It rocked so much I figured I'd do a bit of hunting and its from a french movie called Banlieue 13. Apparently theres a whole huge underground culture that practises this sort of stuff. Its called "free running" or Le Parkour by the frenchies and the people who do it are known as Traceurs.

A few movies also with Parkour in them are Yamakasi - Les samouraïs des temps modernes which apparently has a really crappy plot but great action scenes, and Fils du vent, Les (Sons of the Wind), which also has a rather shallow story but combines Parkour with martial arts and asskicking.

Theres also been a couple of Documentaries made in Britian, but I dunno how easy they'd be to get over here. Jump London and Jump Britian.

a "bit" of hunting ? nice work old chap. meticulous research skills and presented well. i'll give u an A+

Heh, I was looking for new and interesting ways to procrastinate, and this s*** is pretty cool!

Theres groups of guys who go around touring and doing shows and stuff, but so far it doesn't seem to be outside of Europe :(

They look like trouble makers so i assume we won't give them visas :P

After some more procrastination I found these forums, which have a section for Australian and NZ Traceurs. Still seems like a pretty small movement here though, and nobodys gone professional with it or anything, but they meet up regularly for practise and jam sessions which would be pretty cool to watch :)

higher quality version of the original that i posted (for those that missed it)

http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=B13-Parkour-bizarsite

woooah spook, that video is awesome :D (i like the part where he jumps through the little section of glass in the door)

Me and my mates useto do hedge jumping, then as we got older we made up "Neighbourhood Watching" where we would run through peoples propertys at insane hours of the night. Park on a road, then freestyle over hedges, fences, barking dogs etc till we got through to another street, with another mates car waiting to whisk us away.

edit: he looks like the guy that Nike got to do that kind of stuff on their adds awhile ago

last edited by bonsai_boy at 08:31:18 09/Aug/05

Yeah, he is, I found the Nike ads while I was trawling, just didn't bother posting them cos they were rather short and nowhere near as cool as the above clip. The one with the black guy and the angry chicken is kinda cool though, I downloaded it, I'll upload it somewhere, its only a few mb.

Edit: Nike ad with angry chicken

last edited by Khel at 09:29:12 09/Aug/05

That clip is just INSANE!
You would have to do a fair bit of training to come close to doing anything like that.
Anyone have any background on what some of these guys have done to become so agile? Martial Arts? Gymnastics?

Lots of them seem to come from backgrounds like being stuntmen or dancers, stuff that emphasises flexibility over strength I guess. Also, lots of jump training. This thread on that forum I posted before has some info on some of the training you'd do if you wanted to be able to do that stuff.

That's awesome.

Also the chicken one was ferny :D

I got some friends around Brisbane who do it,
let me know if you want to get in contact with them
(albeit its only like a handful of them).

Most of them are ex bboys/stuntmen/extreme sports ppl.

Yeah it's cool, I've seen the documentary about those guys. The guy who started the whole thing was in a Nike ad. Remember, the one where the black guy is running from the chicken?

Are the guys you know "Vertical Assault"? I saw mention of that group, and they're in brisbane, and it sounded like they do stuff at BBC and at a school in Mitchelton.

Even if I wasn't an overweight geek, I'd never have the flexibility or be light enough on my feet to do this s***, but wow, it sure is cool to watch :)

Yeah awesome vid and skills. I don't know about doing all those jumping/running stunts but I like his workout routine that he had on his website. It's more or less the sort of things I wanted to do to supplement my martial art, so I downloaded it :)

anyone know any other vids of this stuff going around the net?

http://www.freerunninggame.com/

haha cool a game. doesnt look to bad

im not sure about them calling themselves "vertical assault"
but we did used to train at BBC, so it could possibly be them.

Only know one of them - Dave, he used to work at UQ sport/break with us.

Yep, the Brissy Parkour team is Vertical Assault, and I'm in it.

We no longer train at BBC unfortunately, but usually jam on a Saturday, beginning in the city or Southbank.

Guys, if you're keen, come to a jam and check it out. It doesn't matter how newb or pro you may think you are, come along and watch at least! Everyone is supportive and friendly.

FYI, session info at http://qldfreeflow.pctmail.net/index.php?op=home



last edited by Jerds at 20:16:03 09/Aug/05

diese1, was dave a tall asian guy?

... Mmm.

ah yah, well i dunno if Daves in vertical assault - all i know is he does that stuff. He used to train at BBC (back in the days that we used to train there) and i heard he kept going (i assume for parkour reasons)

And yah Daves the tall half asian dude - really ripped figure.

i got a copy of that banlieue 13.. its pretty cool :]

more of the same

http://www.jokaroo.com/extremevideos/stuntbrothers.html

Wicked, Wicked ... Jungle is massive