parkour

There’s this video that I had seen a few times of this guy, well, jumping around and stuff. Yeah. Well, it looks like a combination of gymnastics in general and the ability to fall/roll without breaking your legs applied in sortof a freestyle urban setting. Evidently it has a name: Parkour:

Parkour (also called Le Parkour, PK, or Free Running) is a physical discipline of French origin, in which participants attempt to pass obstacles in a smooth and rapid manner.

Parkour is said to be L’art du Deplacement, or the Art of Displacement, consisting of uninterrupted forward motion over, under, around and through obstacles (both man-made and natural) in one’s environment. Such movement may come in the form of running, jumping, climbing and other more complicated techniques. The goal of the practice of parkour is to be able to adapt one’s movement to any given situation so that any obstacle can be overcome with the human body’s abilities.

There are a ton of cool videos out there if you search around. They are filled with healthy doses of machismo and an inflated sense of bad-assedness as most EXXXTREEEEME sports tend to be, but there’s no doubting the skill involved. I think it’s pretty cool.