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Meet us on Saturday evenings for training sessions on parkour. They're held usually at Shyambazar or Ranikuti (near Tollygunge) and do not cost any money. Anyone can practice parkour irrespective of age or gender, as long as he/she is willing to train steadily and safely. Send a mail to the email ID mentioned below for all kinds of enquiries.

Contact: Arko - parkourkolkata@gmail.com

Not-So-Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Parkour?
A.

So basically, Parkour is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one's path by adapting one's movements to the environment.
Parkour requires... consistent, disciplined training with an emphasis on functional strength, physical conditioning, balance, creativity, fluidity, control, precision, spatial awareness, and looking beyond the traditional use of objects.
Parkour movements typically include... running, jumping, vaulting, climbing, balancing, and quadrupedal movement. Movements from other physical disciplines are often incorporated, but acrobatics or tricking alone do not constitute parkour.
Parkour training focuses on... safety, longevity, personal responsibility, and self-improvement. It discourages reckless behavior, showing off, and dangerous stunts.
Parkour practitioners value... community, humility, positive collaboration, sharing of knowledge, and the importance of play in human life, while demonstrating respect for all people, places, and spaces.
[Copied from http://www.americanparkour.com/content/view/221/417/]
 
2. Alright. And what's Freerunning?
A.
Free running was meant to start out an anglicized term for Parkour. It was first suggested to Sebastien Foucan during the filming of Jump London. Free Running has grown to be descriptive of a sort of "cousin" activity to Parkour - Free Running is more expressive and creative in nature, with moves such as acrobatics, flips, and spins added for flair, creativity, or just because someone wants to.
The main difference then between Parkour and Free Running is that Parkour is defined by purpose "get somewhere quickly and efficiently using the human body", and Free Running is defined by the activity or art of moving through your environment however you want, moving your way, following your own path.
Copied from [http://www.americanparkour.com/content/view/877/417/]
 
[Wiki: Parkour, Freerunning]

3. Can girls do this stuff??
A. Sure sweets, here's some Girl Pow:
 

4. Does it hurt?
A. Not if you jump off your building on the first day. Or on any day! Parkour is not jumping off heights. And even though Parkour is an extreme activity, safety is a priority for us traceurs.

5. "Is Parkour cool?" (Yeah I've been asked this too.)
A. No. 

6. Why? Why go backwards in the evolution tree?
A. Get out!

IMPORTANT

You can NOT do the things shown in the videos without rigorous training. Please don't try to kill yourself and give us a bad name. Even if you pull off some stunt someday, jump off something big and think you've done it perfectly, you surely have caused some damage to your joints that will show itself in the long run, unless you've been conditioning yourself properly for years. READ THIS! Learning Parkour or Freerunning is a phased process. But if you think the videos were fun, you'll surely have fun in the process :)

If you're interested or even just a casual supporter, show yourself on the Orkut community or the Facebook page (links above). You'll find first hand tips from traceurs and beginners there. We organize jams and practice/training sessions too.

Parkour in Kolkata

Yudhajit and me (both known as "Arko") are the ones who first started practicing Parkour in this region back in early 2007. Like a lot of us, we came across some show on the Discovery Channel and the documentary "Jump London". Being always interested in thrilling activities, we were immediately fascinated and were already jumping off things by the end of that week! The Banhi Math in Naktala became our primary jumping spot. We used to do a range of crazy activities there despite ridicule form the para people. Didn't matter because we had the typical teen-rebel "f**k society" attitude on. I remember carrying out Yudhajit's study table on to the field to practice kong vaults on. Good times.

We'd also practice on my rooftop. Now hold on, not across rooftops - on my rooftop, safely! There are walls and stuff there which are pretty helpful for beginners. I wasn't always this concerned about safety. I'll be honest. We used to jump off heights and be reckless, again, like a lot of us in the beginning. It wasn't until 2008 that I came across articles and videos showing the true meaning of Parkour and its philosophies. I learned how Parkour is not about being reckless and although it's an extreme activity indeed, it takes years of practice and steady progression to do what they do in the awesome videos. Safety is an important aspect of Parkour. I realized how Parkour gives you control of your environment and breaks the stereotype of human movement. All these connected me even deeply with the art. I personally am more inclined towards parkour because I find it more practical and faster than freerunning.

