Inactive but active..

I have been quite inactive lately which is quite usual to be me. Sometimes I just don't know what to write and sometimes I feel to lazy to do it, or if my words make sense - but I noticed that I have visitors from time to time which is fun. Although I have not written in a long time even if pretty much been going on.

Just a while ago, Charles Perrirére & Malik Diuuf from Majestic Force visited Sweden, to be more precise they visited Stockholm. Unfortunately I missed the whole thing which is very unfortunate. Thing is that I didn't even know that they were coming to Sweden..

I have made up my training by almost only physical exercises and the less technical. However, this in length, first and foremost gives me a stable and stronger body that can take more impacts, but it also favors the technical part, even if it's usually not noticed at first. I started out with my new way to train (which is still changing from time to time) so I realized quite quickly that I did not evolve on the technical side so I felt a little stressed..

However, I got hard worn result that I actually didn't expected.. This means, that I will continue in the physical way; in the end It's worth it. This summer I (and members of umeå parkour association) have the opportunity to train at a scaffold which is extremely fun.

At the time I forgot that I have uploaded a new movie, amazingly enough!

(I recomend to watch it in 'high quality'')

Just a thought

I can still remember the time when I for the very first time I saw parkour on he screen with David Belle running across rooftops in the BBC commercial. The knowledge people at that time had about parkour wasn't that big but It seemed like a fair, solid start back in the years of 2006.

In my opinion Parkour has developed in Sweden but not necessarily in a good way. At least not when I am looking, sadly enough, on the official site for Swedish traceurs and tracesus which often is the first step for newcomers to parkour. Since I joined Le Parkour Sweden back in 2006 the numbers of practiciones has increased but unfortunately it seems to me that the knowledge about the dicipline of parkour haven't changed very much. Sometimes It even feels like we've traveled in the wrong direction, far back from were we started. It would be wrong to say that the official site for parkour practicioners in Sweden are a good start off point for beginners new to the dicipline.


For me it seems like many people still see parkour as a media thing and something that they're able to change too - whatever they like, which gained the growth of trouble among many members which in meantime was a result that many good ones left. I am not saying that It's not good that people follow their own path or that it is forbidden to do so, but I do say that the path you follow are limited too what parkour really was created for. You can change your parkour, but you cannot change parkour itself. I've came across people that even had parkour as a martial art; even though the philosophy don't promote any violence. There are, whatever people would say, unwritten rules in the dicipline of parkour.

As said before, maybe Sweden are to young for parkour?
I don't think so. I do think that it will take time..

Parkour & Safety

Physical Graffiti's latest video, called 'Parkour is' claims that ''Parkour is safe... If you train hard''. This video was uploaded 07 Augusti 2008 and was a real success. However, since It's release there have been many people debated about parkour and It's safety, and If it really is safe or not. Still this is a hot topic among traceurs/tracesus and non-traceurs/tracesus. So, I am going to write my own opinion about it.

First off, people around the world have been talking about the dangers of parkour and now this debate has come to all the traceurs and tracesus around. Pretty recently two accidents here in Sweden was parkour and freerunning relevated. One accident when a young traceur died while doing a precision jump from less than a half meter, he slept and banged his head into the concretestair behind him. He died at the scene. The other accident was a 13-years old boy climbing and balancing on a roof when he suddenly lost his balance and felt down while training at his spot, about seven to eight meter high spot. Like a miracle, he didn't get serious injured.

My own, personal knowledge about parkour is that it isn't safe at all. Accidents can happen and when It really happens it's hard to prevent it from happening. I cannot say to anyone that they're in a activity that is completely safe. What you do might be very easy but if you do a mistake everything might be over in seconds. Therefor, calculating the risks of what you do is very important. It is not just about physical capacity, but also the mental one. You physical and mental state depends on much, for example if how many hours you have slept, what you have ate etc. And of course that you feel used and comfortable with what you're doing. Visualize your movements is something that I feel usefull and I think It is something that really can help you to know what you're able to do. First I check my physical and mental state, if I am O.K or not. Then I try to visualize the movement I am about to do. From my own experience I teach myself to do it while training alone. What really made me feel like ''Wow...'' was when I, for the first time, used visualization to execute a movement. It felt good and I did it. What really got me was how close my visualization was to the real thing – the movement itself almost felt exactly as it did when I visualized about it. I guess that it is something good to learn and to use to increase the safety while training.



