Parkour :
While doing research about parkour, I was reading an online
article advising traceurs to ignore the
fancy moves and have fun and this led me to an even more detailed research.
Parkour is not a sport that you can earn money with, the one’s practising this
sport love doing it because movement is all they can think of.
Films, documentaries and advertisements featuring these
practitioners show that training parkour mainly consists of general landing
techniques, quadrupedal movements, climbing, running and balancing.
‘The main issue is to go from point A to point B by getting
over obstacles with speed and efficiency together with your own imagination.’
(Marco Gomes)
Although parkour is fun its main purpose is discipline to
all participants but this connotates accidents because of the environment and
if not wearing suitable equipment and clothing. Whatever one wears should
always be lightweight and flexible. The reason being not to add any extra
weight and make sure that clothes are not too tight. Research shows that gloves
and shoes can add extra grip when climbing. With regards to danger and
accidents traceurs consider this as part of life risks. For them life is a
permanent risk and they consider parkour as dangerous as crossing the road and
getting hit by a car. ‘Free runners hurt in roof top shooting’ (West Sussex
Country Times – August 2013)
For David Belle, the founder of parkour, parkour is a form
of martial arts because in it you face your obstacles and you overcome them by
thinking in advance. Researching online parkour magazines I realized that there
are international parkour teams such as Storror and some popular personalities
like Ryan Doyle and Toby Segar. I found out that even competitions like The Red
Bull Art of Motion are held up in various countries like Greece and each event
is about the taking part more than winning.
Members of society tend to be shocked when seeing someone
doing parkour because they consider it useless and dangerous, but in fact it is
not. It is mainly about training to know what to do when facing real life
scenarios. People earn to trust themselves, be courageous and careful.
Going into further detail I found that here in Malta there
are teenagers practising this sport in local parks. In Januray 2014 the Mosta
Council decided to build a Parkour Park located at Blata L-Gholja in Mosta to
prevent any injuries in streets and local disturbances.
In other countries those effected by parkour are mainly
students which benefit from it both physically and mentally. They have school
programmes in which they practise this sport during school hours. Their coaches
are fully qualified and experienced teachers holding also First-aid training.
The Maltese society does not consider this as such and because of this heads of
school ban parkour training during school hours.
