The Art of Movement

I love physical art and the variety of ways it can be created. Particularly the niche stuff. I'm a huge fan of the streetball movement of the late 90's and early 2000's and admire the world of skateboarding. I even have props for the guys in the Ruff Ryder Thug Workout videos. Today though, I want to talk about parkour - or free running - depending on who is classifying it.

I don't really want to get into the semantics though of what classifies as parkour, or what classifies as free running, or whether or not they're actually the same thing. Regardless, I think it's one of the coolest forms of creative physical expression out there.


Beyond being in peak physical condition and having the cajones to attempt any of this stuff, you need to be an extremely creative thinker. Society's bounds on the world say that these environments aren't made for acrobatics. A free runner or parkour practitioner goes out of their way to break some of the most conventional thinking programmed into the human mind. For instance, when I see a wall, I see it as an inhibitor of movement. To a free runner or parkour practitioner, it's a facilitator of movement. A gap between two buildings to the average person instills the fear of death. To a free runner or a parkour practitioner, it's a means of feeling more alive than ever.


That defiance of the most conventional thinking we do as humans is what makes watching this art form in action so cool to me.


image from Team Sugar