Pedro Bernardino
5/14/12
English 2
Ms. McKoy
Street Kings: The Attraction of Parkour to the Youth of the World
When the word parkour is said the image of a group of people flying form roof to roof, they take huge leaps seemingly floating until they reach what they were aiming for. They appear to break the very law of gravity which we all hold so dear. I am fascinated by the way the participants of parkour seemed to have no bound and the way anyone was accepted. The seemed to have super human abilities, and I wanted to be one of them. Today in all the world major urban setting the youth of the world push the limits taking leaps that they never imagined, vaulting over bars and scaling walls. In a sport were fractured bones and dark bruise are all too common, what draws the worlds youth to this sport?
To fully understand something you must travel to its genesis. The origin of parkour is commonly known as a small village in France, where David Bell and his friends hone their skills jumping from roof to roof(Jump London) According to David Bell he only gave it a name, as it is a child hood gamer we all played in form or another(Jump London). We all played jumping from couch to avoid the lava floor; parkour just took that to whole new level. That’s what parkour is about having fun and pushing the limit. The whole point as David Bell said ‘you just have to think like Children”. The origin of this sport is to go back to the basic and stop looking at obstacles like problems and look at them like opportunities.
In the groundbreaking documentary Jump London, this included David Bell who has been herald as the founder of parkour. This documentary includes David Bell explaining some of his ideas about parkour and offers an insightful look into the philosophies behind the sport. According to Stephen John Saville in his article “Playing with fear: parkour and the mobility of emotion” present the idea that emotions play a large part of the sport (Stephen Saville 1).
In the research I conducted 90% of the original participants said they believed the parkour is deadly to the participants (5/12/12 Bernardino, Pedro. Parkour/Free Running Survey. Survey). In the same survey the said parkour was extremely dangerous. In this quote we see that even the hero of parkour is not impervious to falls “His trailing foot does not clear the wall; it hits. It pulls his body out of alignment. Travelling at speed and out of control David Belle’s back makes contact with the far wall of the underpass and he falls . . .” (Stephen Saville 1). David Belle said that the fall made him feel real after all the fake Hollywood stunts the he had been doing, that it is a dangerous sport (Stephen Saville 1). The danger is part of what attracts people, as is the case with most of the world’s extreme sports enthusiast. In my survey I found out that there are more males participants in the sport (5/12/12 Bernardino, Pedro. Parkour/Free Running Survey. Survey). Seeing as fear plays a large role in this sport perhaps the male participant feel that this sport helps them prove them selves.
The digital age has lead to many things spreading and dying out just as fast, a prime example being “Kony 2012”, it was trending on tweeter for exactly one day and then it died out. The way parkour took off was surprising in it speed and growth, but why did it stay anyway? According to the Bill Marshall “The parkour boom has partly been a classic case of sub cultural proliferation, aided by the internet and YouTube, with groups forming across the world” (Marshall, Bill 28). The reasons behind it’s fast growing popularity is the internet, usually when something new comes along it takes months to spread from its point of origin into the public eye, that is if it ever leave the place it started. The internet changes that, in minutes you can learn of something that a kid in Liverpool made up. Ideas spreads like wild fire, and riding this wave into the hearts of youth everywhere is the sport known as parkour.
What the attraction of today’s youth to parkour? Through out the essay we have seen two possible reasons for the lure of parkour. The reasons it took off and why its still going strong. There are many things which influence the human mind and I will not even attempt to cover them all, I simply stated a small sampler into the reason behind the attraction of parkour. So, as a review of the reasons questions gone over in this paper. First is the review of parkour’s, origin, background and philosophies. Second, the place of emotions in its appeal. And third the reason it took off. There are of course many other reasons and I recommend a continuing research into the matter for this is only the tip of the iceberg.
