It’s been an age since we linked to some parkour/freerunning videos. So we must remedy that! Watch this video and marvel as gravity is defied.
Do you like this? Go to the NZ Parkour Association website!
ETA: some more on parkour, here’s a summary of Chase Armitage (professional free runner (which you can be)) and his talents.
The window is the best bit.
As readers of this blog know, I really like parkour/free-running. (Previous posts.) And you should too. After the ‘more’ there’s an incredible Youtube clip of someone riding a bike up, down, and over all things urban. (It’s really called freestyle BMX.) Enjoy, and don’t try any stunts yourself
Tuesday 22nd March Central Library 4-5pm
The flying guy in this photo is from NZ Parkour, come and discover how you can get in on the action at this taster session.
Recreation Wellington will be there with some fitness freebies, and as a bonus, you can tell them what you think they should be doing for young people in this city.
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Tuesday 22nd March 4-5pm at the Central Library:
Get fit for free with Rec Welly and NZ Parkour. Find out about the free and five dollar deals in town and learn how to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Thursday 24th March 4-5pm at the Central Library:
Afford toys and gadgets : BNZ, CAB and the Community Law Centre are here to show you how you can get the stuff you want, and what to do when that cell phone you just bought breaks down.
Monday 28th March 4-5m at the Central Library:
Plan your OE with STA travel and Volunteer Service Abroad. All the tips and tricks for having the most amazing experience ever.
STA will be giving away a Lonely Planet guide book to one lucky person at this session.
Wednesday 30th March 4-5pm at the Central Library:
Get your music and art out there: The singer from Poppy Dust and the guys from OOsh Multimedia on how collaboration, thinking outside the square, and following your dreams can get you, your art, your music, and your life where you want them to be.
One more week of holidays, so why not spend it indoors in front of the computer, playing Flash games? Why not indeed. Here’s a list of some new games [we have older lists – Flash, Flash 2, Flash 3, Pew Pew Pew (which should be Flash 4, I guess)]
Clockwords – type words to shoot down clockwork spiders. The longer the word, the more damage the spiders take. ADDICTIVE. And educational!
Tetris Friends – Play Tetris competitively – you can send completed lines into someone else’s game. I’m not sure who I played but I won on my first attempt, which was nice.
Canabalt – a parkour-style game. Run until you, er, fall to your death (I made 1794m on the first attempt. Not too shabby.).
Max Damage – Max is a kid who likes to break things with his ‘toy’ cannon. Uses real physics, so could be considered educational maybe.
CycloManiacs
Tane – Tane is … Tane. It’s also an actual game, believe it or not.
Pixel – Very cool. Can’t begin to describe it.
Steamshovel Harry – Didn’t play this (I’m at work, you know) so who knows.
How To Raise A Dragon – Didn’t play it either but comes recommended.
Enjoy.
Mirror’s Edge is a new console game that uses the sport of free-running, or parkour. You can play a 2-dimensional platform Flash version of the game – Mirror’s Edge 2D – for free! It’s pretty addictive. I freely admit to playing it all morning.
More free-running news!
The world’s first free-running championships took place in London last Wednesday. Contestants had to complete a course (and provide their own soundtrack) and were judged for their ‘flow’ by other free-runners. The BBC have a brief video interview with the organiser of the event. The winner was American Gabe Nunez (who can be seen in this 3 Doors Down music video), while second and third places were won by Britons.
I don’t think the 2012 London Olympics have a demonstration sport picked out yet …
If you read our post on parkour and free running last month and are keen to further your interest, check out Parkour New Zealand, the NZ Parkour portal. It has videos taken around the country, and a forum for like-minded people. The Wellington subforum has the most posts, which is a good sign!
The thing I really like about alternative sports is that when any sport starts to become a bit too mainstream someone dreams up something new. When adrenalin junkies got bored with bungy jumping and skydiving they came up with base jumping, which stepped things up to a whole new level.
Free-running is an especially interesting development because although it’s a physical activity it is not considered a sport. Free-running developed out of Parkour which originated in France in the 1990s. The idea of Parkour is the aim of moving from one point to another as effeciently and quickly as possible with the abilities of the human body. Both are considered to be more of a physical or performance art. Where the two movements differ is that Parkour is all about efficiency of movement whereas free-running is about absolute freedom and expression of movement.
The development of free-running is a move towards the mainstream – there is even a world championship run by Urban Freeflow next month in London. This is in conflict with the principles of the art so it will be interesting how it handles this development like many alternative sports before it. Some groups are performing in movies like Bond and The Bourne Ultimatum. There was even a challenge on Top Gear where free-runners raced a car to the centre of a city. Anyway there is no point talking about an activity that is all about movement, so here is a clip from Wellington – where free-running has quite a following (the back of the central library is popular) – after the jump, and for much, much more, check out this page.
