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How to keep parkour and traceurs as safe as possible?

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Jackal

Mon 23 Nov 2009 : 22:47

Registered Member #2164

Joined: Mon 02 Mar 2009 : 14:12
Posts: 723

LMFAO.
And once we all think and act the same, they can control every last one of us.
The End.
We Lose.

NAME: Jacob Seil
LOCATIONS: Orange County (HB)
EMAIL: ParkourJackal©gmail.com
CELL: (951) 836 - 3834 (OK to text)
FACEBOOK: (add Jacob Raul Seil - Send invite with message saying your from pkcali)

~ FIFTEEN CENTS - WILL HELP ME BUY A SANDWICH ~

Stumpy

Tue 24 Nov 2009 : 11:18

Registered Member #2212

Joined: Mon 23 Mar 2009 : 21:24
Posts: 640

Jackal wrote ...

LMFAO.
And once we all think and act the same, they can control every last one of us.
The End.
We Lose.

lol :p

"Limits were set by our creator to give us somthing to do."

"You break limits or break bones, either way you gotta good story to tell."

Want to join a PK group, but are not near Sac or another big town?
Join Peregrine Parkour, we are located in Placerville CA and are always looking for cool people to join our group.

Corndogg

Tue 24 Nov 2009 : 12:18

Registered Member #68

Joined: Fri 13 Jan 2006 : 11:20
Posts: 144

Keep the comments coming! Would love to hear more proactive solutions. Early next week I'll summarize everything across the 3 threads (SFPK, PKCali, APK) and put forth some proposed actions that we can discuss.

sfparkour.com

N o F l o

Wed 25 Nov 2009 : 01:10

Registered Member #443

Joined: Mon 11 Sep 2006 : 22:16
Posts: 1303

Chew on this one...
"Hannah became so good at the "art of moving" he recently began teaching a class in parkour at The Sports Club/LA in Washington."

(cringe-worthy roll coming your way)

CNN: Parkour teaches the art of moving
[link]

(from APK, with quite some fervor & a disclaimer on their site)

" Train parkour for yourself first. If people like it or not, who cares? As long as you feel good doing it. " --DB :: ALL LOCATION INFO. IS IN 1ST POST

Bboyease4

Wed 25 Nov 2009 : 01:15

Registered Member #2133

Joined: Fri 13 Feb 2009 : 14:49
Posts: 217

Are you talking about that roll at 56 seconds?

A good freind will help get you to the hospital. Your best freind will pick you up, dust you off and and ask you "Ready to try that again?"

Juxta

Wed 25 Nov 2009 : 02:23

Registered Member #2221

Joined: Sun 29 Mar 2009 : 02:43
Posts: 307

Well... video unimpressive but I thought the article was much closer to what we would like to see in the media compared to more recent articles. By that I mean it seemed more informative and less bitchy.

... the "Official Parkour Web Site," eh?

Ain't nothin gonna break my stride

Stumpy

Wed 25 Nov 2009 : 09:45

Registered Member #2212

Joined: Mon 23 Mar 2009 : 21:24
Posts: 640

[quote]
Chew on this one...
"Hannah became so good at the "art of moving" he recently began teaching a class in parkour at The Sports Club/LA in Washington."

(cringe-worthy roll coming your way)

CNN: Parkour teaches the art of moving
[link]

(from APK, with quite some fervor & a disclaimer on their site)
[/quote1259163810]

... it wasnt that bad. it definitely wasnt very impressive, but the info wasnt bad.
that guy shuld not be teaching pk though. he was strong and fast, but his movements were very rough and that roll was just garabage lol.
its not bad if you are not that good, it all comes in practice, but i dont think hes ready to do any sort of teaching.

