Oakland tribune article

[Seng]

A reported visited a couple of our Berkeley Thursday sessions and talked to some other folks (including Jodie) and came up with this.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_13697573?s...

The writer mentioned that it's intended more for grandmothers (her word) than active or prospective tracers.

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French-born parkour goes mainstream
By Laura Casey
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 11/02/2009 05:31:39 PM PST
Updated: 11/03/2009 04:26:27 PM PST

AT DUSK on a recent Thursday, a small corner of the UC Berkeley campus comes alive with activity. A dozen young people — mostly men but some women — jump on, bounce off and climb every railing and planter box as if they were piping hot. Fast on, fast off.

They are training in the art of parkour, a sport that started in France that is growing exponentially all around the world, thanks to the Internet and movies such as "Casino Royale." The word parkour is loosely based on the French word "parcours," which means "route."

A small crowd of onlookers grows around the UC Berkeley tumblers as the more advanced members of the group, including linguistics student Albert Kong, bounce off a wall and snake around and off a metal railing.

Kong, 20, has been a traceur — someone who practices parkour — for five years. He's fit, athletic and hardly a showoff — although he has reason to be. He moves around objects like river water around a stopped canoe. He looks both graceful and strong in the process. That is the point of parkour, to move around objects with little stalling.

Kong says he first saw parkour in one of thousands of videos on the Internet of advanced traceurs jumping off roofs and stairwells. At first he started practicing the sport because "it looked cool." Then, he says, he found a parkour community and gained confidence through problem-solving inherent in the practice.

"I also thought that I could be part of the development of something rather than just being a participant," Kong says. Unlike sports such as sprinting or football, parkour has been in the public lexicon for less than a decade. New moves, rules and theories constantly are being discussed on online forums. And no official organizing body doles out regulations.

In the Bay Area, experts say it is likely thousands of people are trying parkour and hundreds of dedicated parkour practitioners may be honing their skills frequently. The numbers are estimates, says American Parkour Web site founder Matt Toorock, because the sport isn't something someone signs up for. Like skateboarding, people just do it.

"It's more of an individual, personal thing," he says. "The techniques you learn and the things you do are just there to train your body and train your mind."

Although the sport is dominated by teen boys and young men, more women are earning the title of traceuses as they join men in prime public parkour places such as college campuses, outdoor sports fields and private gyms that offer classes on conditioning for parkour.

This group that meets Thursday nights at UC Berkeley is unusual because at least three traceuses hop and slide around campus, while women make up "point two percent" of practitioners, Toorock says.

One of those women, 18-year-old Marina Gavryushkina, has been training for two months and rivals many of the men in skill.

A former sprinter and rock climber, Gavryushkina says she, too, was attracted to the sport after watching videos on the Internet.

"I wasn't just fascinated," she says. "It looked like something I'd like to try out. I thought I could do the same thing pretty well."

Parkour is a mind-body challenge, like the practice of tai chi. Danger is involved with jumping and bouncing off hard objects, but Gavryushkina says she hasn't been injured practicing parkour any more than cuts and bruises she earned from hard effort.

"It's worth it," she says.

When asked why she does it, Gavryushkina answers as many practitioners would: She does it because it builds confidence and community, helps with problem-solving and is a fun, playful exercise without a lot of overhead. Parkour traceurs only need athletic shoes to begin training, and many group trainings and conditioning sessions are like the UC Berkeley sessions, ad hoc and volunteer-based.

That it is a male-dominated sport doesn't bother her, she says.

"Everybody's encouraging. Everybody is out there just to have fun and see what they can do," she says.

While the sport grows, so does media attention. MTV recently aired "MTV's Ultimate Parkour Challenge," where eight of the world's most renowned parkour athletes competed for a $10,000 prize.

And therein lies the rub.

Many traceurs, such as 30-year-old Jodie Rodriguez of San Francisco, who has been training for two years, say they don't believe the sport should be competitive.

"I'm not doing it to show off," she says. "It's more of a community activity that brings people together."

Toorock, who has been practicing parkour for seven years, is eagerly pro competition, and American Parkour one day will host its own competitive event.

"I want to see the positive spread of parkour through bigger media," Toorock says. "The good of parkour is in people practicing it. It's not a trophy or a picture to be framed and stuck behind glass. It comes alive when people do it."

[puck]

Thanks for posting this - Ms.Casey did a pretty nice job.
She's a cool dude.

[Bay Area Parkour]

Very nice coverage!

"Grandmothers" would have been happy to know that, differently from what said by the APK spokeperson ("women make up "point two percent" of practitioners"), female members make up to 17% of this online PK network, and female practitioners (traceuses and brand new beginners) at BApk basic sessions tend to be about 20% of the attendees.
:)

Check the most committed of them out here; Marina represented them all perfectly!

[Nick Jr.]

That's so rad :)