I was out having a few drinks with friends the other day in Melbourne, and we were at a bar around a pylon on a bridge. The bridge also had a decorative metal semi circle spanning from one end to the other. If you stand in the middle of the bridge the top of the arch would be about18 feet above where you stand. As we were having a beer at the bar, we saw a guy run over the top of this semi circle on the bridge. None of us were sure why he would do this, but we noticed that he was being filmed by some friends of his from the other side of the river, and my friend said, 'they are probably just practising parkour." I had no idea what parkour was, and so I had to question what my friend was talking about. After a short conversation I had a rough idea what parkour was, and she sent me a text with the spelling so that I could Google it later, which I did!
Basically parkour is a non competitive sport, which was developed in France by David Belle, where participants have to move through their urban environment and avoid obstacles in the most efficient way possible. The most efficient way might involve rolling, jumping, running, or climbing, to name a few. Practitioners of parkour are known as a traceur, or traceuse if they are female, and a great example of parkour was displayed in the James Bond film, Casino Royale, where the traceur is being chased and is seen to be jumping over fences easily, climbing a vertical steel girder and jumping through the middle of an abandoned van. Personally I love the idea of being able to practise parkour, but I think the training that would be required to become accomplished at this sport would be too intense.
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