Whatever, when It comes to risks everyone should bear in their mind that there are risks in what we are doing but that it always depends on what you are doing. For example, jumping an small precision jump isn't really dangerous but it might be. If you want to take no risks in parkour you can't train at all. You should be indoor your whole life and be scared of everything. What if you fall on something when you're about to visit a local grocery store for example...? There are risks everywhere, whatsoever if you're training parkour or not. The danger of driving a car a rainy night is pretty big. In a morning this week I felt because the whole road was covered in snow and ice. Only good thing was that I didn't hurt myself at all. But I guess you get the point – falling is natural and might happen. Doing a little precision in the summer are probably more less dangerous than walking on roads covered with snow and ice during the winter but leaping of a building to another is extremely dangerous and unsafe. It doesn't matter how much you train or for how long you've been training. Nothing in parkour will become completely safe. But remember - it will get safer but there are no guarantees. Personally, I've felt more times while not training. Like the example above. Why? Probably because I didn't pay enough attention when I was walking.

In the beginning I gave a example of a 13-years old boy that was balancing on a roof about 7-8 meters over the ground. This boy had, I can tell, not the experience and the proper plus enough training to be balancing on heights like this. But why did he do it? Well, as everyone probably think now, I guess, is that he saw it on TV OR... internet. Belle for example have a great experience in parkour. Far more than that actually.. God, I don't know what to say about his experience. (If you don't believe in God you should know that Belle actually exist..) He's been training for over 23 years now and balancing on this roof wouldn't be safe for him either. Not at all, BUT I can do tell you, it would be EXTREMELY much SAFER than what it was for this 13-years old boy.

Damage. Accidents. When I say accidents many people would refer it too someone that falls of a roof or falling while doing a vault and hurt themself real bad, maybe they even start to bleed or break something in their body. There aren't actually many accidents like this in the parkour community at all. If you only count with serious traceurs/tracesus it is even less. Someone makes a high drop or a huge kong and then doing a proper landing or a roll, many think that ''Yeah, he got controll. His body can handle it.'' But this isn't really the case. There is a detail that many people forget. Long terms injuries. Injuries that might show up the day after. The week after. The months after or one or many years after. There are unfortunately too many people in the parkour community that has to stop training because of kneeproblems, jointproblems, shoulderproblems etc. etc. Yes, they did good techniques on the landings and the vaults. But did they have the physical ability to do it? A question you should always ask yourself. It's about to be and to last.

Safe training isn't just about being good technical it is about the knowledge of yourself, your limits, and your whole body. I have to say that it is very hard to know what a regular traceur/tracesus body can handle but I can tell you one thing – I don't think it is that much that many people think. Dangers in parkour is not just the typical ''It's not so dangerous, I haven't felt and hurt myself at all''

How can you make sure that you won't have knee problems in the future? How can you make sure that your shoulders . For many traceurs/tracesus around It's been about success and error. I can't tell anyone if I will have problems with my body in the future but I can tell that now, now my body feels fine.

My own advice would be something like this;

Study the deep philosophy, study some methods of training yourself, follow your instincts and do not train to impress. Do not just train to be very good. Do not train to serious. Hook up with some friends, train relaxed and don't think too much about progression. Let playfull training stand before progression in the line and remember some very, very important things – Always be sure of what you're about to do, be carefull and have fun while training.

Follow Georges Hérberts fine words; ''Étre et durer.'' - To be and to last.

For that sake, remember to be strong to be usefull. We shouldn't just be training for ourself, but also for other people. This is my personal opinions and I'll hope you have yours and that you took the time to read this.

Short year sampler (2006-2008)

I just edited and uploaded a year sampler that includes all clips I got. This means that It is both new and old clips, from 2006 too 2008. It was pretty fun to look though those old clips.

Barclaycard Freerunning Championships

''Highlights of the event!''
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBJyGojbpBQ

I just saw the freerunning championship, and I'm not impressed or glad to it.
It was too much show that only will push people to do things beyond their level.
They even had crashmaths. Almost tehniques was bad.

Now, I don't know much about freerunning (however, freerunning and parkour is basicly the same) but I can just hope that Parkour will belong to what it really is.

I don't want any Parkour Championships. I want to keep, at least parkour, as something that will give you self-confidence, a trust in yourself, something that learn you to help other people in difficult times.Help people to be carefull and make sure. Using crashmaths for example only shows that you're not sure about what you're doing. Especially when they can't land properly. It shows that you're very, very aware that you probably will fall.

Parkour for me is a fight agianst myself. I listen to other traceur and takes advices, I let them teach me something I need help with, and I teach others. I follow the true nature of it that Belle & CO do.

For me, It feels like almost every parkour accosiations are trying to establish a name for themselves. No matter if they ruin the true nature of all this, no matter if they ruin the philosophy, the way of thinking that Belle and others have been found. It took them years after years to make this. It was a goddamn hard work and
when It's finally start to reach the society something like this happen. It's a shame. I way to lure people to think like this.


