Huh, so that's what it's like to feel like a superhero.
July 5, 2013 7:16 AM   Subscribe

 
Why does the camera cut out just as he's about to land on the opposite building ledge and resumes somewhere else? Did he not make it, and now he's restarting the level from the beginning?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 7:20 AM on July 5, 2013 [11 favorites]


Now I know that being a superhero is like playing Mirror's Edge.
posted by Dodecadermaldenticles at 7:21 AM on July 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


I happened to have this Sly & Robbie remix playing when I opened the video, and it works eerily well as a soundtrack.
posted by googly at 7:36 AM on July 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


Funny cuz I was playing "Jumpin' Jack Flash" when I opened the video!
posted by stevil at 7:44 AM on July 5, 2013


The guys that do this type of activity must need knee replacements before they're 40.
posted by zzazazz at 7:46 AM on July 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


I was going to say, googly, that the soundtrack for the original video made made this more watchable for me than it might've been otherwise.

Parkour makes me uncomfortable, but the soothing tune (and, I think, the slow motion) made this less freaky for me.
posted by elmer benson at 7:46 AM on July 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


I feel like it would work better with this soundtrack.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:02 AM on July 5, 2013


His hands sure do hit the concrete and asphalt quite often. You'd think he'd wear gloves.
posted by COD at 8:02 AM on July 5, 2013


Intense. I would like to see the unedited video(s). Also, that guy's shadow looks like someone I hate.
posted by IvoShandor at 8:17 AM on July 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


His hands sure do hit the concrete and asphalt quite often. You'd think he'd wear gloves.

And be called a hack the rest of his life?!
posted by dobbs at 8:43 AM on July 5, 2013


pants smell bad now
posted by flabdablet at 8:49 AM on July 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


That scaffolding part is so scary!
posted by oceanjesse at 8:54 AM on July 5, 2013


Neat, but frustrat *cut* to wa *cut* kind *cut* of li *cut* a mus *cut* video.
posted by jferg at 9:07 AM on July 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


I have a few reactions to this.
  1. The damn blur after each cut made me feel like he was escaping from some institution and shot by a tranquilizer dart ("I made it to the wall today before they tranked me.").
  2. If I owned the buildings with the metal roofing, I'd be seriously pissed that someone was jumping on them. Just because they appear to support the weight of you jumping on them doesn't mean that they are designed to. This type of behavior is something over which I get into conflict with my son constantly (usually having to deal with jumping onto antique furniture). He's 6.
  3. I'm sure he's well-trained, but failure mode for a lot of those fall into the lethal category. Hope he doesn't have any children.
tl;dr parenting and home ownership have made me into a wet blanket.
posted by plinth at 9:20 AM on July 5, 2013 [18 favorites]


Just imagining what happens if you miss the scaffolding by a couple of inches (or if the designed-to-be-temporary structure breaks under the sudden impact) is giving me the cold sweats.

But I can't even ride roller coasters without thinking to myself that ride maintenance is probably a very boring job and that the guys who do it every day probably get into the habit of skimming the safety checks on some of the less likely trouble spots and what if today is the day it finally breaks?

I am torn between admiration and shouting JESUS CHRIST IT'S A [long fall] GET IN THE CAR.
posted by Scattercat at 9:31 AM on July 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


1m14s: dat grip strength!
posted by Skorgu at 9:31 AM on July 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


But I can't even ride roller coasters without thinking to myself that ride maintenance is probably a very boring job and that the guys who do it every day probably get into the habit of skimming the safety checks on some of the less likely trouble spots and what if today is the day it finally breaks?

I am considerably happier on rides within the West than riding ex-Soviet roller coasters/cablecars/light aircraft for this reason.
posted by jaduncan at 9:34 AM on July 5, 2013


I was fine until the scaffolding. By the end of the video I had involuntarily flexed every muscle in my body.
posted by vverse23 at 9:38 AM on July 5, 2013


tl;dr parenting and home ownership have made me into a wet blanket.

That seems to be my reaction, too.

Owning a Grade II listed house means that my reaction around the 2:05-2:08 part was "Damn. Looks like someone lost a slate." That was shortly followed by "I wonder what kind of damage those trainers are doing to the lead?"
posted by generichuman at 9:54 AM on July 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


This video suggests that the essence of parkour is assuming that everything in the world will support your weight.
posted by anazgnos at 9:54 AM on July 5, 2013 [8 favorites]


I like watching stuff, as I am so afraid of heights it affects my gaming. But, with a video, it for some reason it doesn't trigger as much with videos so I can relax a bit and do some lightweight deconditioning.

Pretty awesome, but the cuts really broke the immersion for me.
posted by Samizdata at 9:55 AM on July 5, 2013


The damn blur after each cut made me feel like he was escaping from some institution and shot by a tranquilizer dart ("I made it to the wall today before they tranked me.").

Now I kind of want to pay someone to follow me around with a dart gun during my day, so that every so often I could just make a break for it, and see how far I'd get before getting tagged.

I think it might be a nice way to wind the day down.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 10:04 AM on July 5, 2013 [10 favorites]


With thes P.O.V. videos I find myself wondering how close the camera angle comes to tracking what the person's eyes are actually focusing on. Especially when he does a flip or a roll, the whole world just kind of rolls over, but I am thinking the actual jumper is probably trying to keep his focus on the intended landing spot. But for much of the more basic leaping from spot to spot, that felt pretty convincing.
posted by fikri at 10:12 AM on July 5, 2013


His Youtube channel has more of these, including a POV video of him climbing a tower crane which is cool in a panic-attack-inducing way.
posted by chbrooks at 10:12 AM on July 5, 2013 [4 favorites]


I expected it to end with a 100ft dive into a small haystack.
posted by ghiacursed at 10:16 AM on July 5, 2013 [3 favorites]


Yeah, some of this gave me the same sort of weak in the knees, slightly panicky but interesting fear that you get standing out at the edge of a balcony looking down and imagining...
posted by MartinWisse at 10:28 AM on July 5, 2013


Now I know that being a superhero is like playing Mirror's Edge.

