Stunt-loving runners who practise parkour join clubs, take classes
Published Tuesday November 18th, 2008
KITCHENER, Ont. - When Michael Lee walks down the street, he doesn't see obstacles, just possibilities.
The 20-year-old University of Waterloo urban planning student has been parkouring since 2004. The alternative running style has dramatically changed how Lee perceives the city's urban landscape.
"Before parkour, it was usually all walls and concrete," he said. "You stop seeing things as barriers and more as pathways. I love it."
Lee isn't alone. Organizers say interest in parkour has exploded in the Waterloo Region during the past two years, thanks largely to appearances in online videos and blockbuster films.
But popularity is changing parkour. The soaring interest is forcing organizers to insert more structure into the former underground sport, a move drawing mixed responses from some stunt-loving runners.
"It's strange. We're applying structure to a sport that's about a kind of freedom," said Alex Filipowicz, 21, the unofficial head of parkour in the Waterloo Region. "I think it's necessary, but it's also a considerable departure from we started."
Modern parkour was developed by French running enthusiast David Belle and a group of friends in Lisses, France in the 1980s.
A mixture of extreme sport and philosophy, parkour is about running from Point A to Point B as quickly and efficiently as possible. That means utilizing natural movements - leaping, climbing, crawling - to overcome whatever obstacles are in the way.
Jumping from a more than metre high concrete wall, Amy Wilson said she's still learning the technique of a sport relatively unknown in North America five years ago.
"Jogging can be mindless, but this can be a little scary," said the 19-year-old English major. "I look a little stupid and I'm still terrified of rolling an ankle."
Parkour started becoming popular when homemade videos of Belle and friends doing advanced moves hit the Internet four years ago. The films, which featured runners jumping from rooftops, scaling construction scaffolding and bouncing off walls, have since received millions of web hits.
When De Perio started in 2005, he and Waterloo web developer Adam Hewgill were the region's only practitioners. Winter attendance was still sparse a couple weeks ago, Lee said.
Today, the sport is an official University of Waterloo club with 84 members, despite little advertising. Filipowicz is also considering starting women-only lessons.
"We've had to change how we do things now," said Filipowicz, who started training in 2006. "There's too many people and, frankly, a lot of them are making big mistakes."
Indeed, safety is becoming a growing problem for the sport. Untrained youths are replicating moves seen by experienced runners, wreaking havoc on knees, bones and joints.
A popular parkour Internet video features 14-year-olds in England who have mastered advanced, often dangerous stunts, Filipowicz said. The youths can now barely walk.
To help, veterans like De Perio began organizing parkour classes at the university last year. Lessons would divide time equally between teaching correct parkour technique and developing conditioning.
But first, De Perio had to convince university officials that parkour was safe - exactly the sort of official approval that underground sports often avoid.
"It was seen as dangerous, so they had to convince the recreation committee that it could be safe," Filipowicz said with a half-smile.
"It's only when you don't practise parkour properly, when they're trying to copy a video, that people get hurt."
Today, parkour runners meet outside the university's Dana Porter Library four nights a week. The lessons are limited to students, but Filipowicz said he will schedule outside lessons for other interested runners.
Parkour's popularity has turned practitioners like Filipowicz or De Perio into informal coaches and teachers. A psychology major with dreams of med school, Filipowicz has found himself dealing with the headaches of managing 50-person classes.
"He's a pretty good teacher, pretty relaxed and comfortable," said Wilson, who attends classes sporadically, relying largely on help from parkour-loving friends.
But not everyone believes in formal classes. Running around RIM Park, 16-year-old Justin Smith scoffed at the idea of taking lessons.
A Grade 10 student, Smith says he has received only "cuts, bruises, that kind of stuff" since first trying parkour with three friends last year.
"If I wanted big crowds I'd go to the mall," he said. "The fun is doing it on your own, learning as you go, running wherever you want ... trying newer and crazier things."
A parkour gymnasium, the Monkey Vault, was recently built in Toronto to provide all-season training, classes and workshops. Toronto is home to North America's largest parkour community, with hundreds of regular runners.
"Boot camp style classes let everyone learn the sport and see the health benefits," De Perio said. "The popularity has led to kids wanting to do stunts, but also to the corporate sponsorship that we need."
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