Take Flight

If you are here but have not yet read Should Parkour Be in the Olympics? Absolutely. (Part 1), please click here to check it out :-)

#3. David’s View on ‘Parkour Competitions’
I can’t recall any extensive conversation David and I have had on Parkour competitions. It just has never come up, and in general it’s not really pertinent to current projects. But in addition to David’s Olympic viewpoint (already stated), I will tell you that in David’s Parkour City concept, he has proposed having a Parkour competition, and he even proposed and designed a Parkour competition course for it.

In summary, Parkour isn’t competitive, but you can still have competitions built on the spirit and purpose of the movement.

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Update – August 13: David and I were walking around Lisses yesterday, so I probed a bit further and brought up the competition aspect again. Three points came out that I thought were worth emphasizing because they give more insight and show David’s heart towards competitions.

• Sponsors would be ok, but the winner shouldn’t get a lot of money or anything like that. Maybe a trip/vacation would be a good prize.
• The important thing would be to participate and be a part of it rather than winning.
• Although time is involve and there would be a winner, he thinks of it as much as a “Sports Spectacle” as a competition.

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Now one last thought(s) since this was supposed to be a blog that I wrote rather than simply one where I regurgitated and clarified David’s stance. I of course agree with David that Parkour could/should/would be great as an Olympic event. This was the thesis I was going to put forth even before asking him. However, because of how the Olympics work, I don’t see Parkour ever fitting in to the Games. And this is why:

• The Olympics are steeped in tradition. You don’t see a lot of new events being let in.
• Action sports of any kind (for the most part anything more dynamic than traditional events) are non-existent in the Olympics save for (as far as I know) snowboarding. And snowboarding isn’t as much of a new ‘event concept’ or ‘new action sport’ as it is a new method of navigation built on a previous concept which is skiing. The snowboarding half pipe is new so there is some precedent for the IOC being open to new things, but snowboarding seems to be the exception to this.
• Most Olympic sports are always conducted, year after year, in the same way and this is part of the tradition. With the exception of slightly changed road courses for running and biking which cannot be avoided, and scoring rule changes which go on a sport by sport basis (take Gymnastics for example which no longer as a perfect 10 score) there is no dynamism in the Olympic Games that presents new challenges to athletes. In this way old records can also always be challenged. Because of this, I don’t see Parkour fitting in to the Games unless the IOC accepted a standard course that they never expected to change.

So there you have it. Should Parkour be in the Olympics? According to the founder, the answer to that question is a resounding yes. Or is to say rather that David would be very pleased and would support the entry of Parkour as a sport in the Olympics. Whether it ever happens is another question entirely. I, for one, hope it does.

P.S. Update #2 since I am here. Since the initial writing of this I have been made aware that BMX is now an Olympic sport. Good call, David : )

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Adam Dunlap is the founder of Take Flight. In addition to his ongoing role at the company, Adam is currently working closely with David Belle in films and on other projects in order to advance Parkour in the US and around the globe. Previous projects of Adam’s include starting the Revolution Parkour gym in Portland, Oregon, and running various Parkour blogs. Adam is an avid Traceur and can often be found training both outside and at Parkour classes in whatever city he finds himself. Adam currently takes no salary from his work with Take Flight.

According to David Belle, Parkour would be great in the Olympics.

Recently Take Flight posted the question on their Facebook, “Should Parkour be in the Olympics?” Knowing they were going to post this question, I was approached and agreed to write a blog post responding to it if the post got more than 200 comments. It got 300+, so here I am.

Because I thought the post would indeed get 200+ comments I was preparing my ideas beforehand. But then after it did get 200+ comments, I got a brilliant idea: let’s skip my opinion and just ask David [Belle] about it. As fate would have it I was on my way to see him, so yesterday I asked him. Here is how the conversation went. This is not an exact transcript of our conversation, but it’s pretty close:

Adam: David, I have kind of a weird question for you. Do you think Parkour should be in the Olympics?
David: Oh yeah, that would be great! I mean if BMX is in the Olympics then Parkour should be too.
Adam: Umm, I don’t think BMX is in the Olympics.
David: Really? I think it is.
Adam: Do you mean like BMX with the bike?
David: Yeah, BMX [and then he demonstrates turning the handle bars].
Adam: Umm, I don’t think it is.
David: Well either way it would still be great if Parkour was in the Olympics.

So there you go – short and sweet with a little bit of humor too. According to the founder, Parkour would be great in the Olympics.

Now if you’re confused at all by David’s answer I’ll explain a couple things:

#1. What is Parkour
Contrary to still commonly used although inaccurate definitions, Parkour, by definition, is a training method founded by David Belle that is most commonly characterized by overcoming obstacles in the natural and urban environments. It is also a non-competitive discipline meaning that practitioners do not compete against each other in the traditional competition sense of having an objective such that the first person to the finish line or the person/team with the most points at the end wins etc. David has said many times that in Parkour you compete against yourself. It’s you and the obstacle. This is not in debate in any Parkour circles that I know of.

#2. Parkour in Competition Mode
Contrary to misunderstood or misapplied Parkour philosophies, Parkour can easily be put into a competition mode and this is not contrary to the training method itself or the philosophy of Parkour as long as the competition was shown as something qualitatively different from the training method itself, and as long as the competition model stayed true to the ideas of the discipline. Doing this would mean that the competition would have to basically be an obstacle course that is done for time. Fastest time wins. True Parkour prevails.

(to be continued… To read part 2 click here)

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Adam Dunlap is the founder of Take Flight. In addition to his ongoing role at the company, Adam is currently working closely with David Belle in films and on other projects in order to advance Parkour in the US and around the globe. Previous projects of Adam’s include starting the Revolution Parkour gym in Portland, Oregon, and running various Parkour blogs. Adam is an avid Traceur and can often be found training both outside and at Parkour classes in whatever city he finds himself. Adam currently takes no salary from his work with Take Flight.