Yudhajit doesn't practice anymore but it has been prophesied that he'll return. Somewhere in between, for a small period of time we had Amlan and Ani - a couple of crazy, athletic dudes. Unfortunately they couldn't continue their practice for their own personal reasons. I've been training with Indra and Rahul for the past couple of years, more seriously for the last one year. They (especially Indra) are really enthusiastic, daring and fun to train with. Got to mention Arnie who's more a brother to me than just a friend, and the days at "Crappy Park" - a local park where me and Arnie played around in the early days. He's in Toronto right now training at 'The Monkey Vault'. Recently a lot of new people have joined us. So the community is growing. The lazy Bengali youth could really use a positive outlet like Parkour.

We're still amateurs though, especially compared to guys in UK or Russia. Partly because we don't practice full time and partly because Kolkata lacks necessary infrastructures for such activities. Then there are social constrains. But parkour is not about competition, it's about self-development. So we're under no pressure. We're taking it slow and steady and are determined not to stop, given our problems. I personally wish to keep pushing the limits of my body and mind for as long as they're capable and most importantly - keep 'playing around'. As someone wise once said: "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

- Diptarko Bhattacharya (Arko)
17-04-2011

My Idea Of Freerunning

(This is where I mainly talk about why flips aren't freerunning from the latter's creative aspect. For a technical insight on this subject: http://www.parkourindia.net/articles/flipsarenotfreerunning.php)

There was a lot of controversy and politics behind the origin of Freerunning. It is a physical art form invented by chance. Luckily, my personal interpretation of Freerunning was something that I could immediately relate to.

To me Freerunning is about your own freedom, mental and bodily. It’s about breaking through, defying the worldly (which includes social) constrains, overcoming obstacles and moving in any way you can imagine, exploiting the physical liberation. This also helps bring about a state of mental enlightenment.

In my personal opinion, I sometimes find flips kind of dumb. I mean what’s the point in rotating over and over in different ways. It’s too stereotyped. But again, some things they do are truly amazing, so “sometimes” I say.

Freerunning to me is not just about flipping or rotating, it’s about moving in any way you want without the need to prove yourself or “present” yourself in pretentious ways. It’s about achieving the simulation of your own mental images of reaching different places, dimensions and axes with your bodily form that ordinarily you couldn’t.

You can just literally run through the city, screaming and wailing and throwing your limbs around like a lunatic.. and that’ll be a perfect example of Freerunning.

Simply, moving just for physical thrill can be Freerunning.

Or if you aren’t brainwashed by the 400-odd videos uploaded by ‘glyphmedia’, etc., and you still decide to flip your way around, that would be Freerunning too.

Anyway you move accompanied by any association that movement has to your then state of mind or your inner expression.. is Freeruning.

Your environment can destroy you completely; respect it and move safely. You can never master your environment; you can never accomplish mastery over nature. You are nature; you are a part of nature. We’re just minuscule elements of this earthly system. You can be free and flying. But then, you’d just have advanced yourself to be one with your environment; you’d have neither mastered it, nor have remained a slave to it.

Diptarko Bhattacharya

Kolkata

Pain: A Not-So-Good Indicator for Injury

.
http://apexmovement.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/pain-a-not-so-good-indicator-for-injury/

"Most of us, being young and fearless, believe that if there is no pain in performing a technique no damage to the body has occurred.
This is false."
Why I tell everyone not to make big jumps as a beginner, even if it doesn't hurt.
This article also explains how dormant injuries can be dangerous in the long run.

Some basic techniques you might apply in your movement

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Some basic flips that might help your proprioception

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Conditioning should be a major part of your training, especially if you are a beginner

Build up your flexibility:

Conditioning should be a major part of your training, especially if you are a beginner

Build up your strength and endurance:







Also check out
http://www.youtube.com/user/DemonDrills

3RUN?

