Take Flight

We all get bumps and bruises from Parkour. It’s just “part of the game” as I say. The key is to avoid the big injuries that put you out for more than a day. In 7 years of Parkour I’ve had four such injuries, and I present them to you here along with the lessons I learned from them. My hope is that you learn from my mistakes so you can avoid the things I did wrong and ultimately avoid injuries like the ones I experienced.

Injury #1: Bailing on an arm jump.

The Story: I had been doing Parkour for about 6 months, and there was a big arm jump I wanted to do. I knew I was physically ready for the jump, but I also knew I wasn’t mentally ready. So I starred down the jump for about 30 minute psyching myself up until I finally did it. The result? I bailed mid-flight and sprained my ankle. I hobbled home and was out for a couple weeks.

Lesson: Don’t stare down a jump for too long.

Explanation: I wasn’t mentally ready for the jump and having to stare it down for that long should have shown me that. I have a training technique now in which I don’t ever stare down a jump. But for those that like looking down jumps (and many do), I recommend setting a time limit. If you stare down a jump for more than X minutes (whatever that time is for you), then walk away and come back tomorrow. There’s no shame in doing a jump on Thursday instead of Wednesday. There is shame in being stupid and getting injured. I know first hand.

Take Flight founder Adam Dunlap doing a jump in downtown Portland.

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I’m going to make my view on this really simple and support it as simply as possible too.

My View: Parkour should always be capitalized. Meaning it should never be written like this —> parkour, but rather always written like this —> Parkour. The only exception can be artistic purposes like this —->

The Original Parkour Tee – an artistic exception to capitalizing Parkour.

Argument #1: Parkour is important and special to all that do it. Capitalizing it shows this by making it a proper noun and distinguishing the discipline from normal nouns like shoes, city, and training. If for no other reason than the pride I have for the discipline I practice, I think Parkour deserves this proper noun distinction. Don’t you? (continue reading…)

A debate has begun at Take Flight HQ and we’ve decided to let you decide the answer. The simple question is, which shirt is the more essential Parkour tee:

The Original Parkour Tee … or … the Simply Parkour Tee

The discussion goes back and forth as the pros for both tee are formidable. Here is a common conversation we’ve been  hearing at the office between our shipping manager and TF founder Adam Dunlap:

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Rick: “The Original Parkour Tee is definitely the essential Parkour tee. It was the first Parkour tee and it has 17 color combos now. I mean everyone just loves it! What is better than that?”

Adam: “Yeah, well that’s cool, but it’s not the essential Parkour tee. The Simply Parkour Tee is simpler and best embodies efficiency, so that makes it the essential tee.”

Rick: “Huh? No way. Look at the tee! That line underneath Parkour make no sense. That’s not efficient at all. Essential? Hardly.”

Adam: “Oh yeah?! Well then what’s with all the cracks in the Org PK Tee? How is that efficient and essential?! Plus the Org PK has no Stinger version. But with Stinger? Now we’re talking essential.”

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The discussion goes on and on, round and round and it’s pretty much just a matter of opinion. So as stated we’ve decided to bring you in on it. Which tee do you think is the essential Parkour tee: the Original Parkour Tee or the Simply Parkour?

**Cast your vote by leaving a comment below and let us know your thoughts!**

The Original. The Essential. Or is….

…is the Simply Parkour Tee more essential? Cast your vote in the comments below!

Have you ever heard anyone say this?

I’m going to go train.

If you’re a Traceur you probably have. It’s the standard announcement which signifies “I’m leaving to go do Parkour/Freerunning.” It makes sense to say it. If nothing else, it sounds cooler than the tongue twisting, “I’m going to do Parkour.”

The exception I take to this statement (“I’m going to go train”) is that 99.9% of Traceurs don’t actually go train. They go have fun and jump around with friends, and laugh, and work on “techniques.” But none of it is actual Parkour training in the Pure Parkour sense. That’s why I’ve titled this blog Parkour PURE vs Parkour FUN. I’m going to explain to you what Parkour PURE is, and you’ll see the difference.

Before I move forward I want to take a few steps back to provide a foundation for what I am about to say:

#1. The definition of Parkour is NOT “getting from Point A to Point B…” Parkour by definition is a training method.
#2. More specifically, as David says, “Parkour is a training method for warriors.”

Sit on that for a few moments before reading further.

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The founder and brand manager of Take Flight is Adam Dunlap. Since the founding of the company he has remained very quiet and has rarely spoken publicly about the company or its actions. When we asked him recently why he had chosen to do this he said:

I wanted to let the company and brand speak for itself. Take Flight is a community organization and conglomerate of passionate individuals and Traceurs that work together with a common vision. I’m the founder, but I just help steer it. I don’t think the worlds needs or wants to hear my opinion on everything.

