Friday, January 26, 2007

Parkour

A few days ago I discovered and immediately became fascinated with a sport called Parkour. What is Parkour, you ask? It's the practice of moving through an obstacle-laden environment---typically an urban landscape---with maximum speed, fluidity, and efficiency. Look here for some of the fundamental movements of the sport. Parkour has a lot of gymnastic elements, but, unlike gymnastics, is unscripted and uses whatever obstacle is at hand as the apparatus. The sport is usually performed at or near ground level, but the more extreme Batman-style rooftop Parkour seems to receive disproportionate representation among online videos and theatrical films.

Note that Parkour is distinct from it's sister sport, free running, which incorperates flips and other tricks for aesthetic reasons and is less concerned with economy of motion. Some people---and videos---use "Parkour" to refer to either activity, however.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:00 PM

    Given the confluence of your X360 purchase and your recent interest in parkour, you might want to check out anything you can find about the game, "Assassin's Creed," e.g. http://mostwanted.gamespy.com/2007/22.html

    Crusades setting + parkour + great graphics + gettting to stab people = high potential entertainment factor.

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  2. Pusher Nick,

    Yeah, I had seen Assassin's Creed on a couple of most-anticipated-games-of-2007 lists. I also when an action games has a stealth element to it, sot this looks like it might be fun.

    Alison and I did 2 or 3 more hours of Gears of War last night. We're turning into a regular Tycho-and-Gabe, but with more hair and less drawing skill. Don't ask me which is which, though.

    Michael

    PS: Do you prefer to be called Pusher Nick, or Reverend Doctor Nick?

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  3. Anonymous8:10 AM

    In the grand German tradition, I prefer to be called Herr Reverend Doctor Pusher Nick.

    ReplyDelete