Parkour- are you up for it?

"Parkour?...never heard of it!" That was my reaction when a middle school student came in the library asking for information on Parkour. Then I started researching. Wow!

Parkour is sort of a sport, sort of a philosophy, sort of a pastime. It's kind of hard to explain. What I can tell you, though, is it's physical- very physical. Parkour involves running, jumping, dropping, rolling, landing, vaulting, clearing, hanging, swinging, and even wall running. Think Prince of Persia stuff- yeah, that cool but with real people. This all started in France nearly- wait for it- 25 years ago. So, we're a little behind the times.

Anyway, if you're interested, we've got a great starter book with explanations and tutorials:
The Parkour and Freerunning Handbook by Dan Edwardes. You can also just Google it. As warmer weather approaches- it will get here- you may be looking for a new outdoor activity. And this is a cool one.

As a side note I was watching Abduction this weekend and must admit Taylor Lautner does some pretty impressive Parkour moves in that film.