In a recent change (a New Year’s resolution, maybe?) Adam has decided to be more accessible. And in a move we never thought he would do, he has decided to make his personal email public so that anyone can contact him. Here it is:

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What is a Traceur? That’s not a question I’ve consciously thought about very much over the past seven years. That’s because I always thought I knew the answer.

A Traceur is someone who practices Parkour.

Simple, right? Hmm, well not entirely. You see, I don’t believe in that definition anymore. Before I give you my new definition, I’ll explain some of the things that led me to it.

David [Belle] is a good place to start. He was my inspiration to start doing Parkour, and getting to know him as a close friend and learning the discipline directly from him has completely changed my view on Parkour and what it means to be a Traceur. There are two things I’d like to share from him for the sake of this writing.

First, David doesn’t train anymore. When he feels the need to move, he does. When he is inspired to jump, he goes. And when he is surrounded by good friends he will often venture out and test his détente. But for the most part David has finished his training. He was and still is one of the most capable athletes on the planet, but that’s not why he has stopped. He has stopped his training because he doesn’t feel there’s anything left to learn through it. We’ll come back to that.

Second, one of many things David has taught me about Parkour is that contrary to popular thinking today, the purpose of Parkour is not to keep doing it. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite. David has explained this to me on multiple occasions:

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Just yesterday (August 31) at 11am PST, David Belle held an open Q&A via his Twitter. This was the first time he has addressed questions publicly since his last Twitter Q&A held 9 months ago in November 2011.

The questions responded to by Belle seemed to be split pretty equally between personal questions, Parkour questions, and a career oriented questions.

• He responded to a couple question about his personal life including mentioning his hobbies and his son.
• He responded to a couple question regarding films, his current work, and his future film aspirations.
• As we always hope and expect, Belle responded to questions about Parkour including discussing training locations, competitions, and other ideas.
• And in the midst of all of that Belle alos referred to Take Flight in two different answer streams including answering a question directly from our social media and specifically mentioning Take Flight founder Adam Dunlap

Here is a transcript of the questions that were asked to Belle to which he responded. They are in the order asked and answered, and we’ve also included our best translations and corrections for spelling and other things as we thought appropriate.

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This blog is continued from Part 2. Click here to read Part 2.

David does not like the limelight. He is a very private person and mostly keeps to himself except for spending time with close family and friends. That’s who he is and it won’t change, but it doesn’t make his influence or history in respect to Parkour any less powerful. You can’t separate the man from the discipline. To want to change David is to want to change Parkour, which is why we are having this discussion at all: people keep trying to change both.

Now as fate would have it we have been coaxing David out of his shell for some time, and now he is giving more! His Facebook and Twitter are two places where he does this, his brand is another which donates towards to underprivileged kids in Senegal and gives money towards the construction of Parkour City (another project in the works), and he has some new film projects and other Parkour specific projects we are working are that we are really excited about. In all, David is now more open and public than he has ever been! But it’s worth noting that he isn’t doing any of this for those who feel entitled, or for those who feel they deserve it, or because some people feel that he should be doing it or that he owes it to the Parkour community. He is doing these things because he loves it, and he is doing it for those that love Parkour, and for those that love and respect him for who he is.

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This blog is continued from Part 1. Click here to read Part 1.

Here is a post David made on his Twitter that talks more about some of the relating issues. Take Flight recently posted this on their Facebook too, and you can click here to see the full comment from David. I’ll quote two of the parts that are most relevant to this post:

Today one of the reasons I am more quite today is because I don’t believe that my philosophy is meant for everyone. It’s more important to follow your own path than to follow someone else. Everyone has their way of doing things, and it doesn’t necessarily work for everyone else. So be careful of philosophy. Everyone is going to find a way to express the same thing. In 10 years there may be 30 different philosophies of Parkour. One could say, “Always grab on” for example as a new philosophy. But those philosophies don’t change what Parkour is.

What David shows in this post is a few important things:

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The last blog I wrote for Take Flight was Should Parkour be in the Olympics? Absolutely. Part 1 of this post received a comment that I felt deserved a response because I don’t think the sentiment behind it is unique in the Parkour community. And it’s a negative sentiment. This blog is my effort to help put to rest many of the disrespectful and self-entitled thinking that still seems to frequently permeate the Parkour community worldwide.

The comment that was posted was this:

Yes, David Belle is important for obvious reasons but he said that his word shouldn’t be treated as gospel. That desire and his actions of, essentially, deserting us makes his opinion far less critical and relevant…

I’m going to respond to this comment in a very simple way, and in that hopefully dispel many of the most common misconception about David Belle, his discipline, and his legacy:

David Belle is the founder of Parkour, and he doesn’t owe you anything. It’s that simple.

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