ABC News Segment

[hillexallen]

I'm not sure what to think of this: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5868720

What do you think?

[SafeNSure]

...sorry if I jump on this, but, while I understand that everybody has, and is entitled to, an opinion (and being a community means sharing those opinions...), I want to point out that this topic has been extensively discussed on a much more experienced national forum at PKNA, in the following threads:
- Free Running, and why it shouldn't exist (provocative)
- World Free Running Championships
- Foucan Unhappy With Competitions
...it could be worth taking a look before reinventing the proverbial wheel.
;)

My opinion (in case somebody likes to hear it and couldn't figure it out) is: the news segment is about a freerunning "world" competition... BApk is a local community site for promoting Parkour and discouraging its competitive use...
[as described in our Resources]

...any other question?
=P

[lethalbeef]

lol. Urban Freeflow was a joke. They still seem as commercial and misguided as they were two years ago. And I totally agree with Giorgio that parkour thrives in its focus on local communities and ideas.

[hillexallen]

I've also noticed that Urban Freeflow is a joke. It seems that they value "coolness" and publicity too much.

I'm aware that there are other threads about this sort of stuff, but I just happened to see this on the TV today and I started wondering how people will start to think about parkour when they see it being associated with these competitions.

[lethalbeef]

Meh. I think that was the reason Parkour Generations formed, I believed they're partially former UFF members.

[SafeNSure]

...I understand the concern about Parkour being associated with this kind of superficial media coverage.

But while this piece in particular wasn't as despicable as other pieces broadcast before (or the London competition itself, which we briefly discussed here), IMO we all -parkour practitioner- should reinforce the fact that it is a piece about freerunning (mentioned 6+ times), while only related to parkour (mentioned only once) approx. as in "it all started with pk, in Paris, in the late '80s...".

The problem starts when saying "it's more commonly known as freeerunning", which is (a.) nonfactual (9,330,000 Google results vs. 2,330,000...), (b.) a gross confusing generalization (as described here and here), (c.) an obvious misconception to all practitioners, who are aware about the definitions being based on "intent".

So it's really up to us to clear people's mind...
Pieces like this are not challenges, they are opportunities!

[Chris]

Urban FreeFlow is no joke. They are shaping parkour and freerun to their own needs. They are changing the sports (for the worse in my opinion). And they make waaaay more money than all other parkour sites/groups combined in the world....hardly a joke. Furthermore, they have served as a model for many 'cookie cutter' sites around the world. Sites follow their lead by garnering as much media attention as possible, always doing tricks for the cameras, mixing up the words parkour and freerun, setting certain members apart from everyone else as 'stars', and focusing on vaults/moves in their posts and videos. Can you think of any other sites like that?...I can. So if UF is a joke, then all sites who follow their lead are jokes....which means there are a lot of jokes out there. APK is modeled in exactly the same way.

That news segment was nothing more than an advertisement for UF. They told the news man what to say, and he said it. As Safe pointed out, their research was piss poor.

[Kirill]

Agree with Albert-

[orem]

Albert, i get what you meant by "a joke," but sadly, i also understand what kaos is talking about... U$F is unfortunately thriving as much as ever, but communities that honor the discipline are growing as well. U$F is actually inflaming some organizations to work harder to spread pk properly, so i guess that's one positive outcome