Risks involved in practicing parkour
A common perception about ‘extreme sports’ is that participants often suffer injuries caused by painful falls or crashes. This is pretty much true, since extreme sports have the element of unknown variables out of the control of the player ,as well as high
risks involved in the activities.
Death or becoming crippled permanently, are two of the possible consequences of making a mistake or being careless while participating in an extreme sport. For example, in the case of a solo rock climber, a single false move will plunge the climber to his
death. In skydiving, being careless in checking the parachute before jumping out of the aircraft, can result in the parachute failing to open and the skydiver will plummet to his death. Similarly, a brief lapse of concentration while bobsledding can easily
result in a fatal crash.
In the examples given above, as well as in many other extreme sports, the participant is almost always relying on some external equipment. These equipments could be a parachute in skydiving, a stopper in rock climbing or the bobsled. The person is totally
dependent on his gear and any fault in the equipment can put his life in danger, regardless of how skilled he is.
In the discipline of parkour, the traceur does not rely on anything except his own body. He is interacting directly with his environment and it is easier to survive falls or crashes because the speeds attained by a traceur can be 15 miles per hour at most.
Crashing into a wall at 15 mph is safer then ramming a BMX into a wall at 60 mph. The obstacles faced in parkour are all static and unmoving and the traceur has plenty of time to fix their locations, in his mind and coordinate and plan his movements comfortably,
thus reducing the chances of blindly crashing into something or falling off a ledge.
The majority of injuries among parkour practitioners are caused by attempting to perform moves that are beyond the traceur’s level of skill and physical fitness. A lot of fresh and novice traceurs attempt to learn moves by watching online videos of experienced
and professional traceurs and then attempt to replicate those moves themselves. This is the biggest reason for most injuries, since the traceurs in those videos have got years of experience in parkour and have honed their skill at performing moves, to near
perfection.
David Belle, the founder of Parkour, has never suffered any serious injury. However, someone who watches videos of him running across narrow ledges and jumping off tall heights and then tries to emulate those moves himself ,will definitely have an almost
certain chance of not being able to perform those moves safely. Newcomers to Parkour should always keep in mind that they cannot safely perform a lot of the advanced and impressive looking moves, they see in online videos. Trying to perform those moves is
sheer stupidity. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop should not be attempted until the traceur has trained successfully for two or three years.
Training should also be done with proper care and restraint. Jumping from heights to practice landings and rolls can have an adverse effect on the cartilage and connecting tissues in the leg joints. It can also increase the chances of bone fractures and
sprains. Often, repetitive practice jumps that aren’t landed flawlessly will result in a constant knife like pain in the feet and ankles. This will make it impossible to continue training for months, afterwards. A general rule that has developed among the
Parkour community is that one should not drop from any height that is greater than the height one can climb up.
Parkour is one of the safest activities one can engage in. There are very few reports of major injuries in all the years, since parkour got started in France. The only thing to keep in mind is to take it slow and not attempt any move, one is not fully comfortable
with. parkour is a sport, requiring dedication and respect. It takes years to get to the level of the professional traceurs but one can eventually get there through patience, restraint and dedication to mastering all the moves.
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