Gymnasts Try to Keep Up With Parkour Experts | SELF

you're gonna do it again [Music] my name's Jesse danger I'm co-founder and director of the movement creative in training parkour for 15 years my name is Michael Russo from Queens New York I've been doing parkour for 14 years and I'm currently the head coach for the movement creative my name is Raul Andalusia I've been training parkour for 10 years and I'm currently an instructor here at the Brooklyn zoo hi I'm Jeremy gallant I've been doing parkour for about 15 years and I'm currently a parkour instructor here at Brooklyn zoo so the word parkour comes from kakadu combatant this is a military obstacle training before the French military adopted it we can trace the origin right to a volcanic eruption in 1902 and st. Pierre Martinique George Hobart was helping to evacuate people from the island he noticed that the local people's way of training and living was more effective at preparing them for a natural disaster people were running jumping climbing balancing swimming and he compiled that and a few more movements lifting carrying self-defense into method naturale and through that practice and through the adaptation of that practice the French military developed obstacle courses where you had to work on all of those skills my name is Sahara Gibson I've done gymnastics for about 12 years and I was on the team at Temple University my name is Michelle amore Asano I did gymnastics for about 15 years and I was on the gymnastics team at Rutgers University my name is Ayana Lee and I have been doing gymnastics for about 15 plus years and I was on the record gymnastics team I'm a little nervous but I'm also very excited to learn parkour today gymnastics can be very regimented and I feel with parkour it might present a new opportunity to run around and be a little bit more free with the movement [Music] so the first challenge we have for you is to try to stick a jump for that we'll be working on a technique called the precision landing which is landing precisely on something and being able to to stop there before you can connect movements really smoothly it's important that you have the control to stop yourself wherever you are we're trying to land generally we're gonna be on the balls of our feet I want to go into like the precision landing position a little bit and you guys can try this no.2 and here now I'm squatting down keeping that same tension in my posterior chain well engaged Achilles well engaged through my calves up through my butt muscles like that one thing it can be like natural to try to balance with your chest receiving and balance with your knees and give more balance when you bend down but everything is closer to you Center that way don't stick the landing yeah the thing you're imagining right now is that this is like 30 feet high so you have no option to just like step off one direction or the other you need to be like right on that edge you need to have control now you've mastered all the experiments that we tried on the ground we're gonna have you try to put your skills to the test and a more of a real-world environment [Music] [Music] feel like we were kind of taking it easy on them yeah they definitely impressed you like they could you a railing even if they don't do a railing it's impressive to see they they definitely have the control for it and that's really nice for day one yeah I was very nervous but I think once you kind of just like let the fear go away you kind of just like jump and it works out how some folks do at least it did that time the second challenge we have for you is a Kong vault or a cap pass in gymnastics I think this is closest to the Hecht so this is a vault where we dive out place both of our hands up and then hit ourselves up and through so we can keep running we do something similar when we like jump the beams but it was very fast and their feet went through their arms so not sure about that part but we'll give it a try I mean I've short legs and I'm still nervous to cut through this yeah you guys all got your hips up if I'm here it's really hard to get my legs through I don't even know if I can I have to get my hips up to be able to get some space so now this would be the next place you try and you work on that clear as you just get over it like can laser guide but if my toes are pointed up even if I mess up my feet will hit this I can bounce back as opposed to just see that's not something where you try to see if you can be really gentle on top really quick on top of your feet see how little you need your feet on top they can still be there you watch them when they're coming out on the other side they're armed your life behind them kind of thing is like Eagle position so just that little bit extra pole will turn their feet right over this kind of a move especially there's so much of a fear factor involved with it cuz a lot of people aren't used to going into that position to lifting their hips up and getting like almost parallel with the obstacle but once they've broke it down and just kept on repeating everything they picked it up like they've been doing it for forever personally I think the biggest thing for me was the position of the exercise it kind of felt uncomfortable and something that I'm not typically used to when you see a certain skill it looks complicated it looks like you know you have to be able to do it and then when you actually do it you realize how much your body knows how to do it third challenge we operated is the last Shay in French Lachey means to let go and this will be a release from the bar to test our control we'll be trying to release into a precision landing so we get a bit of a swing going and then we release try to land with control similar to a dismount from gymnastic so I think we got this one yeah the only thing different is how in Park Corey it looks like they're twisting their shoulders and that's not something we're used to [Music] [Music] and that's one of the things in parkour I think there's less of this idea of like can you do it or not do it rather than my clothes ghosts there's open skills so there's always like another different last shake and be more technical with the landing or more powerful with the technique we should be landing straight yeah landing landing in a ready to move position so here rather than [Music] [Applause] that's pretty perfect usually there's more apprehension towards throwing yourself and letting go cuz you're afraid to land on your back I think there's more apprehension on our part of like being ready for how ready they were wait oh no you're okay fine I think one of the the things I was considering is that they have a gymnastics background and I've seen people from gymnastics trying parkour there's often a little bit of a stiffness in their in their swings and in their landings and I feel like they were I really controlled able to adapt able to push the distance a little bit more and nicely I think comparing the two sports together