This is what some of the world renowned traceurs have to say on the aesthetic aspect of 3RUN, the Parkour/Freerunning group. [Copied from http://www.3run.co.uk/forum/]

Ours is a world of restrictions, of stereotypes, of discrimination and judgment in matters large and small, ranging from the everyday trivial to the crucially important. It is a world of choices that cannot be undone and rules that cannot be broken. It is a world in which few paths are truly new and more and more people find themselves moving through specified channels.

Some of us seek to change that.

3Run is the art of freedom, open to everyone who is like-minded in searching to push their physical, philosophical, and spiritual boundaries regardless of the discipline used along the way. It is also a place, a community designed so that those same people can meet and share and learn, wherever they are in the physical world.

At the core of the 3Run philosophy are three simple beliefs. First, that the human body was designed to move, and that to refuse to do so is to abandon a very important part of what makes one human. Second, that human beings should try for perfection even in the knowledge that they will never achieve it, and that to settle for any particular level of excellence is to abandon the potential for even more. Third, that no human being can live a meaningful life alone, and that through friendship and communication, every person can benefit from the successes of others.

These beliefs are not unique to 3Run. They are shared by many in the disciplines of parkour, tricking, and the martial arts, and indeed are central to many religions, cultures, and communities in the larger world. The kind of philosophy that 3Run exemplifies is not something that any one person or group can claim; it was invented by us all and belongs to all of us and none of us at once. 3Run itself, however, was developed in the minds of a small group of people and was given meaning by their effort. Started by a few, it has since been developed by many. In that way, it is a unique place and a unique way of life, different from its cousin disciplines and its cousin communities.

Imagine a group of people from all over the world gathered around a stone. Each of them sees the stone from a different angle, and notices different things about it. Each of them has a different word for ?stone? in their native language, and different words to describe what they see. Yet none of these words are the stone ? it exists without them, and would continue to exist if they all walked away. No one person among them can explain everything there is to know about the stone ? each holds only a piece of the larger puzzle.

If we could gather together the impressions of every one of those people, though, and combine them ? if we could strip away the barriers between the languages and blend the unique understandings of each individual, we would attain a whole new level of knowledge about the stone, one that is much closer to the real truth.

This is the goal of 3Run. It is not a singular concept; it has no boundaries or approximations like a single person?s view of the stone. It is a summation, a totaling of all other arts and disciplines in an attempt to reach the truth about movement and potential, about humanity and growth.

Dedicating your energy and time to a discipline is respectable, but the traceur is no more respectable than the trickster who works just as hard, nor is the trickster any more respectable than the martial artist. Nor are they more respectable than the artist who paints a beautiful picture, or the musician who composes a masterpiece, or the loving father whose children grow up strong and happy. We all have our own paths to follow, and 3Run is the ideal through which we hope to combine them all into something much greater than what you would get if you simply put each path side by side. 3Run?s founders originally took inspiration from the philosophies of parkour and the Chinese martial art known as Wu Shu, but since then they have broadened their own horizons with the addition of gymnastics, breakdancing, weight training, swimming, boxing, medicine, filmmaking, travel ? anything and everything that promises to enrich the total, to open their eyes and free their minds.

It is this freedom of choice that makes 3Run what it is, the belief that a human being may take any aspect of his or her life and make it part of a whole. We recognise and honour the purity of many separate paths in life, and we strive to maintain their boundaries for the sake of greater understanding and clarity. Yet we believe that a person is not limited to walking only one path at a time ? in fact, we believe that people who do so are stopping themselves from being all that they can be. The physical, the mental, and the spiritual ? all are needed to truly experience life, just as all aspects of the physical are needed to truly understand the human body in motion.

3Run is about pushing yourself to a higher level in every plane. It is about having fun getting there. It is about discovering who you are and who you will be, about finding and overcoming your own weaknesses and fears one at a time. It is about being an individual in a society of individuals, about respect and enthusiasm and progress. It is about life, not just as an abstract idea, but as the world that surrounds you at this very moment, a world in which we believe anything is possible to those who are willing to try.

Free your mind

Duncan Germain (TK17) -- Chase Armitage -- Scott Pallett (JingShen)

The Law of Averages

A very inspiring post showing perseverance, optimism, and mind control. How Chris 'Blane' Rowat seemingly defies thermodynamics using will:
http://blane-parkour.blogspot.com/2009/01/law-of-averages.html