“The world is your playground”

AKYAT BAHAY STYLE: PARKOUR

What do you get when you mix martial arts, gymnastics, track, and suburban ground? That’s right. PARKOUR.

Also known as "free-running”, the sport involves navigating through urban terrain and architectural obstacles. The goal of a traceur (one who does parkour) is to navigate an urban environment with as much speed and fluidity as possible. Basically you combine running with jumping on, over, or through an object; trying to combine moves into one flowing run. You can run or jump on (or off) rails, walls, steps, and basically anything that can be used as an obstacle.

Parkour originated in the Parisian suburb of Lisses, France. Sebastien Foucan, David Belle and friends were playing as all kids do. However they continued furthering their skills. Today, almost 20 years later, parkour has spread all across the globe. According to co-founder David Belle, the spirit of parkour is guided in part by the notions of "escape" and "reach", that is, the idea of using physical agility and quick thinking to get out of difficult situations, and to be able to go anywhere that one wants to.

Mostly, parkour involves drilling core techniques over and over until one is comfortable enough to combine movements. There is also emphasis on "discipline" because parkour is not a sport involving competition. It is more an activity involving you and your own boundaries, and a tight-knit community of friends.

Having just entered the Philippine radar less than a decade ago, it poses to be the next big urban-athletic trend. Even here in Baguio, you can see parkour starting to spread. There is a team/group of traceurs that practice in Burnham park and other “secret” locations, practically every Sunday, the X-Limit: Baguio Freerunners."Our aim is to take our art to the world and make people understand what it is to move," as found on their webpage on Facebook. I think it’s quite inspiring that although they practice a discipline that is not quite known yet, they aim to spread knowledge about this budding sport.