Competition in Parkour – A Doctor’s Perspective

by Dr. Kenneth Kao, D.C.
Doctor of Vital Balance Chiropractic
Instructor at APEX Movement Boulder

The point of this article is not to say if parkour should or should not have competition. Enough has been said on this topic that anything more would be redundant and, well, boring. However, I feel as if I could offer a different perspective that few of us have considered.

First, defining competition.

I believe we all can agree that competition is a choice. It is a mindset. If I watch my fellow traceur step off a curb, and I am jealous that he stepped off a curb better than I, and I in turn step off a curb trying to do it better than him, and I do it better. Or worse.

I’ve competed, yah?

Competition, however, usually refers to the organized communal activity in which a bunch of us get together not to “jam”, but to purposefully compare and pit one guy against the next. This has been painted in a negative light. In many ways, yes, competitions are negative, agreed. But let’s try thinking about things a little differently.

*Side Note*

As we’ve said, competition is a choice. You can choose not to compete. The common issue is more centered to if parkour organizations: Primal/APK, COPK/APEX, PKV, should promote competition with their power of influence. I understand this is the primary issue. Not the point of the article, but here’s my personal answer, anyway.

Not my business.

Technically, this is the individual organization’s choice, and debating one way or the next will not change it. It may lead parkour into the terrible hell of a “sport”, but what’s going to happen is going to happen regardless of my feelings. Or yours.

*Side Note End*

As a doctor, I treat many patients who are traceurs. I’ve come to appreciate how natural, healthy and beneficial parkour can be neurologically and physiologically when done correctly. Many traceurs will argue that parkour is so natural that everyone should move this way anyway. We value movement, returning to the way our bodies were designed, exploring our environment by touch, smell, taste, sight. We appreciate what so few people can appreciate because we are exploring what we were MEANT to explore.

I agree.

In many ways parkour is not only about efficient movement, but returning to nature. It is not only about speed and strength, but training our bodies and rediscovering fitness–our ability to adapt to our environment.

So, in that mode of thought, what were we humans meant to do in regards to competition?

Humans have a primal nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system. You’ve probably heard of it described as “Fight or Flight.” This system is devoted to survival. Adrenaline, reaction time, freak out I-gotta-get-outa-here mode are all SNS related. Much of parkour, facing your fears, is a SNS response.

Competition is a sympathetic response.

Uh oh, you’re thinking, here he goes trying to say that anything sympathetic is good. But wait! I’m not saying that because it’s sympathetic we should compete. Otherwise, I’d be advocating axe murderers chasing traceurs down. I’m just saying that competition is so extremely fight or flight that it is seconded only by actual injury, risk of death, and dying.

Huh?

Yeah. Competition is the safest way to push our sympathetic nervous systems into over-gear. Competition is a capsule that adds rules to “warfare” in order to preserve longevity of performance. What I am saying, dear reader, is that competition is as close to natural sympathetic survival instincts as we can make it. Without death games, that is.

If you want to argue this, consider why sports have arisen at all. Sports are a loose term for organized competitions–disciplines that have become so solely focused on the actual competition that their entire purpose is only to compete. This is NOT where I want parkour to go, but this is an example of how in every culture, race, class, gender in the entire world, competition has emerged under the umbrella of “sports.” There is no exception.

Now comes the big debatable comment: my opinion is that competition is natural, and as traceurs, we strive towards what is natural.

As traceurs who are always trying to be in tune with our environments, we can test ourselves and move closer to how we were designed by competing. Besides the anthropological origins, competition puts us in a state of controlled stress in which we can perform at higher peaks than we ever realized. This could be in the form of your friend stepping off a curb when you couldn’t, OR, in the form of a Red Bull competition.

But, I absolutely absolutely I-cannot-emphasize-this-enough agree that too much of anything is unhealthy and bad and horrible for you. Too much competition is bad for anyone. Too much stress can break a person down. This is obvious, just like too much good food ends up in bloating, or too much water ends up in drowning.

Conversely, too little food ends up in starvation and too little water ends up in dehydration and death.

Metaphorically, too much competition ends up in injury-death-damnation by your peers. Too little competition results in starvation of your potential to progress.

Thus, from a medical point of view of human developmental physiology, everyone should compete. Whatever this means for you. Remember, competition is a choice and too much or too little is also based on you. So if this means trying to step off a curb better, just cause your buddy did it with more grace and flow, then go for it. Compete. It’s natural. If it means striding 8′ bars 8′ up, it’s also natural–for you. They are both competition and they are both exactly as our human bodies were meant to respond within the limits of safety.

As for the question of if competition was meant to be part of parkour at all because David Belle said this or that–that’s a whole other argument.

I’m not here to answer THAT question.

by Dr. Kenneth Kao, D.C.
Doctor of Vital Balance Chiropractic
Instructor at APEX Movement Boulder

Changing Your Genes, Not Your Jeans

by Dr. Kenneth Kao, D.C.
Doctor of Vital Balance Chiropractic
Instructor at APEX Movement Boulder

I recently ran across a blog entitled, Murder Genes.

The author of the blog is the author of a horror/thriller novel by the
same name. He presents a question that I’ve seen in high numbers in
recent scientific articles. The basis of these articles surround a
term known as “Behavioral Genetics.”

Behavioral Genetics is one of the most intriguing concepts I’ve run
across in recent medical journals. It is the idea that we are born
with certain tendencies far beyond simple physical traits such as
height and structure. It argues that certain behaviors may be
ingrained in our genetics. Such as aggression, risk taking, even
entrepreneurship.

Mikael Aizen, the author of the book, presents a fictional world where
Behavioral Genetics is so well established that not only are
tendencies defined, but certain people don’t even have a choice in
identified behaviors. Ie., murder.

Intriguing, right?

Sure, it isn’t real. Sure it’s a piece of fiction that blows up a
concept past reality, but it brought up several questions in my mind
for us traceurs. How much are we born a traceur, and how much are we made a traceur?

Do we have certain “risk taking” instincts in higher amounts than the
average person? Was this tendency to overcome physical obstacles bred into us or were we born with it?

The book is fun, it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s also violent, gory, and pretty much not for young eyes.

Anyway, back to the topic.

The author combines another, more recent theory that blew my mind. The term for this is “Epigenetics”.

Epigenetics is the idea that your DNA can change. Yes, CHANGE.

Ok, not change, exactly, but it argues that your DNA can express
itself differently based on your experiences. Literally, what you go
through in life can change your DNA expression. Your physical makeup
as you grow. Your features. Even your attitudes.

Whoa.

