Parkour In The Natural Eye

Parkour in the natural eye

By Tom Guilliard

There is a big issue in parkour that almost every parkour practitioner goes through. From certain people in the public eye words such as 'tresspassing' and 'vandalism' get thrown around a lot, but do these people not realise they are making false assumptions? Throughout my time involved with this art form, I have experienced aggressive opinions but for us we are simply performing the art of movement. I chose this to talk about this issue because I feel strongly about it and feel it needs to be challenged in the public eye. I will be carrying out research through talking to people first hand for my primary evidence and talking to people in the parkour community. I will also find evidence on the internet from online debates.

In this paragraph I will be discussing the idea of 'tresspassing' in parkour. Some evidence I found on the internet from an online debate says "In many countries tresspassing in private property is a civil offence. The law is the law, either you like it or not. Besides, private property can also be a philosophical issue and there are many people not wanting others "parkouring" on their roof without even asking". However we do not just go on peoples homes,we do not actually go on houses what so ever, we only ever go on things like blocks of flats, places that are stable and that's not very often, we go to commercial buildings and use them too. We choose certain buildings because they are good to train at, some places have something that we all really like to create movement around, these places help us progress so we go there. I spoke with a member of the parkour community and he says "we do not on purpously go out and tresspass to damage properties, we are only performing an art form." In my opinion as a parkour practioiner I feel that people think we on purpously tresspass to damage properties and intentionaly cause harm when that's not the case, we are only exploring our surroundings. Although technically we are tresspassing, we choose a certain obstacle/building to go to because of its shape and form, the way a structure is creates so many ideas in our heads and we enjoy exploring the movement around it, so we are not intentionally going out to tresspass and break the law. we are only trying to perform our art form which happens to sometimes be on land that is owned. As well as we do not just practice parkour on land that is owned by individules, if its an owned property such as a house with a front and back garden, we don't go on them what so ever. We go out to public areas where we do get a lot of people that enjoy watching it, but sometimes places we want to go happen to be owned properties or land. Parkour just uses the environment and buildings in a different way but it doesn't cause any harm.

In this paragraph I will be discussing potential damage to public and private properties. I found an article online talking about the ban in horsham where an eleged £36,000 worth of damage has been caused. I contacted a parkour practitioner Fraser Greenaway and he expalined "the intention is to never damage a property no matter if its public or not and I have always said if I ever damage a property enough that it needs repairs then I will always make sure money comes out of my pocket to fix it otherwise I am not respecting the life style and the art that I hold dear to my heart. I have been training for 4 years and I have never had to reach in my pocket to pay for something I have damaged because the fact is I have never damaged anything". In my opinion, I have not known of any parkourist to on purpously damage anything! We do not go out our way to damage things and like Fraser says if something does get damaged we respect that we have done that and pay for it, but I agree with Fraser that no money has come out of my pocket either as I have never damaged anything, we are also safe with our surroundings, if we can see that something may get damaged then we simply don't go on it or near it. I got some information from a member of the public and they said "How do the public know this? If you are already willing to tresspass then how do they know that you are not going to go on and damage their property?". Normally if someone was to think we are damaging something they would come and say something to us, but we would reply to them in a nice manner and explain to them what we do and then hopefully from then they trust us and we can stay for longer, we respect our community and we love to inform the public on what we do, we want to gain there trust so they know we are not going out to damage property.

I mentioned earlier that there are a lot of assumptions made about Parkour and I think that one of the ways to overcome this is to challenge the steriotypes of young people. Groups of young people out in public spaces are usually considered a nusence. It is generally assumed that they will be out to cause trouble, drink and take drugs. These steriotypes that are so often portrayed in the media, damage the reputation of most young people and carry negative conotations. Dein Harry spoke about his views in the Guardian stating that "One stereotype of young people today is that they are all thieving, knife-carrying, troublemakers who waste most of their time dossing about". I think that Parkourists are affected by those assumptions and this may be why people feel threatened or concerned by them practising the art form. Members of the public need to understand the art form and what young people get out of doing it and the benefits it brings rather than the the potential (and low risk) problems it causes.

In this paragraph I will be talking about 'injuries' in parkour. From an article that I found online for 'Getting Started With Parkour', they say 'You may want to assemble a small first-aid kit particularly for parkour training'. I talked to Fraser Greenaway who is a parkour practioner, and he says that 'Parkour has less risk than football does and that is from personall experience'. In my opinion I agree with Fraser, I think that any sport out there can be more dangerous or as dangerous. I feel like that article is putting people off it because its making out that there will deninitely be injury, but in any sport they have first aid kits, football, basketball, rugby, hockey, they are all dangerous so I don't think its fair to try and single parkour out like its more dangerous than anything else. We practice parkour with safety, we spot each other if there doing something new, we go to gyms that have padded areas to practice on, trampolines, foam blocks, all so we can practice safetly and learn new things so we know how to do the trick/movement before taking it outside. One of the main things we make sure people have learned is a roll because its used so much and is a very safe way of landing. The place I like to go is canterbury gymnastics, they hold 2 hour long parkour sessions with coaches there to help and learn safetly. So technically parkour is actually more safe then other sports.

In this paragrpah I will be talking about 'personal' parkour and 'competative' parkour. I found from an online resource somerone saying 'It is reasonably impossible to make a different set of regulations to distinguish "personall" parkour from competitive parkour if the premise is that parkour should be totally free to practice. I had a conversation with Fraser Greenaway a parkour practioner, and he says 'Parkour is not a competitive sport because the only person who you are up gainst is yourself'. In my opinion, parkour isnt a competitive sport, no on is agaisnt each other, you do it because you love it. Theres no distinguishing from the both. Like Fraser also says the only thing that is competitive is the things linked with Red Bull but that is tricking. So this person clealry hasn't researched into parkour and doesn't know anything about it.

In conclusions, it seems to be that the people who have problems with parkour, don't actually know anything about it, they have no eveidence and don't know what they are saying. What if all parkourist wore football styled uniforms and had someone with a clip board and whistle, maybe the publics perception of us may change because they may see it as more of a sport. Parkour isnt as big as football, and all the other sports, but it is growing, and people like to try and stop this with uneducated statements, talk to any parkouorist out there and there will always be a good reason for everything we do, we respect the community. I feel that the public need to instead of assuming they need to ask, I don't think its down to us to have to go up to every person we see and educate them before we do it, if someone doesn't like it then they are allowed to ask us about it and share their opinion, from then we will inform them about parkour.