The sport was invented in France in the 1980s and has been popular among thrill-seekers and athletes ever since. Originally developed from obstacle course training, it is non-competitive and involves creative, constant movement.
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Omar Zaki is a local parkour practitioner or "traceur" studying kinesiology at George Mason University. He has been training for over three years, trains with a team called Impulse Freerunning and is now a lead parkour instructor at Urban Evolution (http://www.urbanevo.com/parkour/), a gym for parkour and other extreme sports in the DC metro area. Zaki has been an athlete his entire life, exploring soccer, swimming, track, volleyball and snowboarding. "One day, I heard about a parkour gym [...] near my house and went to give it a try. I took a basic intro lesson and was immediately hooked on it."
His aspirations range from being a personal trainer to participating in scientific experiments on movement to traveling around the world as a sponsored athlete giving parkour or freerunning demos. He added, "I would also love to be a stuntman, or an actual actor in a movie!" This year Zaki has taken on the Parkour 365 challenge, training every day and posting videos recapping his month's progress on his Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChtYObeyfTXMM1Ij8V1wmvw/videos). One of Zaki's other videos was featured on one of the Washington Post blogs, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-state-of-nova/post/video-parkour-on-the-george-mason-campus/2013/02/18/97093f24-793a-11e2-82e8-61a46c2cde3d_blog.html, that covers Northern Virginia news.
Parkour teaches the value of community, among other things. The parkour community is widespread, interactive and beginner-friendly, with a plethora of website resources such as http://www.pinwc.com/ and http://www.collegewfpf.com/, which is dedicated to connecting college parkour communities.
One video produced by American Parkour, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53YnZHU1nrw, shows the Beast Coast Jam event. "Jams" are casual events during which traceurs do parkour together. Zaki said, "Everybody is like one big family and we all respect each other's training regimes and support each other as we all attempt to improve as best as we can."
Outside of the parkour community, the sport changes the way tracuers move. According to Zaki, parkour has helped him better understand himself, both physically and mentally. "I understand my boundaries and what I need to do to overcome them." Parkour forces you to problem-solve with your body.
Zaki said, "It truly is amazing what parkour can teach you, not only physically but in many other ways as well." For one thing, it changes the way people look at the world. Constant training and involvement in the parkour community teach "respect, self-confidence, knowledge of one's abilities, and the benefits of hard work, determination and practice."
Zaki said, "It truly is amazing what parkour can teach you, not only physically but in many other ways as well." For one thing, it changes the way people look at the world. Constant training and involvement in the parkour community teach "respect, self-confidence, knowledge of one's abilities, and the benefits of hard work, determination and practice."
When asked what insight he has gained through doing parkour, Zaki responded:
"Don't think the way everybody else thinks. The norm is only a pattern that has been created that people now follow blindly. It is simple to understand physically, in that when you see a staircase, it means that you walk up or down them and in really borderline thinkers, sometimes you run, or skip up or down them. What about trying to avoid the stairs altogether? How then would you have to adapt to your surroundings, or if you are on a multicolored ground, what if you designate a certain color only that you can use? How would you adapt or change the way you would normally think? By training our bodies this way, we are also training our minds to think differently and adapt to a certain situation that has been presented for us, and with this opens up countless options that can help any person, regardless of their hobbies, personalities or professions."
"Don't think the way everybody else thinks. The norm is only a pattern that has been created that people now follow blindly. It is simple to understand physically, in that when you see a staircase, it means that you walk up or down them and in really borderline thinkers, sometimes you run, or skip up or down them. What about trying to avoid the stairs altogether? How then would you have to adapt to your surroundings, or if you are on a multicolored ground, what if you designate a certain color only that you can use? How would you adapt or change the way you would normally think? By training our bodies this way, we are also training our minds to think differently and adapt to a certain situation that has been presented for us, and with this opens up countless options that can help any person, regardless of their hobbies, personalities or professions."
Where others see obstacles, parkour has the potential to open up possibilities in all areas of life by changing the way we move and think.
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