In this week’s issue of TIME magazine I’m featured along with some other great traceurs for my work with the nonprofit and the University of Washington scholarship and club. Surprisingly the article is not that well researched though, and spends the majority of its time talking about parkour’s dangers and injuries.
Seriously now, take a look at how dangerous football, polevaulting, wrestling, and gymnastics are to name a few – all widely spread college and high school sports. Polevaulting is probably the most dangerous sport I’ve ever done aside from skydiving, and football is incredibly dangerous as well but touted as a college “premiere” sport. Parkour if anything teaches you to be safer (provided you are not a moron or suicidal), think about it.
You learn exactly what your body can do, how far you can jump, how strong your grip is, etc.
You learn how to land and roll safely and naturally gain a huge amount of fall recovery abilities.
You learn how different materials change in grip depending on the weather, and learn what is going to hold you and what will slip…
My worst injury in parkour for 3 years now was a broken toe jumping up stairs. How about you?
Hi,
I was just reading this week’s Time in Australia and this article about parkour caught my eye. I had a quick search on the internet and found your clips – very artistic. When you mentioned you were in the magazine I looked back and found your quote and pics.
People can copy high level sports/gymnastics without the proper training and hurt themselves just as easily as with parkour. Anyone who thinks they can skip the intense training and years of practice will obviously get hurt: what’s so confusing about that?
I don’t think the author of the article really gets what parkour is about.
cheers
alex
I read the article also, but it was your name and location that caught me eye. I looked up your site and was pleased to see a very familiar scene for many of your videos. I am disappointed I haven’t seen you in action on campus, but am excited that its going on right here at UW. Keep it up, good luck with the nonprofit and club. Hope to see you around.
Hi, I would like to form a club at my UC…can any of you help out as to how? would they let me?
Thanks
I think this is very true. Parkour shows us what our bodies are capable of achieving through practise and repetition. With this, we create a better sense of our surroundings and what we are capable as human beings to achieve. Other sports, such as football hockey etc all share one common purpose and that is to “win” or “lose” but with parkour, it’s never to compete against someone else but rather for you to embrace nature and the world and even though it has come quite a long way, I don’t think people see Parkour for what it is but take it as “What the heck is that guy doing” which might put off some people from practising and to improve on themselves.
Its only been 11 months for me. No horrible injuries but I’ve broken one toe and severely sprained the other. First time was from jumping up stairs (Be careful doing this- most people look out for falling, but watching your feet don’t clip either). Second time I was jumping onto a pole and sliped off and smashed my toe against a pole behind it. What I’ve learned from all this is watch your feet. Its something I used to take for granted.