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Now, this is what we’ve been looking for. A boot camp that combines luxury living, with a paradise setting AND that makes you feel like a glamourous model getting ready for Chanel A/W10. Suddenly, all the blood (or broken nails), sweat and tears to get the perfect body, seem to be worth it.
Quite a while ago now, we brought you news of the fast-growing Parkour scene in London. The sport, which originated in Paris, has been growing rapidly in the last few years and we’ve recently discovered a pocket of extraordinary Parkour talent in Syndey, Australia.
Ali Kadhim, of Parkroar first became involved in Parkour after watching Ripley’s Believe It or Not TV show and seeing some footage of a group of Parkour originators called the Yamakasi.
‘After I watched it, it changed my life: I knew straight away that Parkour was something I had already been doing my whole life. As a kid I was a huge monkey – I could never sit still and was always climbing and jumping off everything.’
We asked Ali what his favourite thing about the sport is. ‘It combines the grace and movement of gymnastics, the discipline of martial arts, the creativity of breakdance and it opens our eyes to use the world as our playground like skateboarders. I’ve practiced all of those physical art forms and Parkour for me just seems like the ultimate art form to practise.’
Ali is pretty keen on pushing at the boundaries of what is and isn’t Parkour and this comes across in his videos. We asked him what his favourite moves are: ‘My favourite moves at the moment are combining flips into the environment, like wall-flips and front flips off things. A lot of people don’t think flips are a part of Parkour.’
‘But, one of the main philosophies behind Parkour is to learn to master your body and mind, so in order to master it you have to learn to conquer your fears and control them. For example jumping off something can be scary enough, but when you add a flip into the equation the fear magnifies and it really tests your mind and body control.’
We also asked Ali how quickly he thinks Parkour seems to be growing. He told us: ‘If I compared it to how it was when I first started I would say it’s huge. Its been growing rapidly here and there are so many groups around from places like the City, Penrith and Hornsby. We get new students almost every week to our weekly classes and more and more are becoming interested all the time.’
Finally, we wanted to know what it’s like rocking up at one of Parkroar’s locally famed classes for the first time. ‘We start off with a long warm-up and conditioning session. The conditioning consists of things like tuck-jumps, push-ups, sit-ups and squats to name a few.’
‘After that we go through basic movements, these are always important and are never to be overlooked by anyone, that’s why we do them every class. We then teach new techniques after the basics or help students to overcome any fears they might have with any new movements.’
You can find out more about Parkroar from their website www.parkroar.com, or you can email Ali here with questions.
Parkour, or free-running, has been booming for a while now, so we thought we’d give you a taste of the action first hand. We’ve been digging around for one of these mysterious urban athletes and managed to get an interview with Cali, from Urban Free Flow in London.
Cali first became involved in Parkour after watching a movie called Yamakasi, in France 12 years ago. After an unsuccessful search for the people who featured in the film, Cali headed to London and started job hunting. “In between job searches I watched a youtube video from Urban Free Flow then I found another and another. They were giving classes so I signed up. A year and a half later I’m giving the lessons!”
Cali bashfully admits that his background as an instructor in Tae Kwon Do and his interest in urban dance and hip-hop gave him an edge when he started. “Maybe the martial arts gave me the efficiency and discipline, and the dance gave me the creativity and flow.” Judging by Cali’s videos, these two disciplines have melded into a pretty exquisite combination in parkour. “Since I started learning, I haven’t wanted to do anything else – it’s addictive” Cali comments, adding with a gleeful twinkle in his voice, “I can jump 6 feet in the air. I could run up to you and jump over your head…”
When asked about the strength needed to throw yourself confidently around the cityscape, Cali deferentially explains that you learn to start small and work your way up to bigger things. The basics include walking along a rail and learning to land safely, then learning how to jump. He keeps mentioning efficiency and control as two key building blocks of the sport, failing to mention the ounce of determination and the dash of crazy I suspect are also critical. If you don’t believe me, check out his video:
Apparently London is one of the best places in the world for free-running and Cali tells me the estates around Kilburn near where he lives are a favourite haunt when he’s alone. If he’s with his team, they head south to the Imax in Waterloo – “maybe the best place in the world for the sport”, he says. “When you are a normal human being you hear ‘Imax’ and you think ‘movies’. If you’re a free-runner (or ‘tracer’), you hear ‘Imax’ and you think of parkour. You’d leave the cinema!”
After my conversation with Cali, and a look at his videos on youtube, I can’t help but feel pretty curious to give this thing a go, so watch this space. In the mean time, if you’re curious yourself, you can email Cali and book a one-to-one lesson, or join one of his group sessions. He is a full time parkour instructor, genuinely talented and remarkably humble considering his mysterious power to weaken the forces of gravity to which you and I are daily subject.
Photograph features Cali grinding away at his day job.
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