So, this means that if a traceur at a young age was involved in
climbing, jumping, etc. And maybe he was born with really good genes
for jumping and running. But also, his DNA altered itself to better
suit him for those activities as he developed. Maybe his personality
even changed, his fear instincts, his ability to control his emotions.

Beyond the neurology that I am well familiar, we are talking about
genetic alterations that surpass neurology. Maybe I’m stuck somewhere between fiction and reality, I’m not saying much with actual scientific merit, but the more I research this the more I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

How far does this go for us traceurs? What if we’re 30, just starting
parkour. Does this mean we can reshape our DNA to become a better
traceur? Epigenetics apparently alters DNA more aggressively with
stronger emotional stimulus. When we “overcome obstacles,” in other
words traumatize our emotions, the epigenes work extra hard to alter
DNA expression. Interesting, huh?

Tons of twin studies have been done on this, you can imagine the
results. I’ve always wondered why genetically identical twins may
appear differently over time. This seems like a good theory to go
with.

Your experiences shape who you are more deeply than you realize. I
wonder, can epigenes be passed on from parent to child? Just some thoughts.

*Disclaimer*: Above is by no means any bit concrete scientific statements.

by Dr. Kenneth Kao, D.C.
Doctor of Vital Balance Chiropractic
Instructor at APEX Movement Boulder

APEX Makes You Better Because APEX Believes You Can Be

Adrianne Schoen
Student at APEX Movement Englewood

I’ve been with APEX Movement a long time. Before it was called APEX Movement and before they had a gym of their own. In that time, I’ve seen kids learn to focus their boundless energy; I’ve seen adults rediscover themselves as physical beings and change their lives; I’ve seen the people that run APEX Movement build a dream and grow as teachers; I’ve seen a community of endless support and positivity grow. I know the love letter that follows may sound a little abstract and ambitious for a gym, but I’ll do my best to capture why I think it has touched many peoples lives including my own.

As a kid I played, as all kids do, without fear or limitations. If my big brother told me to hop in a suitcase so he could push me down the stairs it just seemed like good fun. Putting a sprinkler under a trampoline seemed like a good idea and not a slippery death ride into rusty metal springs. Somewhere while I was busy growing up I lost that sense of foolish adventurousness. I’m not condoning riding luggage down a flight of stairs or needing a tetanus shot from a reckless trampolining incident, but I do think that spirit of creativity and thrill of pushing boundaries is important to hang on to. Many people are able to keep some of that sense of ‘play’ and physical challenge with team sports, but that was never really my thing. I’m not blaming sports, it was just my personal experience that the more athletic kids were more interested in being competitive than being kind. It’s tragic that a few rotten apples ruined it for me, but there it is. I wont bore you with the rest of my athletic history, but the point is somewhere along the way, for a variety of reasons, I lost the joy involved with being daring and pushing myself physically.

APEX Movement is a world where that childlike sense of adventure lives. It’s a place where some people will grow up and never lose it and other people like me will find it again. Training at APEX Movement is about being responsible, finding your limitations and surpassing all of your expectations. I’ve seen people there cheer someone struggling to do their first pull up as hard as someone landing a perfect back flip. Everyone shares that feeling of personal accomplishment no matter what it is they’re trying to do. I don’t know about anyone else, but I think that is amazing. We live in a world where it’s easy to sit back and be a spectator. To forget what we can accomplish when we put in the blood, sweat, and tears. That it doesn’t cost us anything generous and supportive to one another and that victory doesn’t have to come at someone else’s loss. APEX Movement makes people better because APEX Movement believes everyone can be.

Adrianne Schoen
Student at APEX Movement Englewood

The Art of Falling: When Gravity Uses a Concrete Wall to Throw You

Amos Rendao
Head Instructor of APEX Movement Boulder
amos@apexmovement.com

“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.”

-Mary Pickford

To fail is not simply to be human. To fail is to exist. Failure is an essential element of the learning process, and failure in Parkour usually involves a good bail.

You probably get a good laugh or cringe when you see the bail marys in each issue of Jump Magazine, but your’s is coming, and bail marys aren’t just for noobs. Maybe it’s happened to you a few times already, and even then, there’s always the horizon. You will fall. No ifs, only when, and when those times come, there isn’t a chance to think, only to react.

Many people know this about the danger of falling down. For this reason, suit-clad onlookers often guess at our being as we swiftly move above them. They wonder if we have a death wish, if we’re missing part of our brains, or if we’re just simply crazy extreme sport types destined for permanent injuries.

Superimposed over our quiet landings, they are seeing the alternate realities of all the things that could have easily gone wrong. What they often don’t know is that we are prepared to react to these miscalculations like undershooting a precision at height, over rotating flips, etc… We don’t need a perfect landing, just within a certain range.

Parkour is not reserved for adrenaline addicts searching out the most creative way from point A to point Death. In comparison to soccer, snowboarding, skateboarding, martial arts, and video games, it’s one of the safest things I’ve ever done. There are plenty of reasons for this, but for now, envision yourself sprinting towards a running jump. You’re now only a few steps away from take off – isn’t it nice that you don’t have to worry about some jerk slide tackling your meniscus into oblivion or hoping that your skateboard doesn’t malfunction? Safety in Parkour depends on individual body control, an ability to practice within one’s present limits, checking surfaces, and listening to one’s body. And for me, the defining element of this individual responsibility, which makes Parkour safer and a sustainable practice closer to a martial art, is the practice of Ukemi: the art of falling.

I first encountered the practice of Ukemi (pronounced ‘oo’-'keh’-'mee’ or \ü-‘ke-mē\) in an Aikikai Aikido dojo in Boulder, Colorado. Ukemi is a Japanese word that means literally “receiving [with/through] the body” [1], but it’s often interpreted in martial arts as “the art of falling” [2]. Ukemi is a necessary component of martial arts like Aikido, Brazilian Jiu jitsu, and Judo. In Aikido, it dominates the early stages of training. In more advanced classes, you might be thrown 50 to 100 times during an hour-long class, and if you haven’t seriously studied Ukemi, avoiding injury is nearly impossible.

The first revelation I had of the relevance and importance of Ukemi in Parkour was the day I attempted a fairly big (for me) Kong > rail precision > gainer 540 on concrete. Upon landing on the rail, one of my feet slipped out (ironically caused by stiffness due to the fear of falling), and a natural reaction was resurrected from the depths of my subconscious, muscle memory carved out through years of Aikido and Brazilian Jiu jitsu: I spread the impact of the concrete evenly along the meaty parts of the full length of my body with a break fall. A few seconds of shock wore off, and I could only laugh at how I had narrowly escaped a nasty injury.