Corndogg

Wed 25 Nov 2009 : 12:58

Registered Member #68

Joined: Fri 13 Jan 2006 : 11:20
Posts: 144

Re: the CNN piece, some lessons to be learned are:
- If you are teaching, you must accept responsibility and be prepared for that role and all it entails, including safety and proper representation.
- There is a difference between being a good traceur and a good teacher.
- You can't stop bad teachers from teaching, but you can help guide them to improve in a positive way.
- The community should provide constructive feedback to teachers, and help promote good teachers to newcomers.
- APK posted some great points on evaluating potential instructors, and they can definitely be applied to anyone, including non-certified teachers.
- Helping and being involved with teaching free local classes is a great way to foster and give back to the community.

sfparkour.com

Stumpy

Wed 25 Nov 2009 : 15:51

Registered Member #2212

Joined: Mon 23 Mar 2009 : 21:24
Posts: 640

Corndogg wrote ...

Re: the CNN piece, some lessons to be learned are:
- If you are teaching, you must accept responsibility and be prepared for that role and all it entails, including safety and proper representation.
- There is a difference between being a good traceur and a good teacher.
- You can't stop bad teachers from teaching, but you can help guide them to improve in a positive way.
- The community should provide constructive feedback to teachers, and help promote good teachers to newcomers.
- APK posted some great points on evaluating potential instructors, and they can definitely be applied to anyone, including non-certified teachers.
- Helping and being involved with teaching free local classes is a great way to foster and give back to the community.

he actually seemed like a pretty good teacher. he at least knew what he was talking about, and he was being very safe and smart with his training methods. i guess i can survive if he keeps teaching :)

-Dev-

Thu 26 Nov 2009 : 11:11

Registered Member #16

Joined: Fri 23 Dec 2005 : 01:14
Posts: 1755

"Parkour, meaning the 'art of movement' in English..."

Stopped reading right about there.

Corndogg

Sun 13 Dec 2009 : 18:44

Registered Member #68

Joined: Fri 13 Jan 2006 : 11:20
Posts: 144

Here is my stab at a summary of all recommendations on SFPK, PK Cali and APK. This is MY summary, not THE summary, so please chime in if I missed or misstated anything. Thanks very much to everyone for their contributions, some great info and the community is definitely on the right track. Some of these notes are paraphrased and some are direct quotes. I tried to put these into loose categories to help.

Next step is to discuss how best to promote and enforce these, or as SafeNSure said "how can we maximize our message, its visibility, and ultimately its effect."

One major one and hopefully an easy one to make a quick impact that I see and will be doing at SFPK is to come up with a standard disclaimer for YouTube vids, and some info and links people can include when posting vids.

***

Setting the Right Expectations

Need to set more realistic expectations with the uninitiated public, including the media.

Know that there is always the possibility of getting injured. Let people know what the risks are, and encourage taking responsibility for your own actions.

Err on the side of caution.

Videos

Many newcomers find parkour through YouTube. Need to focus on posting more training videos instead of highlight reels. Use this channel to educate, and highlight safety and progression. Possibly add warnings and disclaimers to videos, link to parkour definitions and documentaries explaining parkour.

Parkour for performance, whether for video, photos, media, competition and the like, is different than normal training, and the distinction should be taken into careful consideration.

Community

Communities should consider working together to come up with a set of common, fundamental principles and guidelines to adhere to.

Foster community, introduce yourself and meet others at jams. Discussion should occur offline in addition to online.

Don't peer pressure others, don't give in to peer pressure, and warn others if they are peer pressuring someone to do something they are unsure about. Everyone should progress at their own pace.

If you see someone doing something risky, and after trying unsuccessfully to stop them, show and encourage them to do intermediary steps. While you shouldn't force people, you can still influence and guide them.

Everybody should be responsible for the safety of themselves and those they train with, especially community leaders. It is difficult to determine where this responsibility ends though.

Understand that others may be looking to you as an example. Try and be the best role model you can, knowing they may copy you. Copying the advanced techniques of experienced traceurs before you are ready can lead to serious injury. Set good examples both online and offline.

Isolating people who don't adhere to safe practices will limit your influence on them to help correct and guide them. If there are people who are regularly being unsafe, try and talk to them about it.

Training & Teaching Others

Set good examples at sessions by promoting safety, conditioning, warmups and cooldowns, dynamic and static stretching, watching out for others and fostering a sense of community. A well conditioned practitioner is safer.

Aim for silent landings at all times.

Learn how to fall, even to the point of practicing falling. Parkour rolls are also an important, often neglected tool.