Dear Dice,

Please note that no one has ever said anything like this after watching videos of a lady getting a tattoo or having a fist fight with Future Cops (TM).

Signed, absolutely everyone who enjoyed Mirror's Edge.
posted by straight at 10:38 AM on July 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


Oh, dear god, I literally could not sit still through the crane video. My heart is going a mile a minute! That shit at the end is fucking crazy!
posted by OmieWise at 10:43 AM on July 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


His Youtube channel has more of these, including a POV video of him climbing a tower crane yt which is cool in a panic-attack-inducing way.

Oh hell no. Near the end it becomes terrifying in a butt-cramping, cold-sweating, squirm-inducing kind of way.
posted by vverse23 at 10:49 AM on July 5, 2013


The United States Military Academy makes cadets do their own weirdo version of parkour.
posted by A Bad Catholic at 10:56 AM on July 5, 2013


If I owned the buildings with the metal roofing, I'd be seriously pissed that someone was jumping on them. Just because they appear to support the weight of you jumping on them doesn't mean that they are designed to.

What really had me was him jumping quite a ways down, and landing on the fucking peak of an old expensive looking slate roof. I was actually cringing! Not for fucko, but for the wanton damage to other people's valuable property.

He would get to jump on my roof once. Once.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:12 AM on July 5, 2013 [4 favorites]


so do they test out the routes they take beforehand? because some of the places he's landing, one loose stone and he's dead.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:05 PM on July 5, 2013


Man, the human body is fucking amazingly precise and athletic. We are just so.... cool!
posted by WidgetAlley at 12:07 PM on July 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I like some parkour well enough, but watching him skirt impale-y death in those scaffolds gave me the willies. And definitely hell no to the likely property damage of landing hard on a peak or even roof cladding, which are not designed to withstand that kind of impact.
posted by dhartung at 12:11 PM on July 5, 2013


I have no problem if these guys want to destroy their own buildings. A good friend suffered significant damage to his business when a couple fuckwits put a foot through his roof doing this stuff. I get that it's fun and thrilling, but for crying out loud, do it on your own property. This kind of parkour through public and private (not yours) property is the worst kind of "Fuck you, I got my thrill."
posted by xedrik at 12:20 PM on July 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


I watched that crane video, and I'm guessing that my coworkers did not appreciate all the screaming.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:21 PM on July 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


Some of the rhythm and flow of his movement was really nice, when not being cut up by the editing. Though it made me realise that if I were to try this then I would undoubtedly have a loop in my brain in time with that rhythm going "Nobody's perfect, Nobody's perfect, Nobody's perfect..." That'd probably be off-putting.
posted by MUD at 2:40 PM on July 5, 2013


All I could think about was the inevitable "Amazing first-person video of reconstructive knee surgery" in the near future.
posted by ShutterBun at 3:01 PM on July 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'll do this as soon as this voice in my head quits saying "you will die"...
posted by Mack Twain at 4:15 PM on July 5, 2013


I have decided the new frontier in Youtube videos must be first-person-cam parkour videos spliced with answering your relationship questions (preferably from impossible perches)
posted by furiousthought at 4:34 PM on July 5, 2013


I'd happily kick all of your precious roofs in if I could be this guy for a day.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:41 PM on July 5, 2013 [4 favorites]


He's clearly a nutter, but he's a sincere nutter.
posted by flabdablet at 8:48 PM on July 5, 2013


I have to go and have a lie down on the ground after watching that crane video.
posted by panaceanot at 9:05 PM on July 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's not just the damage to the buildings; runners over one Cambridge Uni building this year knocked off tiles which led to a leak in a library roof which water-damaged hundreds of books (some extremely rare/ancient).
I can see how it must be exhilarating, and make you feel untouchable, but it's a selfish, jerky thing to do when it costs other people so much.
posted by AFII at 11:41 PM on July 5, 2013 [2 favorites]


All I can think about is all the other lifes he's endangering.
I see manslaughter charges in his future.
posted by QueerAngel28 at 11:43 PM on July 5, 2013


COD: "His hands sure do hit the concrete and asphalt quite often. You'd think he'd wear gloves"

You wouldn't be able to have the same grip on things like corners of walls, rails, crane arms, etc. with gloves.
posted by Red Loop at 3:09 AM on July 6, 2013


You know, I didn't think parkour would have so much bird poop.
posted by cyberscythe at 10:16 AM on July 6, 2013


Welp, I watched the crane video. Now I will go lie down on the floor forever.
posted by KathrynT at 1:22 PM on July 6, 2013 [1 favorite]


I do love parkour, and wish my aging body would let me do even a fraction of what we see here; but I tried a few years back and being a decade or two older than most parkour kids meant I wasn't going to get very far and an unrelated illness took me out of the game before I barely got started

Maybe knee caps do need to be replaced at 40, but the sense of freedom, of going where others can't in a way they can't, that can't be replaced. To explore the city while pushing their bodies to a limit that most will never experience, that is beauty.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 12:36 AM on July 8, 2013


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