In this particular situation, Danny Ilabaca’s philosophy “Choose not to fall” is very applicable, but no matter how positive your thinking or to what degree you can control fear and hesitation, everyone falls, including Ilabaca, David Belle, and ___________________ (insert your Parkour/Freerunning hero here).

Soon after this fall, I was also privileged to have experienced the all-time classic Kong > hands slip > knees jacked > upside down > hopefully not going for a precision on this one > yup, I was going for a precision, and it’s a huge rock…Again, muscle memory instantly kicked in. The next thing I knew, I was crouching like a ninja next to the rock that would surely have been the winner in the collision with my body. In my blurry memory of the almost-bail mary, I had helplessly watched myself manipulate a dive roll to veer off sideways, avoiding the rock and all the injuries that would have come with it. Once again, laughter, even though I was giving away my ninja crouched position to passers-by.

The many falls I’ve taken and their outcomes compel me to continue studying Ukemi and adapting it to Parkour, but because we aren’t dealing with just flat mats, as in a dojo, this new variation of the art of falling must expand and evolve to work for our highly complex falling scenarios on concrete. As I’ve developed my own abilities, taught these concepts in our classes here at APEX Movement Boulder, and developed drills and methods for those who don’t come from an Aikido, BJJ, or Judo background, I’ve seen an overwhelming amount of success already. Whether it’s my own training, seeing those around me fall well, or hearing others tell me about how these techniques have saved them an injury or worse, I feel that Ukemi isn’t just something from which the Parkour community could presently benefit, but might be necessary as our discipline evolves to levels no one can presently fathom.

You will fall. And after that, you will fall again. Here are some ways that the art of falling has aided me in studying Parkour:

Falling well makes my practice even more sustainable.

Ukemi helps me deal with fear, uncertainty, and hesitation. There are many techniques and combinations that I’m not afraid to do, not because I’m one of those freaks of nature that doesn’t experience fear, but because I know I can deal with most any outcome and fall that would resort from an unwanted slip or miscalculation.

Having far less injuries ensures a strong and steady progression.

My practice is far more enjoyable. I generally experience more laughter and fun, rather than seriousness clouded with fear.

The study of Ukemi didn’t just change Parkour for me, it changed my entire experience of moving, i.e. everyday life. Here are some ways:

I have at least one epic bicycle fall a year, with a lot of small fun ones on the side. It’s an easy dive roll or side roll, but hard convincing onlookers I’m ok.

A few times I’ve had my feet kicked out from under me while playing soccer. Once I made it back to my feet so quickly that I was able to steal the ball from the person who stole it from me. He was a little surprised.

Sometimes I trip over my own feet or an object I wasn’t aware of. Unstable rocks and ice will get the best of me from time to time.

Most days I encounter other ninjas in public, and in the rare event I’m thrown during an altercation, I can recover quickly and safely.

Quick note:

My friend, Jake Smith, just told me that he slipped on ice and naturally twisted away from his head-towards-ground-trajectory to get one foot under him for a graceful, almost b-twist-landing recovery. To a surprised onlooker, this may have seemed as if he casually threw a tornado kick before getting into his car. YES!

So how would this adaptation of Ukemi work with Parkour? Upon experimenting and being a guinea pig to a degree, I’ve started realizing that there exists a technique for every possible trajectory, velocity, direction, and orientation of the falling person to the ground, wall, rail, etc… I call this the falling continuum. For example, if your toes slip out on a precision and you catch the rail at your waste, you could dissipate most of the impact by continuing your momentum over the railing with a gate vault. If you were to catch a knee or foot on a kong vault and couldn’t get your feet under you, but your hips were not popped up high enough for a dive roll, the intermediary falling technique would involve reaching for the ground with one foot, not to absorb impact, but instead raise your hips as you go into the dive roll variation. In that same scenario, if your hips were popped up so high that you couldn’t dive roll, you would prepare your positioning for a break fall as you went over your head. Furthermore, if you were to have clipped your legs even harder or if you had more height in which you over rotated, the most coveted piece of this particular falling continuum would be the pulling into a flip then opening up for a soft landing on your feet. Sounds crazy, but I’ve witnessed this rarity first hand.

Within the practice of Ukemi, there are even small details such as breathing correctly so as to avoid getting the wind knocked out of you, or worse, possibly damaging your lungs. From hand positioning, to pre-visualization, to air awareness in order to always know where the ground is, etc… Ukemi in Parkour has the potential to be a vast study.

Another piece of this falling continuum can be expressed in the idea of falling 360 degrees. Imagine a landing spot as the center point in a circle. Depending on the direction towards a feet first landing on that spot, a person could roll accordingly. From forward roll to side roll, there is a seamless transition. From side roll to back roll exists that same fluid transition, and so on, 360 degrees.

Not every piece of the falling continuum will involve a soft landing in which you laugh at your newfound invincibility, but it will always be better than the alternative of leaving your head and spine vulnerable or letting the fall stop in a small point on your body. For instance, break falls on concrete rarely feel good, but will always be better than landing on your tail bone or posting an arm out (which is you asking the ground to be as creative as possible in breaking your arm for you).

As we train in the art of Parkour/Freerunning, we learn to embrace obstacles, and many of us stop there. Let us embrace failure, the inevitable mistakes, one of the most human things we can do: falling. Imagine our potential if we treat falling as Aikido and Judo treat it: from day one, learning how to fall correctly and focusing on correcting mistakes that must happen in our process of growth. Our injury rates will go down, we’ll further the divide between jackass extreme sports and Parkour in the public mind, fear will be rare and rational. Imagine the soft gaze of a traceuse about to take on the impossible without the slightest hint of fear in her eyes. This is the path of the harmony between Ukemi and Parkour. If we neglect learning how to fall well, there will always exist that nagging abyss of all the things that can go wrong that we’re not able to deal with. Instead, that intangible obstacle should be one that we train on regularly, a holistic embrace of movement with the inclusion of those inevitable things that will go wrong as we learn. If we embrace failure and falling, there is nothing left to fear, only challenges to be met and fun to be had.

Make your voice heard by dropping your opinion on the comments of this article or send an email to amosrendao@gmail.com. To learn more about my school, check out the APEX Movement website.

Unfortunately, your resources for bringing Ukemi into your regular training in Parkour are fairly limited during this nascent era, but here are some options:

If you live in or around the Boulder/Denver, Colorado area, you can
attend “Ukemi: The Art of Falling” at APEX Movement Boulder.

