Parkour+Commercialization

[Kirill]

Parkour+Commercialization will lead to Competition. Many of the traceurs of the parkour community attempt to gain money from practicing parkour. Many even envision (the possibility) that parkour will be in the x-games. This frustrates me 3 times. 1- Parkour is not PRO competition. 2- It is NOT an extreme sport. 3- commerce.

The ultimate sate of commercialism is competition. Why>?
Simply because it is the EASIEST way of getting the public to "buy parkour". It is the easiest, because, first of all- the whole event. I cant even imagine how many people would watch parkour in the x-games. Second, a bunch of people could easily be attracted to this "opportunity". Third, Parkour is an ever growing discipline. some kids will sell their motherland in order to see "pro" parkour.

Many of us, start thinking. "Well, what about the initial philosophy of parkour?"
well, the initial philosophy goes into the bin once the money starts pumping. Our "Philosophy" and mentality is pretty insignificant to the person who wants to make money. The people who see the $$$ in Parkour, dont really care about its philosophy. They just want to fill their ever ending greed. (Same thing- why cant a person stop in the casino). Even if they are getting some money out of it already, 5.10.....etc. Urban free flow... they wont stop.

Most of this is common sense.

I have no idea what Parkour will be in the future, but certainly hope it will NEVER be in the x-games.

Feel free just to post anything either Pro or against commercialism.

I have no idea why i wrote that, but it read on the the people's biography on the 5.10 sponsor list, and it made me sick.

[pyz.particle]

Its our job to make sure that once people get into parkour by themselves, that they do it the right way. I mean, the average non-traceur is no different than any of us before we started parkour, and we were kids (maybe still am) at some point. So with the proper amount of indoctrination ;) everyone can come out right.

[Ryan Fulmer]

im a hooligan who loves konging over tables, multiple usually.

if there are no cars.

finding your own way at the beginning = pain and discouragement

KAOS's "rigidness?" kept me training...

[hillexallen]

Parkour belongs to those who live it. Anyone who lives parkour can teach parkour.

[SafeNSure]

It's too bad (sad?) that supporting a philosophy, informing and promoting its ideals to 500+ parkour interested individuals in 8 months, giving them the backup of a little, yet thriving community, and most importantly living up to those ideals in its daily activities (training, talking, thinking...) it's considered "anything" (= nothing, right?...).
=\

[hillexallen]

Yes, we as a community, (I was not referring to the BAPK administration) have helped over 500 interested individuals learn about parkour. That is NOT nothing.

We have also acheived all of the other things Giorgio listed.

I think, however, that we should not only spread the word to people who register on our site, we should work to spread the word to EVERYONE. It could make a huge impact if we all put some work into it.

I think that we can start doing this by posting videos, making comments on videos, and adding the "pro parkour against competition" image to our signatures on any pk sites we are a part of.

This will help us spread the truth about parkour all around the world, not just through the bay area.

So, I did not mean that we have not done anything good for parkour, I mean that we have done next to nothing to spread the truths of parkour throughout the world. Instead of letting them come to us, let's go to them!

Sorry if I offended you, giorgio. I was not referring to the BAPK admins when I said that BAPK has done "nothing." Obviously, you and Chris have accomplished more than the rest of us combined.

[Fyrel]

Make all the anti-competition comments you want on your own profiles and where discussion is warranted, otherwise it's just spam and can be detrimental to your objective.

[hillexallen]

If you make a comment on a youTube video saying that parkour is non-competitive and that you are displeased with the way people are making competitions, that should be okay I think.

[Fyrel]

Only if the video has something to do with competition in the first place and if the submitter wants discussion (usually not). Most of us are displeased with the UFF freerunning competitions, but that doesn't mean you can go to every video of the competition and tell them it's a bad thing. Sure, you want to spread this to people, but it's generally a good idea to only spread it to people who want to listen. Otherwise it's like ad-calling without actually selling anything.

[hillexallen]

lol

yeah, let's not be annoying about it, that will just get us a worse name...

[Kirill]

I agree with Alexius. Propaganda doesnt have to follow certain guidelines.

[Chris]

We cannot stop people from doing what they want. We can just keep our community healthy and set a positive example for everyone.

[pyz.particle]

agreed.