Tag Archive for 'FreeRunning'

Inspirational Art of  Movement

Influences one’s thought processes by enhancing self-confidence and critical-thinking skills that allow one to overcome everyday physical and mental obstacles, a discipline to self development!

Freerunning is a form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as free runners, use urban and natural landscapes to perform movements that most humans would think impossible. It incorporates efficient movements from Parkour, adds aesthetic vaults, acrobatics, tricking and street stunts creating an athletic and aesthetically pleasing way of moving. It is commonly practiced in gyms, the street and park areas that are cluttered with obstacles.

Parkour (sometimes also abbreviated to PK) is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one’s path by adapting one’s movements to the environment. It’s a non-competitive, physical discipline of French origin in which participants run along a route, attempting to negotiate obstacles in the most efficient way possible, as if moving in an emergency situation. Skills such as jumping and climbing, or the more specific Parkour moves are employed. The object of Parkour is to get from one place to another using only the human body and the objects in the environment. The obstacles can be anything in one’s environment, but Parkour is often seen practiced in urban areas because of the many suitable public structures available such as buildings and rails.

While Freerunning and Parkour share many common techniques, they have a fundamental difference in philosophy and intention. The main aim of Parkour is the ability to quickly access areas that would otherwise be inaccessible and the ability to escape pursuers, it can be compared to some martial arts, but is more interested in getting away rather than defending anyone from physical threat, in the fight-or-flight response Parkour is the flight, which means the main intention is to clear their objects as efficiently as they can, while Freerunning emphasizes self development by “following your way”, everyone has their own way of doing parkour and they shouldn’t follow someone else’s way of doing it, instead they should do it their way. However, as free runners became interested in aesthetics as well as useful movement, the two became different disciplines, Freerunning is commonly misinterpreted as being solely the beauty of a certain vault, jump, etc, a lot of free runners choose to focus on aesthetics, that is just “their way”, the goal however is still self development. In Freerunning you may employ movements of your choosing. You might also do certain movements solely for their aesthetic value and the challenge of execution. Freerunning is essentially complete freedom of movement.

The discipline was not originally about moving from A to B but rather a way of testing oneself physically and mentally!