If you don’t have access to this, I suggest finding an aikido or judo school near you. Learn the many variations of rolls, how to break fall, etc… and adapt those to concrete and other scenarios for Parkour.

You can also organize an Ukemi seminar with technique methods, concepts, drills, and progressions taught at your location. Send an email to amos@apexmovement.com.

If you would like to be updated about the release of an upcoming book on this subject, send an email to amos@apexmovement.com with the subject title “Book Update.”

Special thanks to Kevin Crouse, Ryan Ford, Katie Kirkwood, Ken Kao, Brendan Dudley, Pete Strayer, and Robyn Sikkema for your help, perspective, and resources.

Amos Rendao
Head Instructor of APEX Movement Boulder
amos@apexmovement.com

References

1. “Aikido Dictionary.” Cardiff Aikikai. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. (http://www.cardiffaikikai.co.uk/aikido_dictionary.htm)

2. “Aikido Terminology.” Aikido Melbourne Australia – World Aikido-Yoga. 2002-2011. Web. 27 Jan. 2011. (http://www.aikidoaustralia.com/adults_terminology_aikido.php)

The GREEN Traceur: The Short [cat] Leap from Efficient Movement to an Efficient Lifestyle

by Risa Scott
APEX Movement Family
risa.scott@gmail.com

Who are you?

I am a practicing traceuse and assistant instructor with APEX Movement. I am also a Civil Engineer attending graduate school (prepare for a mouthful) focusing on the retrofit and development of environmentally conscious and energy efficient building and construction practices. I am currently employed as an engineer developing statistical methods to help motivate energy savings on the consumer side of the equation. If your reaction to that statement is “what???”, then sit tight; I will explain.

What???….

One of the most disturbing things I’ve heard recently from someone I know was: “I thought that whole ‘green’ movement was dead.” My obvious interest in pursuing the topic of ‘green’ made me shudder at this thought. Are there really people, even people I know, who really have no idea that this is not just some hippie fad? It’s a growing consumer industry; ‘green’ is everywhere now. We see it even more here in Boulder, but its influence is spreading steadily. Not only is it a growing industry, it’s a necessary one.

There are two sides to the green effort, industry and consumers. We can change the amount of energy that is put into the products consumers buy and we can change the amount of energy the consumer uses. To clarify, you are the consumer, we all are. Virtually every person uses electricity, gas, puts out trash and takes showers (at least I hope they do). Since I know you’d rather be training at the gym right now I will dispense with quoting studies and statistical figures and leave that for my thesis. Instead I’ll just put it simply: you are important and participating in the growing revolution of green can only help you, the community and the environment. I’d like you to trust me on this; it is what I am studying after all.

Why Should I Care?

Parkour is a minimalistic discipline that embraces what the human body can do un-aided. It is often said that Parkour is a way of life, a way of thinking which is why it is often thought of more like a discipline than a sport. It is then not that far of a stretch to bring that mindset of ‘efficiency of movement’ to your activities outside of training. An earth-friendly way of life and mind set also embraces efficiency and a respect for what is natural. Luckily, taking steps towards this mind set requires little effort and often only has positive impacts (you literally can’t lose). You save money and help save the planet AND get that awesome warm fuzzy feeling in your gut, knowing you have contributed.

We are at a critical turning point –‘green’ is becoming common practice and even sought after by a growing portion of the population and industry. It is also becoming cheaper and easier (often cheaper than the non-green alternative) to make adjustments to your routine at home or work/school in support of this effort. With Parkour as an up-and-coming discipline, it is possible to set an example of how Parkour can affect lifestyle and how much we can really care about the environment in which we live and train.

Ok, I’m on Board, What can I do?

Great! You’re still here. The following are some great and really easy ways you can live what you train; help your environment and live efficiently:

Leave-no-trace is a great starting point as it directly affects the condition and availability of training areas. This has been practiced and preached all over and should be taught to up and coming traceurs.

Recycling! I’m sure you’ve all heard this a bunch but it’s huge, as in ‘a big deal’. It’s not a lot of effort to know what goes into the recycling and have a separate bin for those items. Think of it this way: the less that goes into your trash can (aka landfill) the better!

Biodegradable: There is way more of a choice now than there was in cleaning products, soaps, even sponges! Whenever possible – buy biodegradable!

Hot Water use: taking shorter showers isn’t only about saving water; it’s about saving energy. In order to get hot water, natural gas or electricity heats it up. You use A LOT of water in the shower (it’s shocking). Just one minute less in the shower saves a decent amount of energy. Even if you just think about it while you’re in the shower (“make this faster, like that ninja warrior course I ran last night”) then you probably WILL be faster. Plus you’ll be thinking about Parkour, win-win. If you want to ‘challenge yourself’ (thanks Amos!), get a low-flow shower head. They work great, if you get a decent one ($30), you don’t know the difference and the savings on your energy bill pays back in less than 6 months! Ready –set –[low]Flow!

EASY ONE: turn down your thermostat. Just one degree. You can do more and throw on a sweater (for winter). Saves you $ and virtually no work on your part. You could get a cool hat and a tacky Christmas sweater with all the money you saved! Also buying window film ($7 per window, $15 per patio door) takes about 10 min to put in and improves the insulation of the glass by quite a bit. Also enough to see on your bill. The film will pay for itself often in half the heating season.

EASY ONE: Turn off lights when you’re not in the room. Your cat can see fine in the dark. Additionally, leaving chargers, laptops, audio systems and TVs plugged in overnight draws power even when its off! If you’re not using it, unplug it (doesn’t work for lamps). Practically speaking, anything with a little light that is on, even when it’s off draws power. Just pick the easiest ones to unplug (I bet you can find at least 5) and unplug them when you’re not using it. It takes about two weeks to make it a habit to plug things in to use and unplug them when you’re done. (I’ve been doing this with my
microwave, desktop computer, audio speakers, etc. for over a year).

LIGHTS: CFL bulbs are generally guaranteed for at least 5 years. They save 80% of the energy used by common incandescent bulbs (that’s a payback within two energy bills). NOTE: They have a small (tiny) amount of mercury; however you are not exposed unless they break. I’ve done the math; we are exposed to more mercury burning coal to produce electricity than the amount we’d be exposed to if we broke a CFL. Even so, treat them with care. If one goes out, take them to Home Depot, they recycle them. ALSO NOTE: no kind of light bulb should be put in the trash anyway so this isn’t extra effort. In fact, it’s less effort. If you save them up in a safe place, you should only have to recycle bulbs at the most every 5 years. ALSO ALSO NOTE: You can’t put CFLs in dimming sockets unless it’s designed for it.

