Take Flight

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…)

Not entirely too long ago, I was out on a weekend trip around Texas. In that time I trained with friends I had not seen in a while and also got the opportunity to just sit down and spend time with many of the members of my Parkour family I do not often get to see. One of these experiences included lunch with a good friend of mine. Every time we meet we always wind up talking Parkour for an hour or more nonstop, this lunch was no different.

We were talking about training; how often we go out to train, conditioning vs playing, etc. I brought up the fact that I was really unable to go out more than once a week at that point, I thought I had too much responsibility with my relationship, my job, trying to keep bills paid, my dog, blah blah blah, so many things. So, whenever I told him I wasn’t training as often as I wanted to he, of course, asked, “Why?”. And before I even thought about what I SHOULD say, I just flat out said the truth; “Because I’m just not making time for it.”

(continue reading…)

We’ve just released the Trace Your Path Tee. It has been 9 months in the making, and if we may say so, it is the most brilliant tee we’ve ever made.

The newest tee to enter the Parkour community. Trace Your Path.

It turned out so much better than we anticipated. We’re speechless so we’re going to let this image of the tee speak for itself.

This item is NOT on pre-order, because we already have it fully completed and in the Take Flight warehouse. If you purchase it today then in 3-5 business days you’ll be saying “I trace my own path. Parkour.”

Our zealousness at Take Flight for the true history of Parkour by David Belle has struck multiple cords in the Parkour community. Some have used it to brand us as one of the only international “true 2 Parkour” organizations. Others have not interpreted our message correctly, and it has sparked a bit of conversation that has been less than unifying.

With some of the confusion in mind we thought we’d try to make things absolutely clear by stating our stance as simply as possible. Our main two standing points are:

#1. David Belle is the founder of Parkour.
#2. The meme below.*

Parkour and Freerunning are both awesome. Good Guy Greg knows it, The Flight Man supports it, and we preach it.

*Truth be told, we have a slightly stronger affinity for Parkour lol! But that’s just our way, and we think Parkour and Freerunning and both amazing (!!!) and deserve equal respect just as Good Guy Greg and The Flight Man believe. And that’s the point of this meme :-)

In addition to these two things we strive for unity, support, and togetherness from the Parkour community and Traceurs worldwide. Because most important in all of this, if you disagree with our view on things that’s ok too! We have a big voice in the Parkour world, and a big influence, but we’re not here to try to force our views on anyone. We’re here encourage you to stand for your views just like we are going to stand for ours, even, even if they are different than us. Because when you break it down, that’s what the ideas of “Taking Flight” and “Jump. Fly. Dream.” are all about and have stood for from day one.

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.

(continue reading…)

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:

(continue reading…)

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.

(continue reading…)

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.

***
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.

***

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 : )

____________________

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)

____________________

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.

Over the years we’ve brought to the world a slew of amazing Parkour mixtapes and demos that showcased Take Flight Traceurs from around the world. We just uploaded video #61 and it is the best we’ve ever had the privilege of being a part of.

The video titled Lisses 2012 stars Take Flight artist Zokan, who is also the artist behind the music in the video. The video shows his movement through the Lisses, France. Shot entirely from a first person perspective, the editing transitions are brilliant as the interplay between music and movement.

A lot of videos will make you want to do Parkour. This will make you want to live it, and it will put visiting Lisses, France at the top of your bucket list if it’s not already there. Enjoy.