Seeing Parkour

Seeing Parkour

Parkour is a physical discipline characterized by its goal: to overcome any physical obstacle with fast, efficient movement. You may have seen parkour in the media from time to time, or you may have never heard of it. For most people, their exposure to the activity is limited, and as such it is a difficult concept to fully grasp. The practitioners of parkour are called traceurs, a term derived from a French word meaning: to trace a path.

One interesting aspect of parkour is the effect it has on the way traceurs see the world around them. The longer you train, the less you stay confined to accept that the world around you is exactly as it appears. Pathways open up, both physically and mentally, the route from point A to B may alter depending on circumstance. A traceur finds himself looking up much more often, wondering where and how. Practitioners of this art/sport/discipline never run out of places to go.

"We miss a great deal because we perceive only things on our own scale." So how does parkour change the way one “sees”? When a normal person looks upon a stairway, they see an integral part of the way society changes elevation. A stairway is so commonplace, that no one questions its purpose or the way it works. This stairway is obviously the most efficient way to traverse this span. When a traceur looks upon a stairway he “sees” each individual step as contributing something to the whole, he takes note that only one in every 3 steps are needed, he takes into account the entire vertical drop. Traceurs still miss a lot though, because we are always comparing. That is why the truly innovative perceive with no scale.

Ann Dillard writes, “I see what I expect” and the same is true with traceurs, traceurs simply expect to see differently that most people. A traceur can see any object in his environment as a tool of movement, exercise, or recreation. No one else looks at the lines between parking spaces and uses them either as a game, or a marker to track self-improvement, except maybe children. I am personally amazed at some of the things children can see. I relate to children in that I also love playing on the monkey bars, except usually I’m balancing atop them.

"It's all a matter of keeping my eyes open". Monkey bars are meant for swinging, painted lines are meant for parking, staircases are meant for climbing, handrails are meant for safety, and walls are meant for fortification, but when you try to perceive things in a different light, new usages for common objects arise. Keeping my eyes open means actively looking for new methods to accomplish the same goal. Those are only more common purposes, but nothing is exclusive, not in design, not in practice.

"If I can't see these minutiae, I still try to keep my eyes open." In parkour, what are the small details? What difference do they make? In parkour, being able to see the minutiae means the difference between going home tired and going home in a cast. The activity is dangerous. It isn’t just about being able to see new heights, but also about paying attention to what you’re standing on. A person can “see” cold metal, tiny specks of sand, and a loose rock so long as he is looking for it. A misplaced step, off by a mere half an inch can send a person tumbling to the ground. When I see my destination, I see the exact point where I wish to land.

In parkour, the mindset is different, but understanding why it is different or what exactly is so different about it is a complicated ordeal on its own. “I reel in confusion; I don't understand what I see." (AD). For example, when I was training out side the business office near the stairs and the tall wall, what exactly do I see? I focus on pathways through, over, and around and I think about ways to emulate what I see myself doing. I see the effects of gravity, of leverage, of hand placement and foot placement. "Still, a great deal of light falls on everything."(AD). Still though, it isn’t required that I understand why I see the world this way; it is still illuminated to me.

I guess I’ve always had this mindset, it just required taking action to bring it forth. When I was younger I loved climbing, as most children do. I’ve always been active, and I guess the combination of the two along with a likeminded community really brought me into this discipline. "I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until that moment I was lifted and struck."(AD)

Though I do not understand it, the “why” is still interesting. Why exactly do I see the world this way, and what exactly do I see? “...sense impressions of one-celled animals are not edited for the brain: This is philosophically interesting in a rather mournful way, since it means that only the simplest animals perceive the universe as it is." (AD) I can agree with the statement that the brain will see what it wants to see, oftentimes in spite of what is actually there. Does this mean that my reality isn’t real? I perceive the world in a way different than most, but that doesn’t mean that what I see, and what someone else sees are mutually exclusive.

Parkour gives one a mindset of new possibilities. I can see myself in new places, and now I can go there as well.