My Documentary

My Essay

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.

Annotated Bibliography

Saville, Stephen John. "Playing With Fear: Parkour And The Mobility Of Emotion." Social & Cultural Geography 9.8 (2008): 891-914. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 23 Mar. 2012.

Summary: this article is mainly about the importance of fear in the sport of parkour. The article deals with how when do parkour the participants must harness emotions and expand on them. Fear which generally seen as a bad thing is what often fuels the participants. They play with different emotion and stop looking at them as good and bad ,but as a fuel for whatever they do.

Marshall, Bill. "Running Across The Rooves Of Empire: Parkour And The Postcolonial City." Modern & Contemporary France 18.2 (2010): 157-173. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 23 Mar. 2012

Summary: the article shows the impact of parkour on the growth of the “Imperial City”, Quebec  City. They also give a brief look into the past of the city and also the origins of parkour. They explain how the core of the city is the flow and energy of the people. The article also takes a look into the mind of the so called founder of parkour  ,David Belle, and the reasons he created the sport of parkour. The article stated that parkour started to gain momentum in the working class youth.  It went further on to explain other things that add to the fuel and reasons behind its apparent growth in popular culture. They integrated  the growth of motor vehicles  into its growth they said that that the pedestrians were confined to the sides of the road ,this paired with the want to rebel fueled this.

Research Memo

Hypothesis:

Parkour is about getting someplace using jumps, vault and turning obstacles into opportunities. Parkour is a sport clouded with an air of danger. Many people believe it is dangerous and possibly fatal to tracer [people who participate in parkour]. What I hope to find out is what type of people does this adrenaline laced sport attracts and why?

Context:

I discovered out that many people believe that parkour is overly dangerous. They also believe it has a high injury rate. The survey targeted young males as respondents. The reason behind this is that I looked for people that seemed to be informed about what parkour was.   I should have allowed more people to the survey and add more demographic questions.  During the second round I put more demographic questions and added more people to my target “audience”. The reason behind this was that I wanted to detect more trends among the questions and I wanted more diversity in my response.

Questions /Respondents	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8		9
Have you heard of parkour before now?	Yes	no	yes	Yes	yes	yes	yes	yes		yes
On a Scale of 1-10 how dangerous is parkour	9	10	7	5	6	10	10	10		8
Circle all that apply You do parkour You know someone who does parkour You have heard of parkour	3	1,2,3	2,3	3	2	1,2,3	1,2,3	2,3		2,3
Parkour should be regulated more	disagree	agree	agree	disagree	disagree	Agree	agree	disagree		disagree
Parkour is a form of self-expression	true	false	true	true	true	true	true	true		True
Free running and parkour are the same thing	false	True	false	false	false	false	false	true		False
Parkour is for little kids	agree	Agree	disagree	agree	disagree	disagree	disagree		disagree		disagree
Parkour is a growing fad in the urban communities	agree	agree	agree	disagree	agree	agree	agree	agree		agree
Parkour is deadly to participants	disagree	agree	agree	agree	agree	agree	agree	agree		agree

Data Analysis:

The data I collect can be seen on the chart above. The first ten I did I noticed some trend. The first trend was that all but one of the respondents said that they believe that parkour is deadly to tracers. The interpretation of this trend is that the general public over all believes it to be a extremely dangerous to all the people who participate. On the danger scale you see that most gave it a high number ( 8 or above) on the danger scale ,this adds to the idea that it is a dangerous sport. For the open ended response I saw  they were answered similarly but most having to with teens or young people, along with one ninja.

Conclusion:

The conclusion is that the public opinion is that parkour is dangerous. They believe that young people and peoples whose trade requires it do this. The survey supported my hypothesis about the general publics view about parkour with the exclusion of one response  caught me off guard for the question who parkour attracts as a participant “ninjas”.

This site is great place for parkour

"Clown Fish." Getty Images. Points of View. EBSCO. Web. 30 Jan. 2007.

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Research Questions

Who does parkour attract as a particpant? This is the quistion that spurred my research. After this many quistions were born from this main quistions

• What is the danger involved in parkour?
• What is the poupose of parkour?
• How popular is parkour?
• What is parkour's origin?

Hopfully the research that i will conduct will answer all and maybe some quistions that you your self have.

My Survey

Parkour Survey

This survey’s purpose is to gather information on the public’s opinion on the general aspects of parkour also known as free running

What is your age? _________

What is your Gender? Male/Female

Ethnicity? _______________

Who do you think that Parkour attracts as participants?

Have you ever heard of parkour before now

Yes/No

On a scale of 1-10 how dangerous do you think parkour is?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Circle all that apply

o   You do parkour

o   You know someone who does parkour

o   You have heard of parkour

Parkour should be regulated more

Agree/Disagree

Parkour is a form of self expression

True/False

Free running and Parkour are the same thing

True/False

Parkour is for little kids

Agree/Disagree

Parkour is a growing fad in urban communities

Agree/Disagree

Parkour is Deadly to participants

Agree/Disagree