This is the beginning of an intention to keep a blog...probably the most out of date parkour related blog around.
30
Oct
2010
Whilst I think of myself as primarily a filmmaker, the last 12 months has seen relatively few film projects completed. This isn’t to say that I havn’t shot anything, quite the opposite. I’ve shot a lot but hardly edited anything, that’s just how it is until I have the luxury of time on my side. My days, weeks and months have been consumed with trying to complete my PhD on the Visual Anthropology of parkour - doing a PhD was one of the most ridiculous ideas I’ve ever had - but there you go.
When I havn’t been stuck in a cycle of read, write, review, I’ve been fortunate enough to attend some very cool parkour events in locations near and far, and spent time with people who have a lot of energy and good vibes. So in retrospect and in a very non-online undynamic way I’ll be writing blogs about things that happened a while ago. I might also just write some rambling thoughts on parkour, people and places that dont find a place in either my academic writings or the articles for Spiked magazine.
The blog has begun...
2011 was an interesting year...
It was the year I eventually finished my PhD and released a paperback book of my thesis and accompanying DVD 'Ciné Parkour'. Both are available on amazon.com and there will be a kindle version available in the next few months. 2012 will see the release of 'The History of Parkour' book that will include previously unseen interview material and information not included in Ciné Parkour. It should also be more fun to read for those that don't fancy an academic thesis.
The parkour research continues and it's not just mine. On opposite sides of the globe there are 2 more Parkour PhDs in progress, both practitioners that train regularly - you gotta love participant observation and the reality of experience. I am very happy to introduce Australian cultural anthropologist Alex Pavlotsi and Danish sociologist Signe Højbjerre Larsen, an outline of their projects and contact details are listed below. If you are interested find them, talk to them, and reply to them if they contact you. For parkour to be more widely understood it's a two way street - share, communicate and express yourself - or it will all be just an empty theory.
Whilst the academics have been reading, writing, interviewing and researching, the global parkour community continues to grow. The ubiquitous parkour spectacle continues to shine and inspire whether practitioners like it or not. For all the moans and groans of parkour being so widely misunderstood and the ongoing debates over who can use public space for this or that, there was one TV spectacle in the UK (soon to be aired internationally) that probably did more in 1 hour of mainstream prime time television to expand an appreciation and understanding for 'freesports' than years of interviews, research, writing and millions of views on YouTube documentaries. 'Concrete Circus', the brainchild of director Mike Christie (the performance documentary cross-platform hybrid master of TV), brought together creative talent in front and behind the camera. I'm biased, I was in it -very very briefly- and worked on it. If you haven't seen it find it and watch it. When relatives call you and talk about the talents of Phil Doyle, Mathieu Ledoux, Danny McAskill and various others you know it's struck a harmonious sweet chord with the general public.
As well as working on projects for other people I made a few films last year, many of which were fun, cool memories of gatherings, friends and training, but in my mind only one really contributed anything new. The film 'Idræt' was shot at the Danish based 'Parkour European Gathering' and brought together many of the women who train with the Danish Street Movement team, female coaches Annty Marais and Naomi Honey from London based Parkour Generations and several women who train regularly with the Yamakasi founders A.D.D. Academy in France.
They represent the most positive, exciting and progressive element I've witnessed in the parkour scene for a while - the increase internationally in women training and coaching parkour. This interests me not just because I'm a woman who trains parkour but because the values the founders and next generation after them wanted to promote I see being lived out by the women who meet to; train, coach, explore their limits mentally and physically, support and co-operate with one another. Their actions require them to be 'brave'. The female coaches in London push women harder and at the same time smile more than their male counterparts. The level of physical empathy allows them to take more risks than I've experienced with the male coaches, regardless of the coaching experience. When a woman asks you to do a route that includes 21 wall runs in a row, and you know that they themselves have done it, you feel differently than when the guy with the big arms and legs asks you, c'est la vie!
If you see men and women train alongside each other even the most informed eye will compare, yet see women on their own and you'll see they are strong, they have flow and they move how they want, having progressed from the 'be as strong and copy what the guys do' style. Fear and effort are relative, take out any 'competitive or comparative mindset' and progress should be valued no matter what the starting point. There are more than enough videos of 15-30 year old males doing parkour across any number of cities in the world to satisfy a generation, but the ladies...it's time to be seen. This will hopefully be the focus of many new films this year as well as hopefully showing and sharing what I've seen as the wider demographic of participants who train. These also happen to be some of the least likely to make their own parkour videos. Maybe they'll let me share their experiences, time will tell.
Meanwhile below is the information forwarded from Alex and Signe. Having met and spoken to both of them I know their projects will be great and contribute a lot, read on.
Until whenever,
Cheers,
Julie
Research Project by Alex Pavlotski
Aims: The primary aim of this project is to gain insight into the current organizational, philosophical and practical principles of the Australian Parkour movement. This will eventually be used as contrast to global movements, as observed through travel in second year. The secondary aim is to demonstrate the potential the comic (book) medium as an ethnographic method of communicating social data, depicting space, movement and people.
Participants: The participants of this study will be the people who are involved in the Parkour movement as instructors, commentators and practitioners. Most practitioners practice in groups that are united by common philosophical and practical principles. Particular attention will be given to describing various Parkour communities. These vary from highly structured collectives with committees, training facilities and insurance to loose and informal training groups that espouse a distinctive local variant of global parkour philosophies. Participants cover a wide spectrum of age and ethnicity and include both genders. This research will be focused on participants over the age of 18.
Brief Description: This study will be ethnographic and will be conducted through a combination of participant-observation methodologies as well as informal interviews. Online resources and existing academic literature will be used to gain an additional perspective on the international development of Parkour. This will be contrasted against my observation of the Australian, and global, practice of the discipline. Data will be gathered through note-taking, photography and visual notes (sketches).
Methods of Data Analysis: Methods will be primarily qualitative. Written notes, photographs, sketches/illustrations and third-party articles will be collected. This information will be codified and analysed in accordance to relevant themes and standard ethnographic structures."
Research Project by Signe Højbjerre Larsen
When I started my studies and practice of parkour five years ago not many people knew what I was talking about. Parkour started as a subculture but today it has almost become an epidemic in Denmark because of a living community, highly skilled professional teams and a lot of attention from the national sport associations and educational institutions. Currently a lot of people are being introduced to the practice of parkour in the local sport association, in high school or even in the gyms where they can join weekly classes. My project will focus on parkour as a unique bodily cultural practice and try to explore what kind of bodily cultural learning the self-organized practice opens for and if this learning is transferable to the formal organized and institutionalized practice. More precisely the aim of my project is to explore what happens when parkour is formally organized and institutionalized. The project will be based on ethnographic field research in the different practice settings from the varying streets of Copenhagen to Gerlev Idrætshøjskole where Streetmovement have developed parkour into a half-year course. The analytical comparative study will be based on "configuration analysis" developed by Professor Henning Eichberg who is also my supervisor.
Previous Blogs
2012, the research continues...