I Seem to Have Plenty of Options…

Indeed. There are more, but like I said before, I’m sure you’re thinking about training or on your way to train or tired because you just trained. So I will leave it there for now; I can always be contacted if you’re really into it. There are tons of resources and you won’t be the only traceur who thinks this is important. APEX Movement Boulder is already purchasing electricity produced by wind farms for the gym. We also have a relationship with Ellie’s Eco Home store to ensure all our cleaning products are biodegradable and earth friendly. We have trash, recycling and compost pick-up and lastly – no paper towels in the gym. We provide laundered hand towels to reduce waste (Amos and Andy hand wash them in the Boulder Creek using biodegradable soap).

So take the leap. Then a cat leap. Then do that awesome level 2 climb-up you’ve been practicing. Then recycle your water bottle, turn off the lights, and take an 8 minus 1 minute shower. Live efficient, in your training and your environment.

Be a GREEN Traceur!

by Risa Scott
APEX Movement Family
risa.scott@gmail.com

The Science of Movement: Logic As a Reflection of God, Parkour and Freerunning As an Act of Praise

Amos Rendao
Head Instructor of APEX Movement Boulder
amos@apexmovement.com

We, as traceurs and traceuses, often interact with very clear cut concepts and objects, like concrete walls, physics, trees, metal bars, point A and B, but have you ever asked yourself, “Is this wall real?” “Am I actually interacting with this tree in reality, or is this all a dream?” There have been times when I’ve questioned whether or not I’m awake after doing something that I recently thought impossible, and rightfully so, because I have in the past awakened after such an experience.

How do I know with complete certainty that I’m not dreaming? Rene Descartes took a similar journey; he was searching for absolute truth. He went farther than most would dare and deconstructed his entire existence with questions like: how can I be sure that I’m not a brain in a vat, my entire reality a computer simulation being controlled by an evil scientist? The film The Matrix also suggests this age-old question. It always seemed funny to me that people would leave the theatre not being able to actually say with 100% certainty that they in actuality are not in the Matrix themselves. How can we know for sure? What evidence can I put forward showing that this is not a computer simulation or a dream but actual reality? It seems like anything I would present as evidence, like the striking of my foot upon the pavement beneath me, would only reinforce both sides of the debate. Am I left restricted to mere faith that my surroundings are an objective reality?

Alright, that’s a bit of a problem for any sort of certainty about my surroundings, but it doesn’t stop there. Even if we could say with complete certainty that all of this around us is objective reality, we would still have to deal with the fact that all of us have only a small piece of this reality. We can only know what we’ve experienced (including second hand information), and in the context of recorded time, I have such a short existence; in the context of how many people there are, I am one of billions. So much has happened and is happening at this moment that hasn’t and maybe will never enter our personal realities, whether it’s stories of someone else’s life, conversations someone had about you that you’ll never know about, a tree falling at this exact moment somewhere on the other side of the planet, or maybe the existence of the most prime hot spot to train at that you won’t encounter until the age of 96…hopefully you’ve been training sustainably.

Also, our past experiences play a major role in how we view the world and the parts there of, even with something extremely simple. For example, let’s say you and a friend are looking at a tree. Your friend had two different traumatic experiences with trees as a child, both ending in serious injury. Let’s say you’ve always really enjoyed climbing trees, and have never had anything bad ever happen to you while doing so.

Both of you, influenced by your past interactions with the world, have different filters with something so basic as a tree. These feelings paint a completely different image in your separate realities. As you both look on, he may be experiencing the past superimposed over the moment, whereas at that exact moment you’re seeing the future: all the underbars, laches, wall flip 1080’s, and various lines you could take through, around, and up the tree.

Now take that concept and apply it to something far more complex, like politics and government, an abstract art piece 10 years in the making, the earth as an organism, Love.

Our subjective experiences play a major role in what we look for and how we even see things around us. I can’t tell you how many people have walked right past me without having even the slightest sense of my being because of the more odd places the movements of Parkour take me. Do I even exist in the reality inside their skull, where they’re probably consumed with thoughts of the past and/or future?

We must recognize that people have lived and died on a flat earth in which the sun once revolved around…

Well, the fact that we are restricted to our personal experiences (including second hand information) poses another layer of problems to this sort of knowledge and ability to say we know objective reality with absolute certainty.

However, Descartes did start to crawl back up the abyss he bravely jumped into with a very simple idea: “I think, therefore I am.” Even if I am being deceived in a virtual reality or a dream, it still shows that by being deceived or thinking in general, I must exist. That seems legit.

Is there such thing as an objective reality, or can we know anything with absolute certainty outside of simply knowing that we exist?

The skeptics will laugh a cynical laugh, scientists will often recite the scientific method as dogma, the religious often stake their possessive claim of absolute truth or pronounce their faith in it. Some people will often say it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t affect their day-to-day reality. You may be saying, “This is kind of a stretch, what does this have to do with Parkour?”
Well,
bear with me.

Is there such thing as absolute truth/objective reality, and if so, can we access it with human logic and express it with human communication?

I used to ask myself this question in its many guises, and after years of research and contemplation, I’ve become comfortable with the tentative conclusion of not being able to express the answer I’ve encountered in the English language, or any human logical system of communication for that matter.
So,
why am I wallowing in logic and writing in English?
Should we just give up trying to learn anything?

First of all, I think it’s fair to assume that we are not within a computer simulation or a dream until evidence starts to float to the surface. This doesn’t mean we absolutely know, but just that it’s a reasonable foundational assumption. So I’ll continue to act as if my surroundings are objective reality until I get that call from Morpheus… and seriously, to all my friends who would love to prank me, please, not with this one. I will most likely take it seriously, and it could endanger my life if you ask me to jump a monstrous roof gap to escape agents that are coming up the elevators.

So with that assumption in place, it still seems we are disconnected from this objective reality by our very small subjective experience. We only have a small piece of the larger puzzle.

Either way, even if we can’t truly know absolute truth/objective reality, I believe there is a closer rather than farther from it.
Why would I land a 10 ft. precision on my feet rather than my knees?
When a community debates an important issue, why do they communicate in a common language?
Why can’t a computer function based off of the axiom that 1+1=3?
Why can’t I have a steady diet of plastics and continue to survive?

Even though we may not be able to know absolute truth/objective reality with complete certainty, it seems logic brings us closer rather than farther away from absolute truth/objective reality. It helps us communicate our interactions with our surroundings one to another via the scientific method. Both in conjunction are the criteria for dubbing a faith or idea reasonable or outlandish. It’s how we learn from our mistakes, on a personal level and as a community.