If they badly want to make competitions, please pay attention to us - The true traceurs of the dicipline, that you're spitting us in the face. Ruining the whole thing. Do competitions, It's okay, but do not call it either parkour or freerunning. Do not use the philosphy of parkour. It's ours. Parkour belongs to the ones that are truthfull and follow the path standard path of the dicipline.


So, when people and the society for that sake really started to open their eyes, and especially EARS, to this dicipline people go agianst the philosophy, the standard training, and the foundation of it.

Remember those three simple words;

Personal.
Dicipline.
Improvement.

It's seems like too much is about establishment, favours and money. It only benefit yourselves and pretty much the whole community. The people that are unsure of what they're doing.The missunderstood flock of mislead beginners that might hate this response because they'll sooner or later simply think that competiton in parkour
is right, and that it is the true nature of it. This is simply not the case.


Competition will make try to progress as fast as possible. In the theory It's good that every traceur progress fast, but it comes with some things; injuries and such.
It makes loosers and winners. The loosers learn to be unsure of themself, and the winners learns to be sure about themself and always comparing to others instead of be personal, think about selfimprovement. The happy and joy to go out training, only focusing on yourself and have fun will be gone. The way of thinking parkour will slowly start to fade out.


So, I just wan't to know what the FREERUNNERS think about this. Freerunning and parkour is basicly the same thing, I will try to keep parkour as It is, and every freerunner, every traceur have a responsibility to stop this. When the oldschool traceurs are gone, like Belle, we'll only stand with what we have learned. So if we don't learn properly parkour will in the future slowly fade out. It will become something else.

I know that many people are with me and agree and I'm thanksfull for that.
I hope everyone take their responsibility and act.

''The Six Basics to improve''

THE SIX BASICS – METHOD TO IMPROVE

I was thinking about my own training and as well others training. I noticed that what many people train, especially beginners, are vaults. Vaults is what we often se on websites like youtube and It’s like it tells you ‘’than more vaults you do, the better are you.’’ There are no doubts that you improve in parkour by doing vaults. When you’re facing an obstacle you often have to be able to do them. Those vaults. I’ve practised vault pretty much this summer, but now, in the end of it, I came to think that there are many areas that has to be refined to be able to learn control to those vaults and I don’t think it is a safe way and the most effective way to learn them is to simply practise them. Now for a start, at least.

When I started with parkour I simply did a list of vaults that I wanted to learn. I learned them, and I did them slobby. All because I didn’t have any knowledge about parkour in that time, the dark years when information like this was hard to find. Yes, I improved. But it had consequences. I was doing them like crazy, spending sometimes one hour doing the speed vault over and over again because I wanted to improve and refine it. I did refine it, but I didn’t refine myself physical. I got hurt because of ht impact that your legs will experience when you’re doing vaults. People new to the parkour scene often do high drops, and some don’t because they know that it damage your body extremely much, so instead they do vaults. I personally think that It is not good. I am speaking of my personal experience now.

There is no doubt that vaults, always depending on wich one you do, always bring an enormous impact on your legs and knees. Especially on hard surfaces as asphalt. You might not notice this in the beginning but you will probably do it later. Keep in mind that it all depends on your physical experience from earlier training. So, what I did this week was that I actually stoped doing vaults. – Sure, my damage to my legs are gone, but I don’t wan’t to travel the same way again so I came up with a ''new'' method of training. I am sure, that someone or somebody follows this method to before I came up with it, but for me, for myself, It’s new. So, If this method is found anywhere else, well, It is.

This is the method I call ''The Six Basics'' wich is a method to prepare yourself for vaults, but also other thing in parkour. It’s about preparing yourself to be able to move.

This is the basics:

1 .Strength
2. Endurance
3. Balance
4. Coordination
5. Flexibility
6. Explosive


Your body are very opened to be damaged the first two-three years when you train wich means that you have to improve very carefully and slowly when you start training. You must always think about what you do and how you move. Vaults, for example, is good because you have to use less energy while crossing an obstacle plus that the impact on your legs and knees are much smaller* when you cross this obstacle, since you move with much more forwards motion. If you just jump over a trashcan for example, you would come more vertical wich basically means more impact on your legs and knees. It depends on the surface too. But if you use for example a speed vaults, or a lazy, you come more horizontal wich means less impact on your legs. The vault that do most impact on your legs if you’re just counting in the basic ones, is the Kong vault. This is because you move in a more horizontal way, but in the speed vault, you’re moving much more vertical.

I think vaults is the most unnecessary thing in parkour. Vaults comes with the time, when your body are prepared and ready for it. What I am going to use is another method of improving in vaults and improving your whole body.



Let us say that you’re about to do a kong vault. I am going to list the Six Basics that you need to improve your kong in a longer, but much more safe way. It will affect your whole training, to, not only the vaults.