A good rule of thumb is to not take any drops higher than your chest in the first year of serious training.

Learn to distinguish between fears and limits. Learn to push your limits safely without overstepping them.

When teaching, emphasize utility, breaking down movements into smaller parts, and overall flow. Slow things down.

Jams

Learn basic first aid skills, carry basic first aid items, know where the nearest hospital is. Keep local 911 dispatch phone numbers with you, as well as non-emergency numbers. Remain calm during emergencies, and have others help direct paramedics to the scene if necessary.

"Legal"

Ensure minors are practicing with the consent of the responsible adult.

Liability waivers should be considered.

Have health insurance.

sfparkour.com

martialennans

Sun 13 Dec 2009 : 23:04

Registered Member #2673

Joined: Mon 30 Nov 2009 : 19:03
Posts: 23

(In relation to the discussion on videos)

No kidding. If they wanted to show their "training" it would be a lot less edgy and exciting. There really should be more vids going up of the boring parts of parkour (rolling again and again, drilling again and again) so that more of the young, impressionable types are looking for that in their training.
When all they see are these impressive, smooth, sexy videos, they all want to jump right in and do back flips off of 10 foot walls. I started a parkour group in my city to find more people interested in training, not showing off. Several of the guys immediately want to start doing crazy stuff, but I try to emphasize the basics when they look to me for advice.
I learned the same way in martial arts. You don't learn jumping back kicks in your first month. You learn boring, but necessary steps to that jumping back kick. Footwork, breakfalls, timing, distance, front kick, jab.
As responsible Parkour practitioners we owe it to our art to educate those who are looking for an education. The showy videos aren't helping to build the moral strength that is core to Parkour philosophy.

[ Edited Sun 13 Dec 2009 : 23:06 ]

Santa Barbara Parkour
SBPK Facebook Group

martialennans

Sun 13 Dec 2009 : 23:16

Registered Member #2673

Joined: Mon 30 Nov 2009 : 19:03
Posts: 23

-Dev- wrote ...

SafeNSure wrote ...

-Are we supposed to meet locally in person (off-training), and discuss these issues?

This is actually an idea I had a few months ago and I'm really glad you brought it up.

I think that a "jam" with the soul purpose of talking about the philosophy behind parkour and the future of our community would be extremely beneficial to all of us. If we had representatives of all the differing view points, and traceurs of all skill levels were there, we might finally make some head-way on this debate rather than us yelling at each other through the internet.

So ya. I vote for a meet-up like this to take place ASAP. Good idea, Safe.

Sorry I got off topic too with the heated video debate. What our group (Santa Barbara) is coordinating in the near future will be monthly public talks to go over this sort of thing. I hooked up with a local hang glider, and he invited me to their monthly club meetings to corroborate within our communities.

More or less, we jam every week, but once a month we'll be having Q+A time with people new to the sport, reaffirming the philosophical ideas, and emphasizing safe and practical training.

It should be easy enough for those in semi-populated areas to spread the word like this- offer up free talks at your college every few months, host a "beginner's Jam" to help answer questions for budding traceurs.

[ Edited Mon 14 Dec 2009 : 14:06 ]

Santa Barbara Parkour
SBPK Facebook Group

Jackal

Sun 13 Dec 2009 : 23:18

Registered Member #2164

Joined: Mon 02 Mar 2009 : 14:12
Posts: 723

[link]
Bad angle, boring view, repetitive movement... There ya go martialennans! :]

Then again, what makes a video "edgy and exciting" isn't necessarily HUGE GAPS and gigantic tricks and what not, rather a lot has to do with the camera work, and the editing, and the music. Here's another video of mine ~ It has that "Whoa!" to it, but if you look, there's hardly anything big in it, just small movements. [link]

martialennans

Sun 13 Dec 2009 : 23:31

Registered Member #2673

Joined: Mon 30 Nov 2009 : 19:03
Posts: 23

@ Jacob:
Don't misunderstand, I'm not saying we should do away with cinematography. I'm just saying it would be nice to see the emphasis of more videos placed on the process, not the final product. Kind of like what Parkour Generations does with their "Behind the Jump" series.