When we ignore a scientific approach or rebel against it, we end up with things like injuries, things we’ve built that don’t work, or dysfunctional group communication. This seems like a disconnection from objective reality/absolute truth.

It’s almost as if logic is the reflection of the true way of nature which can be seen in human mirrors, bending in order to form part of a circle: the feedback loop of all existence or God’s eye. It’s important to remember that these reflections are not infallible, and for that matter, relative from being to being, but logic and the scientific method do prove to be time tested guides towards rather than away from objective reality.

Quick note:

To all my atheist friends,
Don’t get all bent out of shape. I’m not referring to the Christian God, I’m using this word in a pantheistic, all encompassing, everything that is sort of manner. Also, it’s an impersonal God without human traits assigned.

To all my Christian friends,
Don’t get all bent out of shape. If you don’t like the word use of God, just consider it objective reality. However, I do find it interesting that there are some striking similarities: the divide between man and God/objective reality, the inability for the human mind to truly know God/objective reality, the omnipresence of God/objective reality, the infinite nature of God/objective reality, and so on…

So, humans with the use of logic and the scientific method can be viewed as an imperfect reflection of absolute truth/objective reality/God, but how is Parkour an act of praise?

In Parkour and Freerunning we naturally, through logical processes, develop our skill sustainably with safe progressions, and we mold our bodies to be in harmony with the way of nature/objective reality by reprogramming our muscle memory, our natural reactions, and strengthening the connection between mind, body, and surroundings. Those who are disconnected from the way of nature/objective reality and rebel against it are often clumsy, break things around them, fall poorly, and so break themselves. You may hear their motto, “go big or go home” or “just do it,” but it’s only a faint utterance in your memory as they’re weeded out with constant injuries through a process of natural selection. In contrast, you notice those who have a close relationship with the way of nature. Watch her as she glides through her environment elegantly, present and aware of her surroundings, she adapts with grace to the inevitable obstacles and falls in life.

As a community, we are a community of scientists, spreading our personal experiences and advice from our positions of expertise and experience from one to another in order to find patterns so that we may develop methods of instruction and training that are safer and encompassing. For example, during their national jam in 2010, Parkour Visions of Seattle held a summit where experts from various backgrounds, from nutrition to strength training, spoke to the community. Dr. Kenneth Kao recently contributed his expert advice for the APEX Movement Blog. This spreading of knowledge, with audience participation, further research, application, and discussion is a step down the path of harmony with the way of nature/objective reality/God.

If absolute truth is something we can never truly know or communicate with human language, then Parkour is a silent act of praise, a Zen Buddhist’s step towards communion with God/the way of nature/all things. Imagine a monk sitting on the top of a mountain contemplating an apple. In that exact moment a traceur is balancing on a thin railing 15ft. off the ground in complete thoughtlessness. A devout believer prays for courage on bended knee, while one story above him a traceuse grapples with her fear and self-doubt while approaching at sprinting speed something she has yet to experience.

Let us rewire our muscle memory in accordance to the way of nature; let us have communion with God. Let us transcend mundane sidewalks, make a jungle of this oppressive urban architecture.
No longer will we clumsily stumble through our existence,
we will embrace obstacles as challenges and tools for rewriting our natural reactions. In a safe environment, we will force ourselves into the uncommon and unnatural, forcing ourselves to fall. Now, when hit with the ripples of events outside of our control, our natural reaction will be an adaptation, from the second of falling to the moment we’re safely back on our feet, it will have been as if we didn’t miss a step walking.

Parkour and Freerunning are the science of movement and moving mediations: thoughtlessness while balancing, a silent landing that Confucius wouldn’t hear no matter where he was standing, or a battle with your ego and fear as you take that leap you once thought impossible. We start with logic as a broken mirror, and use it as a tool to mold our bodies until our bodies become our surroundings.

Logic as a reflection of God, Parkour and Freerunning as eternal journey over, under, and through our intangible obstacles.

Whether or not we can truly know objective reality/absolute truth, the science of movement is our spiritual journey across the infinite roof gap between us and God.
Brothers and Sisters, Let Us Play.

but wait, how do I know this?

I don’t,
this is a perpetual rough draft and a tentative conclusion based on my experiences and the experiences of others. Let’s develop these ideas as a community.

Amos Rendao
Head Instructor of APEX Movement Boulder
amos@apexmovement.com

Music To Make You Move

by Ryan Ford
APEX Movement Head Instructor
ryan@apexmovement.com

One of my favorite things outside of Parkour is music. I love almost all kinds of music, as evident of the “Anything Goes” policy when my iPod is playing on shuffle. However, there are 2 main genres that I love the most. The first one is underground hip hop, a lesser known variety of rap and hip hop that features creative beats and lyrics that in general, are much more poetic, meaningful, and telling of a story than the mainstream junk. The second genre is a newer, ambiguous umbrella of music genres incubated and culminated by the thousands of good parkour, tricking, skiing, dance, and other videos out there featuring predominantly instrumental blends of hip hop beats, electronica, dubstep, soul, and glitch hop to name a few. For the sake of this article, I will call this strange mix of genres “Trick Hop Instrumentals”.

Over the years, I have had countless people ask me about the songs that I feature in classes at APEX Movement and my YouTube accounts, DemonDrills, ColoradoParkour, and ApexMovement. Almost every time, the answer points back to an underground hip hop or trick hop instrumental artist. I love to use underground hip hop because it often features lyrics that tell a great story that could match up with your video or the message you want to spread. In addition, the poetic lyrics often flow so smoothly with a creative, rhythmic beat, that it is a perfect complement to the beautiful, constant motion that we perform. I love to use Trick Hop because even though it is really just a blend of a bunch of other genres, they all share similar features like build up of intensity, storytelling through instrumentals, and the lack of lyrics which can sometimes draw focus and attention away from your training or your video. Also, since these songs usually have several distinct parts, it can be great fun changing up your training and video on a whim to match up with the change of composition.

