The Urban Playground

Tags: 3RunMy | Parkour
Written by Grace Chin
Tuesday, 31 March 2009 14:31

There are many obstacles designed to reinforce a system of order in our urban landscape, such as lampposts, poles, benches, walls, steps and stairs, for example. When traversing through a jogging path in a park or walking to the neighbourhood grocery store, we are more likely to walk around these obstacles or avoid them entirely due to conventional conditioning.

Parkour, which is defined as personal mobility through an environment with optimum efficiency and speed, can be interpreted as a rebellion against that order. Instead of going down a flight of stairs from a building, one can use a combination of natural movements, such as jumping, running, climbing and crawling, to get through the terrain, as if it were an obstacle course.

David Belle, a French gymnast and martial artist, founded this art of movement in the mid-1990s. He developed this art to focus on practising efficient movements to develop one’s body and mind to be able to overcome obstacles in an emergency. This art has grown from one that is purely functional and practical into several forms, such as free running, which combines the movement with an element of stylistic performance.

“It can be considered a sport, but some people see it as an art form,” says Abudi Alsagoff from 3RunMy, a free running community in Malaysia. “It is a study of how your body works, and expanding your physical capabilities. It can be quite technical, but it is really about freedom, the freedom of movement.”

The 3RunMy community staged a free running demonstration recently for The Edge Financial Daily’s Live It! at one of Putrajaya’s parks. Running is an obvious part of moving, but then there is also jumping, landing, climbing and vaulting. But it’s not always about speed. There is significant effort in a display of aesthetics, even in the simple and natural actions of running, jumping, landing, climbing and vaulting. The point is to make it look graceful, says Abudi.

For Abudi, the discovery of parkour was a blessing for his physique and social skills. He did not excel in conventional sports such as basketball or football in school, and would rather spend time at home in front of a computer. Once introduced to parkour by his neighbour and friends, he found a good reason to jump around, just as he had as a child, “I used to jump a lot on mattresses, climb trees as a kid,” he confesses. It also extended his social circle, especially when interacting with others who shared his interest.

What the community lacks, however, is proper training facilities such as gym mattresses, he laments. Although Malaysia has produced highly trained artistic gymnasts who have performed well in the international competitive arena, these facilities are not available to the public. The community is thus looking for sponsorship opportunities, such as sponsoring training equipment or making existing sports facilities available for artistic gymnastics.

Abudi, like many others who discovered parkour on YouTube, imitated what they could from online videos and practised with friends in neighbourhood parks and fields. “It was like ‘monkey see, monkey do’,” says another member from the free running community, Muhammad Sabree Mohamad Sapian. Actually, understanding the philosophy behind parkour was something that came much later, he adds.

Sabree is considered one of the most experienced practitioners of the group, being exposed to the art of movement since 2002. “You don’t need to understand parkour to understand the concept of overcoming obstacles. Even religion is about overcoming obstacles: overcoming yourself, faults, and doing good deeds. It is a universal thing, I believe. But practising parkour physically; that is a manifestation of the idea,” he says.

Some may call parkour a sport, but for Sabree, it is about fine-tuning the human body and developing instinctual response towards the surrounding environment. He draws comparison to the practice of martial arts, for example. “Martial arts practitioners are prepared to respond to a situation through fighting. Parkour is about flight... such as running away from girls, not running after them,” he laughs. His mates concur.

Adolescent humour is tolerated, but not reckless bravado, according to Sabree. Safety is of utmost importance, and the young practitioners demonstrated caution and emphasis on having proper gear, such as wearing padded shoes with insoles.

Practitioners are encouraged to practise and train regularly to be confident of their own capabilities when practising techniques such as leaping, and to depend on their fitness level and dexterity. Training regularly also increases one’s sensitivity to the surrounding environment, Sabree says. Trusting the “gut feeling” is also highly recommended when embarking on more difficult moves. “If you feel doubtful, then don’t do it,” he cautions.

But much of parkour is about overcoming fear, says Abudi. He cites an example: many are intimidated by back flips, but according to him, it is actually the simplest of all flips, because while in the air, you can spot where your landing will be. “Once you get used to it, you will overcome the mental obstacle. It also makes you more aware of what obstacles there are in life, and how you can overcome them,” he says.

“It becomes like a meditation,” Sabree adds. “When done repetitively, there’s a clarity and silence in your mind... even when in mid-air, you’re focused on just one action, and nothing else.”

Learn more about the free running community at http://www.3runmy.tk.


This article appeared on the Live it! page, The Edge Financial Daily, March 31, 2009.