When I say edgy and exciting, I'm referring to the content, not the editing. The fact is that most videos are focused on what the individual practitioner is capable of, and don't do much in the way of helping newer practitioners learning to do the same, and safely.

I liked both the videos, btw, in the first though, the angle really did suck. Good material though, hear that excuse way too often. You can pick up a cheap, bendable, "grippy" tripod from best buy, they're called the octopus or something to that effect. They're around $10-15 and work pretty well, they just don't add much height.

[ Edited Sun 13 Dec 2009 : 23:37 ]

Santa Barbara Parkour
SBPK Facebook Group

Corndogg

Thu 14 Jan 2010 : 13:30

Registered Member #68

Joined: Fri 13 Jan 2006 : 11:20
Posts: 144

wrote ...

Videos

Many newcomers find parkour through YouTube. Need to focus on posting more training videos instead of highlight reels. Use this channel to educate, and highlight safety and progression. Possibly add warnings and disclaimers to videos, link to parkour definitions and documentaries explaining parkour.

I am working on this with APK now, disclaimer templates and disclaimer descriptions to use with your YouTube videos will be made available for everyone to use. Stay tuned.

sfparkour.com

Stumpy

Thu 14 Jan 2010 : 18:14

Registered Member #2212

Joined: Mon 23 Mar 2009 : 21:24
Posts: 640

Corndogg wrote ...

I am working on this with APK now, disclaimer templates and disclaimer descriptions to use with your YouTube videos will be made available for everyone to use. Stay tuned.

i like the idea, but at the same time, i wish we didnt HAVE to put up disclaimers. i have always thought that if you see someone jumping from a speeding train, then break your neck from trying it yourself... you diserve everything you got.

so thats why i am promoting this idea just because i dont want to have pk get a bad name. im NOT doing it to protect the dumbasses out there that think 10 story drops are ok because they learned a roll on youtube.

martialennans

Sat 16 Jan 2010 : 00:51

Registered Member #2673

Joined: Mon 30 Nov 2009 : 19:03
Posts: 23

I second Stumpy. It's not that I want to protect the shmuck who thinks he's invincible. It's that I want to be able to allow twelve year olds to train with older guys and be shown the proper way to do it. It's that I don't want the local cops deciding that parkour is a reckless sport because of a few renegades.

Santa Barbara Parkour
SBPK Facebook Group

Corndogg

Sat 16 Jan 2010 : 21:41

Registered Member #68

Joined: Fri 13 Jan 2006 : 11:20
Posts: 144

Part of the disclaimer is disclaimer, but part of it is "education" so hopefully that makes it more appealing and useful. The text right now is from the current APK disclaimer:

"Parkour and Freerunning are dangerous activities and could carry inherent risk regardless of the training and preparation involved.

This video is not to be considered as advice or instruction. Practice Parkour and Freerunning at your own risk."

It does sound bit formal and too disclaimer-y to me, what are peoples suggested changes? "Practice parkour and freerunning responsibly and of your own free will." :)

The main point to take away is really - If you are posting a parkour video, take the time in the Video and/or Description text to educate the viewer on parkour. Set expectations. Pass on tips. Push a useful message. Remind them about safety. Tell them about your community. That's it.

[ Edited Sat 16 Jan 2010 : 21:47 ]

sfparkour.com

martialennans

Sat 16 Jan 2010 : 23:35

Registered Member #2673

Joined: Mon 30 Nov 2009 : 19:03
Posts: 23

I do like "...of your own free will" a bit more. It's pretty good so far. If nothing else, the disclaimer can evolve as it's improved.

Santa Barbara Parkour
SBPK Facebook Group

Stumpy

Sun 17 Jan 2010 : 20:03

Registered Member #2212

Joined: Mon 23 Mar 2009 : 21:24
Posts: 640

martialennans wrote ...

I do like "...of your own free will" a bit more. It's pretty good so far. If nothing else, the disclaimer can evolve as it's improved.

yaya, ill probably make my own for each vid though... something like "if you break your neck immitating me, find me so i can point and laugh..."
or something like that

lol jk, i like it. but i still find disclaimers the main reason behind all of americas problems... that and alcaida.... :)

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