pm.

If you would like to attend the weekend jams, they are posted on our facebook and all members will be invited. If you would like to be one of those invited members please like our facebook page. Also, we will no longer be using the google groups.

Finally, two of our members were recently featured in a State Radio music video doing some parkour and freerunning. Travis Swain and Marc Freccero show off their moves in the last thirty seconds of the Knights of Bostonia Music Video. So check it out and train hard!