So anyway, getting to the point. My goal of this article is to share the music I love training, performing, and watching with Parkour. For everyone out there who is interested in the songs, artists, and playlists that I have featured over the years, here are some of my favorites:

Top 5 Artists – Underground Hip Hop

1. Watch the video to find out!
2. CunninLynguists / Kno (Things I Dream, War, Seasons)
3. Zion I (Coastin’, Finger Paint, How Many Times)
4. K’naan (Take a Minute, In the Beginning, Wavin’ Flag)
5. Swollen Members (Smells Like SM, Feel It, Go To Sleep)

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order): Hilltop Hoods – (Fifty in Five, The Captured Vibe Restrung, Nosebleed Section), Murs – (Everything, Lookin’ Fly, The Science), Atmosphere (My Songs, Sunshine, You), Matisyahu (Indestructible, Time of Your Song, One Day), Hieroglyphics (Classic, Powers That Be, Let It Roll), Classified (Beatin’ It, 5th Element, Hard to Be Hip Hop), Cyne (Automaton, First Person, Soapbox), Dilated Peoples (Worst Comes to Worst, Pay Attention, Proper Propaganda), The Roots (The Seed 2.0, Long Time, Right On), Immortal Technique (Land of the Gun, Caught in a Hustle, Freedom of Speech)

Top 5 Artists – Trick Hop Instrumentals

1. Watch the video to find out!
2. Pretty Lights (Understand Me Now, Aimin’ At Your Head, Up & Down I Go)
3. Ronald Jenkees (Stay Crunchy, Guitar Sound, Disorganized Fun)
4. Emancipator (Old Devil, Father King, First Snow)
5. RJD2 (1976, Ghostwriter, Smoke and Mirrors)

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order): Bassnectar (Where Is My Mind Remix, Seek and Destroy Remix), Glitch Mob (Bad Wings vs. In For the Kill, Animus Vox, Nalepa – Monday Remix), The Prodigy (Invaders Must Die, Stand Up, The Big Gun Down), Nujabes (Reflection Eternal, Sincerely, Feather), Bonobo (Transmission 94 Parts 1 & 2, Recurring, Days to Come), Ratatat (Falcon Jab, Beat #3, Seventeen Years), Mt. Eden (Mirage of Hope, Beautiful Lies, I’ll Be There For You), Rob Dougan (Clubbed to Death, Clubbed to Death II, Chateau), Nuttin’ But Stringz (Thunder, Broken Sorrow), Kno of Cunninlynguists (Track 05, Porcelain, Hellfire)

So there you have it! Let me know what you think, who you like, and post up a comment if you have any other good artists that I should know about. Thanks for reading!

by Ryan Ford
APEX Movement Head Instructor
ryan@apexmovement.com

Pain: A Not-So-Good Indicator for Injury

by Dr. Kenneth Kao, D.C.
Doctor of Vital Balance Chiropractic
APEX Movement PK/FR Instructor

I often hear the words, “it doesn’t hurt” or “it did hurt, but it’s better now.”

Naturally, we move through our world with the senses we have. We can only respond to stimulus that we detect and if we are ignorant or unable to see the information of the world coming in, then we will fail to react.

Much like the biker who fails to see a bus approaching–regardless of if he accepts the bus’ existence or not, he’s still a red streak on the road.

Point being, sensing the bus doesn’t change the bus’ reality.

Traceurs put their bodies through incredible amounts of stress. We adapt to our environment and move through it in such a way that often, if a mistake should happen, we injure ourselves. Most of us, being young and fearless, believe that if there is no pain in performing a technique no damage to the body has occurred.

This is false.

Our bodies are built in such a way that we will perform through and beyond pain. We will ignore it if ignoring pain means “survival.” If we scratch ourselves on a fence, we won’t notice it until after the fact and if there is a persisting injury, a nagging annoyance like a trick knee or ankle, our bodies will find a way to move in a way that doesn’t irritate that knee or ankle.

The ideal situation is to not injure ourselves and to never develop a trick knee, but reality is far from the ideal. When the instructors of APEX Movement emphasize a technique, they do so because there is a safe way to perform a technique and a less safe way to perform it. It is not that you will injure yourself every time you do a vault incorrectly, but the chances are much higher with one way versus another. If there is something wrong in your technique, sooner or later you will injure yourself and the goal is to prevent injury from ever happening.

Here’s the thing. I don’t care if you’re the most naturally talented traceur to walk the face of this planet. You will make a mistake. Thus, you will injure yourself.

I often use the example of an itchy sweater in my clinic. When you first put on the sweater, it itches like crazy. Give it a few minutes, half an hour, a whole day, and you don’t feel it anymore. Your brain tunes out the information because it figures that it is not important and should be ignored. This is exactly the same thing that happens when you start developing a trick knee.

You land funny, it kind of hurts and after a few minutes, it feels weird but is “fine.” Give it a few days and you’re all better, right?

Not always.

For most people, there is a “pain threshold,” a point at which instead of ignoring pain, your body screams bloody murder and tell you to never use that knee again. This is the point where your body goes from saying, “we’re still able to function so we’ll just ignore the injury,” into “if we use it ONE MORE TIME, I swear to you we’re going to die.”

A minor, acute injury is the former. The latter is a severe acute injury or a chronic injury that has crossed that pain threshold.

So what does this mean to you?

It means that if you’ve injured yourself and the pain “goes away”, you may still have that injury even if you don’t feel it. It means the injury may make you compensate your form and you may be performing your techniques incorrectly and you are no longer as safe as you should be. It means that at some point if you keep using that injured part, you’ll develop a chronic problem that will soon move into the irreversibly damaged stage.

It means pain is not the best indicator.

So what is?

This, sadly, is not an easy answer. I could say your proprioception, your joint motion, popping and cracking in the joints, weak muscles, odd and nagging tweaks and catches. Any and all the above are proper answers. This is the problem with having such amazingly built bodies. Everyone compensates differently and everyone senses their own bodies at different levels.

The best answer is simple–prevention. You don’t worry about indicators for injury, you just act in a way to prevent the injury from ever happening.

Listen to your instructors, perform a technique correctly even if you have to re-learn something that is comfortable or easy for you. Do your exercises, prepare your body for the stresses you’re going to put on it, condition in a controlled environment. Eat well, cut out sugar, avoid processed foods. Be healthy.

Lastly, and I say this primarily as a traceur, have a good Chiropractor. The reason I became a Chiropractor was because MY Chiropractor kept me performing. He kept me moving and kept me healthy. He found things before I knew they were there and it was only after he fixed something that I’d realize how badly I was compensating.

A Chiropractor’s job is to detect and remove compensation before it becomes a chronic problem and causes you long term pain. His job is to first prevent injury, and secondly(if necessary) aid in your recovery when you have injured yourself. His job is to keep you doing what you love and keep you doing what you have to in order to survive–whether it be a job, a deep passion, or merely a hobby. He is your health coach and your mentor, someone to tell you when you should push harder or when you’ve pushed too hard.

