![]() ![]() It’s a highly social activity, which brings like-minded traceurs together and gives them a chance to be physically, but also politically active in their cities. Parkour gives people the chance to express a freedom of movement that pays little attention to the instructions of the city. It enables the sport to spread to new locations, by allowing people to watch videos of traceurs from the other side of the world, connect with them and adopt or adapt their moves. The virtual community of parkour is hugely important. As well as scoping out sites and developing new moves, traceurs often film videos of each other that are posted online. The social aspect of parkour extends beyond training, too. This process feeds into other urban issues, such as gentrification – something London’s Southbank skateboarders have also had to contend with. But in 2016, the site was “beautified” with landscape gardens and water features, and it is no longer suitable for practising parkour. Despite residents continually asking traceurs to leave, the spot became one of London’s prime parkour locations. One such place was the Vauxhall Walls in London, which was a concrete garden for a nearby tower block. Parkour is very much a reaction to the increased restriction of movement in modern cities: it allows traceurs to rediscover their cities in an entirely new way, while also traversing architectural restrictions such as walls, fences and stair wells. According to the passage, how can Parkour enhance a traceurs self-confidence Traceurs eventually come to believe that no obstacle is impossible to navigate or. Moving across the city in ways that it wasn’t designed for is a liberating experience. It’s also what makes parkour inherently political. The freedom to move that parkour enables was, and still is, a fundamental part of its philosophy. In early films and videos, traceurs’ spectacular physical movements are deliberately contrasted with parts of the city which are static, fixed and enclosed. Jumping over bollards, climbing up walls or rolling over concrete roofs these spectacular movements show what the human body is capable of – but they also highlight how the city can be navigated in very different ways. Traceurs will often talk of having “ parkour eyes”, which allow them to see the city as a child would: as a playground to explore rather than a system of containment. This sport actively encourages people to see the city as a playground. But in fact, the people who practice parkour are engaging in urban politics in a very playful way.
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