Parkour, the art of displacement, or freerunning--whatever the name, this new discipline born in the Paris suburbs is rapidly being adopted by people throughout the world. Not satisfied to suffer through urban life, these athletic artists or artistic athletes want to thrive in it, all the while earning dignity by daringly reappropriating three fundamental motor skills: running, jumping, and climbing. Vincent Thibault explores the philosophical and spiritual aspects of the art of movement and offers ideas on health, sports, urban living, and the relationship between the body and the environment. Reflecting on the culture of effort, he also avoids the misguided notion that depicts parkour as just another of those elitist extreme sports, instead providing a thoughtful, lyrical adventure into martial arts and chivalry in an urban setting.

From its humble origins in the backstreets and rooftops of Paris's urban jungle, to the tops of London and New York's skyscrapers, Parkour, has become an adrenaline-fuelled implosion on the urban landscape. But more than a sport that most jaw-dropped onlookers can hardly comprehend, Parkour is an exploration of movement and a return to our body's natural ability to run, jump, hang and move with fluidity. For the first time, Julie Angel tells the story of Parkour's beginnings - the diverse, intriguing and unusual characters who went to the rooftops, hung off the stairwells and drain pipes as they trained through the night, often risking their lives and created something that has become a worldwide phenomenon. Breaking the Jumpÿtells the unknown story behind Parkour's rise, and asks what is it that drives those who stand on the edge and think `go'.

The increasing number of followers of the two movement cultures, Parkour and Freerunning, has given rise to the need for safe, methodical orientation, which the reader will find in this book. Parkour, a new movement culture from France, is all about moving as efficiently as possible between points A and B by sprinting fluently over obstacles. The sport of Freerunning has developed from it, involving developing and showing off the most creative, extreme, flowing, acrobatic moves possible on obstacles. This book contains precise illustrations for the teaching of all basic techniques, easy-tofollow movement breakdowns and methodical tips for indoor and outdoor training. All the most common terms from the scene are listed for reference in English and French. History, philosophy, rules of behavior, training advice based on the latest sports science knowledge, interviews from the scene about motivations and trends, advice for schools and explanations of competitions and competition criteria are a few examples of the book’s contents.

This Handbook is the first to explore the emergent field of ‘placemaking’ in terms of the recent research, teaching and learning, and practice agenda for the next few years. Offering valuable theoretical and practical insights from the leading scholars and practitioners in the field, it provides cutting-edge interdisciplinary research on the placemaking sector. Placemaking has seen a paradigmatic shift in urban design, planning, and policy to engage the community voice. This Handbook examines the development of placemaking, its emerging theories, and its future directions. The book is structured in seven distinct sections curated by experts in the areas concerned. Section One provides a glimpse at the history and key theories of placemaking and its interpretations by different community sectors. Section Two studies the transformative potential of placemaking practice through case studies on different places, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks. It also reveals placemaking’s potential to nurture a holistic community engagement, social justice, and human-centric urban environments. Section Three looks at the politics of placemaking to consider who is included and who is excluded from its practice and if the concept of placemaking needs to be reconstructed. Section Four deals with the scales and scopes of art-based placemaking, moving from the city to the neighborhood and further to the individual practice. It juxtaposes the voice of the practitioner and professional alongside that of the researcher and academic. Section Five tackles the socio-economic and environmental placemaking issues deemed pertinent to emerge more sustainable placemaking practices. Section Six emphasizes placemaking’s intersection with urban design and planning sectors and incudes case studies of generative planning practice. The final seventh section draws on the expertise of placemakers, researchers, and evaluators to present the key questions today, new methods and approaches to evaluation of placemaking in related fields, and notions for the future of evaluation practices. Each section opens with an introduction to help the reader navigate the text. This organization of the book considers the sectors that operate alongside the core placemaking practice. This seminal Handbook offers a timely contribution and international perspectives for the growing field of placemaking. It will be of interest to academics and students of placemaking, urban design, urban planning and policy, architecture, geography, cultural studies, and the arts.

"Un esprit serein dans un corps fonctionnel", telle est la devise de ce manuel pédagogique, qui a pour ambition de mettre à disposition du grand public et des professionnels du sport un savoir-faire et une expérience unique en matière d’apprentissage du Parkour, apparu en 1990 et plus largement connu grâce au film "Yamakasi" de Luc Besson sorti en 2001. La méthode développée par les auteurs s’appuie sur plus de 20 ans d’expérience et sur l’expertise de professionnels du sport et de la santé. Elle s’adapte au plus grand nombre pour un apprentissage maîtrisé et dans les meilleures conditions de sécurité. Au-delà de l’activité physique propre, ce manuel permet à chacun de profiter des bénéfices de la pratique du Parkour tant sur le plan physique que mental. Plus qu’un sport, le Parkour est un art : l’art du déplacement.

Welcome to the exciting, dynamic world of parkour! This acrobatic and athletic discipline that makes ordinary—though highly coordinated and graceful—people appear to be superheroes has caused a sensation online, as videos of practitioners running up walls, vaulting over obstacles, leaping across the roofs of buildings, and generally treating urban areas as their own personal obstacle courses went viral. Readers will learn about parkour’s roots in France, as well as how the sport developed and spread worldwide. Safety is always emphasized in the text, as are “do not try this at home” cautions to the reader.

The world is an obstacle course in Parkour. Watch as talented athletes scale walls and leap from ledges. Learn all about this exhilarating extreme sport through wonderful color photographs and engaging text.

In the increasingly popular sport of parkour, athletes run, jump, climb, flip, and vault through city streetscapes, resembling urban gymnasts to passersby and awestruck spectators. In Parkour and the City, cultural sociologist Jeffrey L. Kidder examines the ways in which this sport involves a creative appropriation of urban spaces as well as a method of everyday risk-taking by a youth culture that valorizes individuals who successfully manage danger. Parkour’s modern development has been tied closely to the growth of the internet. The sport is inevitably a YouTube phenomenon, making it exemplary of new forms of globalized communication. Parkour’s dangerous stunts resonate, too, Kidder contends, with a neoliberal ideology that is ambivalent about risk. Moreover, as a male-dominated sport, parkour, with its glorification of strength and daring, reflects contemporary Western notions of masculinity. At the same time, Kidder writes, most athletes (known as “traceurs” or “freerunners”) reject a “daredevil” label, preferring a deliberate, reasoned hedging of bets with their own safety—rather than a “pushing the edge” ethos normally associated with extreme sports.

In Parkour Strength Training, you will learn how to:- Accelerate your athletic development with three fundamental bodyweight exercises- Promote the flexibility and mobility necessary for safe obstacle-based fitness- Prepare and condition your joints to avoid injuries- Train safely outdoors- Remedy the common faults and errors that plague parkour newcomers- Incorporate ground-based exercises, such as quadrupedal movement, bounding, and jumping into your workouts- Use low obstacles such as benches, handrails, and walls for full-body strength training- Fly over barriers using three basic vaults- Mount, traverse, and overcome head-high walls and bar structures- Master proper climb-up technique using many supplemental exercises- Design an effective strength training program- Combine skill-based drills and games to become a more well-rounded practitioner- Dominate obstacle courses

Jane Jacobs, writing from her adoptive country, uses the problems facing an independence-seeking Quebec and Canada as a whole to examine the universal problem of sovereignty and autonomy that nations great and small have struggled with throughout history. Using Norway’s relatively peaceful divorce from Sweden as an example, Jacobs contends that Canada and Canadians—Quebecois and Anglophones alike—can learn important lessons from similar sovereignty questions of the past.