Your body is the only body you’ll ever have, treasure it.

by Dr. Kenneth Kao, D.C.
Doctor of Vital Balance Chiropractic
Instructor at APEX Movement Boulder

Dr. Confidence or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Myself

by Jake Smith
APEX Movement Performance Team
weirdjester@msn.com

What better way to try to make a point than to share personal experiences? Just be more articulate? Nah, I think I’ll just talk about myself. Here I go:

The landscape of my life changed greatly around the time I started freerunning. While correlation is not necessarily causation I feel that the coincidence can at least be accounted for. A change for the better. A change affecting many to come, I believe. Let me wrangle my thoughts by starting at the beginning. Not the big bang (or poof) beginning, but let me shoot this b***** to 88 mph and take us back…four years? Sure, that’ll do.

I’m graduating high school. All I’ve ever wanted to be is an actor and I’ve been doing a damn fine job so far. I’ve been in every school production, community theater on the side, impressing the shit out of my peers. I was even in a little movie called Top Gun–the little part of “Maverick”….yeah, no big deal (the blatant lies will taper off starting now, i promise). How is this relevant to parkour? Self-confidence? My hamster is workin’ so give me a second. You see, I’m a good actor. I know that. However, everyone I knew told me I was a GREAT actor. At times, I would let this get to my head, puff my chest and tool around like I was James Dean. Makin’ all the guys on the corner turn green? Nevermind. Point is, I never really believed them.

Lack of self respect? Maybe. Right now I see it as a lack of self-knowledge. I didn’t believe in them because I didn’t believe in myself. I didn’t really know myself. Perhaps I never will. But the conception of ideas and just the act of motion that is encompassed by parkour/freerunning helped me start to find myself…scratch that– It helped me start to forge myself. I’ve been learning every day since I started that you aren’t a person that you “discover”. You may think that you have one day found yourself, but the truth is, you crafted that person. Or the world crafted you, perhaps…but that takes me into my next point.

Parkour gives one control. That control is especially useful when one is composing the person that they want to be. The symphony that I’ve been working on is something I respect. A constant path of self-betterment not because you don’t like who you are but because you know you can always impress yourself.

While parkour hasn’t actually changed much on the exterior (I still play video games as much as I ever did and I’m still a (lovable?) wise-ass), it has changed the way I wholly feel. I remember a time when I cried because there was so much hate and scum in the world that it seemed overwhelming. Maybe I now I have a place to guide my passions. I don’t know. But the “love” that comes of my philosophies makes it seem as though I cannot be overwhelmed. This world is made of love and peace as much as we choose it to be so. What we can do is make ourselves better, because we are as much part of this world as anything, and although it may seem minuscule, loving oneself is a leap in the right direction.

This thought process was meant to be more concise and injected with things I find humorous. I suppose I get carried away when I think about the things I truly have passion for. So let me wrap it up with the over-arching point, sans all of the self-involved story-telling:

Parkour and freerunning boost your confidence. Not just because you feel better, but because you ARE better. I well and truly believe that that love of oneself translates into betterment of our universe, of which we are all a part, and thus intrinsically tied.

by Jake Smith
APEX Movement Performance Team
weirdjester@msn.com

Freerunning: the first person artform.

by Will Schultz
APEX Movement Head Trainer
will@apexmovement.com

My personal opinion has always been that freerunning is whatever the practitioner makes of it. whether it be the means to an end defined by agility and physical prowess, or just a heightened form of play, there are many viewpoints on what single category parkour could possibly fit into, if that’s even possible. Extreme sport, martial art, and fitness craze, are merely some of the classifications I’ve heard attributed to this activity over the years, and the deluge of opinions on the matter makes sense; on some level we are all freerunning. We are all constantly moving, choosing paths, and finding ways from point A to B. Perhaps the most thought provoking label sometimes attached to freerunning, however, is that of an art form.

The debate on what defines something as art is a argument that spans millennia, but for the consideration of this article, I will use the following definition: anything perceived by an observer or practitioner as art, is art. Not everyone has to “get” a piece of art for, the artist to to consider it as such, and some find artistic value in items or works not intended to be thought of in that manner. Whether you find beauty in the precision of a Swiss watch, or the heavy strokes of Van Gough, the only person who’s opinion matters on the subject of what truly deserves the title of “art” is, is ourselves. With that said, let us then move onto some of the qualities that make freerunning unique as an art-form.

As I noted earlier: movement is universal, this has always been true, but what the concept of “Freerunning” does is give us the option to chose movement not just in society’s preconceived notions or routes. This supposedly new found freedom is where freerunning most closely relates to art. The freerunning practitioner chooses where to go, or with what technique to traverse their environment, the same way a painter might chose the best shade to compliment their masterpiece.

Even the process by which one attains the trademark fluidity of a skilled freerunner has been compared to jazz: First you learn the notes, or moves, then how to combine them, and then how to string them endlessly and seamlessly.

This analogy rings true on many levels, but on the surface, there is one disparity between the two disciplines that I feel deserves some consideration, and that is the difference between the “means” and the “end”. The freerunner in this analogy seems to refine his technique so that his technique gets better, where the jazz musician refines his technique, so that with his technique he may eventually convey an emotion or message through his music, reaching an artistic level beyond prowess for it’s own sake.

This ability for various forms of art to convey something beyond themselves is something so natural to many mediums that it’s almost taken for granted in conventional forms of art, but to my knowledge relatively unexplored in terms of freerunning. since my involvement in freerunning since soon after it’s introduction in America, I am hard pressed to bring to mind a single example where I saw someone freerunning not for it’s own sake, but to portray an additional aesthetic to any potential observers. This difference between freerunning and more conventional art-forms, in terms of their relationship to the observer can be drastically oversimplified in a question: Will I ever look at freerunning, and see something more than freerunning? Maybe not. I may never bare witness to a fluid combo and be struck by the same force that is recalled by some sonata from antiquity.

Yet such comparisons mean nothing to the practicing freerunner, for even great works universally considered to be masterpieces by the public must be appreciated in the correct way. I can’t hear a painting or see the beauty of a song, but if observed or experienced in the right way, these things can have astounding impact. How then can we behold the true artistic potential of freerunning? First hand. You can’t communicate the allure of freely navigating one’s environment, or the exhilaration one can get from the free-form creation of movement. Instead we must encourage others to pick up the brush of movement, and paint for themselves their own masterpiece. This art is not meant to hung in a gallery for the outside world to look upon, and it can be felt only by it’s creator, in the those moments where inspiration and movement meet. The joy of seamless movement needs no observer or audience, it needs only dedicated practitioners, those who know without a doubt that each of their movements is indeed an act of expression.

by Will Schultz
APEX Movement Head Trainer
will@apexmovement.com