Parkour is the art of moving through your environment using
only your body and the surroundings to propel yourself. It can include running, jumping, climbing, even
crawling, if that is the most suitable movement for the situation. Parkour can be grasped by imagining
a race through an obstacle course. The goal of parkour is to overcome obstacles quickly and efficiently, without
using extraneous movement. Apply this line of thought to any type of environment, whether it is urban or natural
, and you're on the right path. Because individual movements could vary so greatly by the situation,
it is better to consider Parkour as defined by the intention instead of the movements themselves.
Parkour is not acrobatics, tricking, stunts, recklessness, rebellious, or jumping off high objects for no reason.
If the movement does not help you effectively overcome any type of obstacle, it is not parkour. Parkour
is also not what you make of it; it is predefined activity.
Many people take the principles they learn through parkour and apply them to their lives. By challenging
themselves physically, it becomes easier to deal with
everyday life situations. When an obstacle or difficult situation comes up in daily life, a Traceur
(parkour practitioner) can see this as just another obstacle to overcome quickly,
efficiently, and without disruption to the intended path. Update: After speaking with David Belle,
I feel it should be added that part of the overall Parkour philosophy is to be useful in a variety of
situations. Parkour itself does not strive to be a "complete" discipline.
While the concept of Parkour cannot be grasped by looking at the individual movements, it is necessary
to drill some basic movements to attain a level of proficiency in Parkour. There are some basic
techniques that should be mastered in order to ensure one's safety and success in their parkour journey.
To view tutorials of some of these basic movements, please click
here.
In some sense, Parkour has been around as long as man's need to hunt and avoid being hunted.
Humans naturally have an astounding range of motion and range of options for how to move through a
given set of obstacles. Furthermore, children naturally move about with grace and ease. We only start to
lose this ability later in life as we start to move with conscience. There have been several people throughout
history to work on concepts of human movement and development. The man who inspired parkour is
Raymond Belle, a French soldier in the Vietnam war. He and his companions worked to
develop efficient methods "to reach or escape". These were then handed down to his son, David Belle, who has
spent a majority of his young life working on these principles specifically as Parkour. There
were some others who worked with him in the developing stages of Parkour in Lisses, Sebastien Foucan
being one of the most well known.*Information courtesy of American Parkour.
coloradoparkour@gmail.com
COPK stands for Colorado Parkour and is an organization in which traceurs from
Colorado can come together to share ideas and plan events. Founded in the spring of 2005, Colorado Parkour
has grown into one of the largest parkour communities in the nation. With traceurs located in the Denver metro area,
Colorado Springs, Boulder, Ft. Collins, Grand Junction, and more, Colorado Parkour has become a statewide phenomenon.
At Colorado Parkour, we have several main goals. We aim to provide a strong community in which like minded
people can come together, teach, learn, and most importantly, have fun. While parkour is our main focus,
Colorado Parkour welcomes people from similar activities such as freerunning, tricking, break dancing,
and martial arts. Another goal of Colorado Parkour is to educate people on parkour and generate new interest
in the discipline. Through magazine articles, media projects, classes, and more, Colorado Parkour continues
to lead the development of parkour at local and national levels.
Colorado Parkour is always willing to hear your ideas on site improvements, media project proposals,
performances, workshops, jams, and much more. Please send inqueries to:Ryan Ford (Demon) coloradoparkour@gmail.com If you would like to get in contact with other traceurs around the state and participate in our online forum, please click here. |