Extreme Sports?
Interestingly, pk is not commonly described as an extreme sport.
It is portrayed as a trend, and a sport, and its (supposed) inherent danger is pointed to as well.
Considering what most traceurs (judging by my field work in Vienna, and somewhat by perusal of videos) actually do, parkour is less "extreme" / dangerous than even professional cycling:
Just look at the current Tour de France, or should one say "tour de farce"?
These people go to their body's limits, and then over it, by taking who-knows-what.
What is the training and the drugs doing to them?
The traceurs I met expand their limits, too.
Their main limit, however, is what their mind tells them they can or cannot do.
The "extreme" of balancing on taller structures, jumping from ledge to ledge - which supposedly makes up pk - usually doesn't take place quite the way it's imagined. Rather, it's a play with the mind's workings: You see a distance between two stones, for example. You could easily jump from here to there if it's on flat ground so that it doesn't matter where exactly and how you land.
The change in place and perspective to two stones, even if they are not all that far above the ground either, makes for a different perception, and therefore a different kind of ball game.
Of course, there may come a point when it's not two stones anymore, but needed to be a jump from building to building, across a wider and higher gap. I have yet to see a traceur - except for the likes of David Belle, maybe - who's at that point, let alone one who preferred to get his kick from sheer danger rather than such a switch in perspective.
It is portrayed as a trend, and a sport, and its (supposed) inherent danger is pointed to as well.
Considering what most traceurs (judging by my field work in Vienna, and somewhat by perusal of videos) actually do, parkour is less "extreme" / dangerous than even professional cycling:
Just look at the current Tour de France, or should one say "tour de farce"?
These people go to their body's limits, and then over it, by taking who-knows-what.
What is the training and the drugs doing to them?
The traceurs I met expand their limits, too.
Their main limit, however, is what their mind tells them they can or cannot do.
The "extreme" of balancing on taller structures, jumping from ledge to ledge - which supposedly makes up pk - usually doesn't take place quite the way it's imagined. Rather, it's a play with the mind's workings: You see a distance between two stones, for example. You could easily jump from here to there if it's on flat ground so that it doesn't matter where exactly and how you land.
The change in place and perspective to two stones, even if they are not all that far above the ground either, makes for a different perception, and therefore a different kind of ball game.
Of course, there may come a point when it's not two stones anymore, but needed to be a jump from building to building, across a wider and higher gap. I have yet to see a traceur - except for the likes of David Belle, maybe - who's at that point, let alone one who preferred to get his kick from sheer danger rather than such a switch in perspective.
Labels: danger, perspective, pk philosophy, Representation and Reality
posted by Gerald Schmidt at
2:55 PM
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