when it comes to swinging specifically parkour has a little bit more of a raw style gymnastics often they're keeping their shoulders and their hips like pretty square as they do their movements for different reasons in parkour we're kind of usually letting our shoulders and our hips come out of line for for whatever reason maybe so it looked like they were a little uncomfortable with that but after a few turns they got more comfortable and we were able to push the block back and increase the distance and they were nailing it yeah I think the goal initially was to land on the black line and I don't think any of us did that so that like trying to aim for that was a little difficult but other than that it was a familiar motion mobility is a little different but the actual movement of dismounting from the bar to the block was pretty similar so the fourth challenge we have for you today is to be able to take some of the flips that you know already and see if you can do it off of something we also do some flips a little bit differently so we're hoping to see you notice the differences and try it our way so the movement we'll be working on today is the Webster this is a back heel drive so arms drive up chest up and coming over in a front flip and landing so in gymnastics we do a very similar skill on the balance beam called a front kick over where we land directly on the beam and this skill in parkour the Webster is a little bit different because you land off the mat [Music] yeah they killed I had a feeling the this one might be a easy challenge for them since flipping is a big part of gymnastics but we were hoping that the different set up for the flip and the environment having to go off of a ledge and everything being made of wood around them would kind of like throw them for a loop and I think there was a little bit of hesitation but uh ultimately I think they were in their element pretty pretty hard there so yeah they killed it what I really liked about that and what you can see a lot in parkour and freerunning moves is you saw their style come into what we decided to teach them whether it be like breakdancing skateboarding whatever art you come from initially you can see that translated through parkour so it was a lot of that gymnastic Flair in their Webster's as they were doing them once it got their confidence levels up they got cleaner they got smoother they look cooler and they did them better than we did that was really cool I think they crushed it it looked like they were a lot more comfortable than I feel doing it and I tried to pick up little technique notes that I can work towards I think that move was really fun we definitely were more comfortable with it I think it was the most similar to a gymnastics movement this is my favorite like exercise or challenge of the day I think goes the closest thing to gymnastics and what were used to and I was really excited to just flip around and be able to flip off the wall and try to get back those landings again but overall was a really fun time now that you've tried a bunch of the different techniques we're gonna see if we can put them all together into a line and that line will be starting with a precision jump going into a cat pass and jumping into a swing trying to land that swing right into a foot I think the way it's set up right now you might be able to do it better than us that was awesome I'd love to see you add a cat pass into your into your run here or here onto the wall [Music] I think today went really well I think the gymnasts were all able to pick up the technical details of all the skills I think the transitions between the movements could be smoothed out a little bit I thought today was super fun it's always a good time to share the skills and techniques of parkour with people who enjoy movement especially when it's a slightly different movement practice because they can take the skills and techniques and use them in a slightly different way probably a way that I wouldn't think of yeah the girls killed it today I think oftentimes the gymnastics we're all trying to hit this like perfect 10 or hit this perfect routine and oftentimes it does look similar the only times we really get to like show our personalities like through our dancing or whether you're like a more technical gymnast or like a more rhythmic power gymnast but with parkour no one will do a certain obstacle course the same so you kind of can see everyone's like unique style and rhythm when they go through the motion it was fun to watch them like explore the environment and kind of do it the way they think they should do it instead of the way we're telling them to do it because essentially that's what parkour is like you moved through your environment how you think it's safe and efficient so watching them explore that was the best part I think my favorite move or the coolest one was to see Mike swing from the different bars and kind of incorporate the gymnastics moves that I know into parkour and it was really crazy to see him do that it was really cool to see might do two skills that we do in gymnastics and then do this crazy jump over to another bar and land on it and I think the easiest skill is probably the flipping at the end just cuz it was something that we know best I really like little Shay off the bar and then do the Webster after it and having it be like two distinct motions but able to do it together watching the way that they incorporated their style into Webster's made me look at my techniques and think wow I should probably clean my stuff up and make it maybe even look a little bit more gymnastic in its execution as well I think the hardest might have been the cat pass just because the movements are so different from gymnastics and the technique was different the hardest part for me was the precision landing just eyeing the spot that I have to land on and then getting there in a safe manner wasn't always so easy but I think once we got into the rhythm of it became a little bit easier I think what was really reinforced for me today is if you connect with the foundation of movement that people have that they're able to pick up the skills that we're teaching them a lot easier I think everyone should try it especially if you're if you used to be a gymnast or you want to just try something new I think it's definitely something everyone should try Oh [Music]

Channel: SELF

Views: 4,866,544

Rating: 4.9243274 out of 5

Keywords: gymnasts, parkour, try to keep up, gymnasts try to keep up, gymnasts try to keep up with parkour, parkour experts, freerunners, parkour vs gymnasts, freerunners vs gymnasts, traceurs, tracuer, try to keep up self, gymnast vs parkour, gymnast vs freerunner, free runner, trying to keep up, parkour try to keep up, gymnast try to keep up, self, self try to keep up, parkour expert, parkour athlete, gymnast parkour, gymnast free runner

Id: Y7IooT-CLnk

Length: 19min 4sec (1144 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 30 2019