A preconceived thought

By Therese Gunnarsson,

Uppsala Parkour, Sweden

‘I will never dare’, ‘I don’t have the strength’, ‘I’m going to be the worst one’ and the list goes on with excuses. A lot of people probably recognize themselves in one of these quotes, I was one of them. Many people often have prejudices about things and you have made up your mind, things people often can’t let go of, ‘I’m at the end of this discussion’. What exactly is a prejudice? If you look it up in a dictionary you get something like: ‘perception that has no factual support, bias’.

You could say that there are three different groups, those who never heard of Parkour, those who think they know what Parkour is and traceurs. Those in the second group are often those who have prejudices. The majority of this group often say that it’s all about jumping between high rooftops, flips and showing off. I’ve been training for almost a year and I still don’t have a good answer. What is Parkour? A friend said to me: ‘Describing Parkour is like describing colors to a man born blind’, i.e. that it’s almost impossible. Of course you can find facts about Parkour and ultimately they will give an approximate definition. But Parkour for me is a lifestyle, a path that must be experienced for every person, an individual definition. A lot of people are often afraid of trying something new, they live to their limits of what they consider safe, Parkour, jumping from rooftops, this is not part of human nature.

The aim of Parkour is to start small,  have one goal at every training, listen to the physical and mental state of your body and recognize the successes and mistakes of your actions. Much about parkour is about fighting, and not giving up. For example, when you were a child and learned to walk, you didn’t give up on the first, second or third attempt after you fell down – you struggled and continued until you were able to master the ability to walk. This is what is reflected in Parkour. Your progress will lead to a control of your body, you get to know your body and know what you’re capable of doing. It is therefore wrong to say that you’re going to be the worst one, although I also said that in the beginning. As a beginner, everyone has different backgrounds, we are individuals with different personal characteristics, which means that you can’t compare yourself with others. Parkour is not about competition, everyone has their own way to go. It’s not about getting adrenaline; it’s not classified as an extreme sport. Parkour is about handling controlled movements in the right circumstances, which means that the risk of serious harm is extremely small, so Parkour is just as dangerous as any form of exercise.

One day you’re up on one of the rooftops and are going to jump and you know that you’re capable of doing it – you have control of your body. But for an outsider this looks like madness, but that person doesn’t know that the person on the house roof has been training inconceivably many hours, has control of his body and knows that this jump is just one of the many thousands of jumps made before. I’ll conclude this post with a quotation from Chris’ Blane ‘Rowat’s blog:

“I’m on my own. Soon after a tube journey that greeted me with the usual looks of disinterest or curiosity at my dirty clothes and bleeding hands, I’m crouched on a wall trying to convince my body that it can reach the branch that teases me in the nearby tree. If I don’t, there’s a fair chance I’m going to get hurt since I’m high up and concrete is unforgiving at the best of times. But I will make it, I must make it. I’ve done a hundred jumps like this in the past, perhaps not at this height but the height is irrelevant if you make the jump. And I will make the jump.”

http://blane/-parkour.blogspot.com/

The reason I chose to write about this is because I have repeatedly encountered people who have these preconceived notions about Parkour. It has happened to me so many times that I’ve reached a point where I no longer have the desire to confront people’s false image of Parkour because it’s like talking to a wall. So I hope that this post has given a clearer picture of my point of view.
This article was written in the beginning of the autumn 2010.

//Therese Gunnarsson,Uppsala Parkour, Sweden

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