When you do kong…


1. COORDINATION

When you’re running against the obstacle ready to do your kong It’s important that you know where you put down your feet’s and when you should do the movement. When you have done the move, you will have to land safety too. Good coordination will help you to land much more precise.


2. Explosive, fast moves like doing a fast push-up onto a wall, or jumping a long precision jump is one of the common basics that is great. This one will really help you to do a high and/or a long kong vault.



3. BALANCE

You balance will help you not to fall and to gain more control when you are doing the Kong vault. It will help you hold your balance when putting your hands on the rail (lets say rail..) and It will help you to hold yourself up in the air. If you do loose your control, it will help you to get it back again.

4. Flexibility

With good flexibility you will feel much more smoother while you do the move and you will have it much more easier to put up your legs so they don’t touch the rail. We don’t want to move like a cement statue, we want to move like a soft rubber statue.


5.ENDURANCE

With good endurance, you’ll be able to do the kong many times without getting so tired.



6.STRENGTH

The most important thing if you want to avoid injuries. Your strength, you muscles, will protect your body while you land and take the whole impact.

So, as you see those areas, what I call ‘’The Six Basics’’ is very important to train. That’s why I am not going to do so much more vaulting, instead, I will go and try this method. Does it work? Well, do you get good balance while walking on rails? Yes. Do you get strength and endurance when you’re walking in monkey walk? Yes. So, basically and logically it works. What I’ve seen so far is that my flexibility that comes from good warm-ups and stretching helped me with vaulting. I was able to use my legs much more easily. Of course, this method is not just to improve and prepare for vaults – It’s about preparing your whole body for any kind of obstacle!


Please leave a trace.

Thanks for reading.

// E.A

Physical and mental process goes to fast

The physical and mental process in parkour goes to fast along traceurs around the world. The ones that seems to have most problem with this, is as you can probably guess, beginners. The human body is as everyone know not used to those kind of movements and physical and mental challenges we face in parkour. Often beginners attention falls to high drops and vaults. Someone see a video on Youtube and say . But when you have trained for a while you understand that parkour is more than a simple video on youtube. You cannot describe what parkour is in a simple video, It's to complicated as parkour is a physicall and aswell a mental dicipline. You can train parkour, live parkour, think parkour, and the more you train than more it effect your personal lifestyle. It's like learning a language and you doesn't understand it before you learn to talk it. It's a kind of a physicall language. It's realistic and naturall.

So, what beginners see on the internet is a bit what we have become during our training - we have become someone who can move through diffrent kinds of enviorments and adapt ourself to it. Their attention falls at high drops and vaults. Those ''Ive been training for three months''-guys often, partically on youtube, train like crazy. Parkour is not for people that want to do crazy things and randomly jumping around. It is in our instincts that we wan't to achieve as much as possible in the shortest period of time. But it doesn't work like that in parkour. Or at least, it shouldn't. Everything we do effect our body negative or possitive. How to define a high drop? Well, everything that is over your own lenght is high, wich means that you should use a roll. It means that it have a enrmously hard preasure on your legs. However, It all depends for how long you have been practising parkour and how you have been training. If you wan't to achieve as much as possible you will not stand tall in parkour. You body will, sooner or later, collaps.

My concern is not only that people are huring themself by doing videos like this on youtube, and training like this, but that they have an effect on other people. Many times I see people on youtube that have been training only for months doing huge drops, and then It all comes me, with my two years of training wich is basicly nothing. What I see is other people doing things that I cannot do, things that I don't have the proper training for. Well, in tecniqal I can do it, but I don't. You feel leftbehind. You feel irretated, especially when you think about your hard work that made it possible to reach your current level. But It's not my wrong and It's not anyone else wrong either, accept for those people that are actually doing this. They're not preperared for what they are doing but they do it anyway often just to tell their friends or fellow traceurs (traceurs?! Ehm)what they did that particular day. They're living for the day. Those people stress other traceurs that improve steady and slow and they're having an very bad affect on other random people around the world. What I am really worried about is videos with those none-traceurs get respected on youtube and often get a high score like 4/5. They're fooling everyone else, and they're fooling themself. Those people think they improve. They basiclly do that do, for the day. There are no shortcuts in parkour.

But in the years they will not be able to train anymore They won't stand tall because they've overtrained and damaged their bodies to much. They only ones that will stand there, doing those adraline-high drops, swining from tree to tree without getting injuries is the traceurs that took the time to build their bodies, and the ones that was listening to their bodies and finally can controll what they wished to controll.

You cannot compare your mental opportunities with your physical abilities.

Bear in mind that we often can do it mentally, but not physically.

This is just a taste of what you can find on youtube.
Unfortunately, It's to respected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsvnqp7fs4s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3r8WPtO_WU