Don't have vertigo? Are ya sure?

January 11, 2021 3:29 PM

7 minutes and change of first person POV parkour from Storror.
posted by juv3nal (31 comments total)

Not safe for shingle roofs, archaeological sites, or people with knees.
posted by Nelson at 3:35 PM on January 11, 2021 [11 favorites]

I definitely do have (mild) vertigo so I stopped at the 4m mark, but around 3:45 they jump over a downed small plane in the midst of nothing which means, hilariously, these parkour enthusiasts trekked out to this lone downed plane to do about 3 seconds of parkour.
posted by axiom at 3:44 PM on January 11, 2021

I am usually entertained by watching parkour but I was just so struck right away at how silly they all looked, given the way this was shot. [not that silliness isn't entertaining!]
posted by stevil at 3:51 PM on January 11, 2021

This reminds me of the animation from Tarzan (1999) with the vine-surfing sequences. It's beautiful, and the fact that if it doesn't work, it's <ominous voice>Curtains For You<ominous> gives it an added frisson.
posted by spacewrench at 4:30 PM on January 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

Survivorship bias.

There were actually 500 people filming the same videos.
posted by GuyZero at 4:36 PM on January 11, 2021 [18 favorites]

It's cool to see the energy that would break your leg or dislocate your shoulder converted into a roll or twist and then dissipated. Are these the same guys from some YT videos I recall of a couple people being disturbingly nonchalant atop various aerial antennae around the world? I like these better.
posted by spacewrench at 4:40 PM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I can almost see the cartilage health meter dropping with every 15 ft drop. But I'm already old 'n busted.
posted by benzenedream at 4:40 PM on January 11, 2021 [7 favorites]

gives it an added frisson

{confused} looks up word,... " YES!!! that IS the sensation!"
double checks @ Wikipedia|Chills Frisson "Now that's what I thought that meant!"
huh?

Wiktionary matches the Wordnik; but the discrepency between Wikipedia and the straight definitions seems they're nearly opposite to me. Do others experience the two similarly?
posted by rubatan at 4:46 PM on January 11, 2021

I was fine until about 4:16 when leeeans over that edge
posted by not_the_water at 5:22 PM on January 11, 2021 [6 favorites]

But I'm already old 'n busted.

This is something I wish I could do too, but I used up my cartilage on other activities, before you could get somebody with a drone to film it. (Part of the attraction is being able to watch the movie, but I'm sure there's plenty of "this is hard and exacting, but after a lot of practice, I can nail it. ... Did'ja see that?")
posted by spacewrench at 5:25 PM on January 11, 2021

I definitely do have (mild) vertigo so I stopped at the 4m mark

This was wise; the leaning-over-the-edge moment that not_the_water mentions above is UTTERLY TERRIFYING in a visceral leaning-back-in-your-chair-to-try-to-counterbalance-it way. Ooof.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:05 PM on January 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

Thoughts in my head while watching this:
* Oh, this transition looks a whole lot like someone falling to their death and respawning.
* If these guys can do this, why can't witcher dude walk up an incline of more than 20 degrees?

Probably been playing too many video games, honestly.
posted by kaibutsu at 6:45 PM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I enjoy the use and misuse of all surfaces and objects as opportunities; I've never worked to design people out and parkour/free running makes all of that futile anyway. This was the first parkour vid I ever saw, it's more real, (somewhat) less contrived.

3:13 landing atop a wharf pile, urghhh, there must be a lot of lingering and ... almost instant deaths
posted by unearthed at 7:07 PM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

I was fine until 4:25 in the video, on the edge of the skyscraper.

It engaged my nope reflex pretty hard, and I noped out shortly thereafter.
posted by darkstar at 7:27 PM on January 11, 2021

\Trying to identify the locations. I'm guessing Mumbai, Jaipur, Paris, London, Cairo(?)
posted by ocschwar at 7:42 PM on January 11, 2021

The editing on that is surreal and hallucinatory. I'm usually into this kind of video and like thrills but that was fucking intense. I'm not even particularly agoraphobic but I had to hit pause a few times and take a break.

I also reacted verbally at about 4:20ish with the lean over that skyscraper, which I've seen before in other videos, including the guy on the BMX bike riding the wall and bunny hopping across some features.


Anyway, here's a choose your own comment adventure!

1. Hey i used to do dumb shit like OH HOLY SHIT NOOOOOOOOO.

2. Ow, my fat old bones.

3. Thanks for the leaky roof, kid!

4. What the fuck was that noise on the roof!? There it is again!

5. Seriously?

6. No seriously, what the fuck are you doing on my balcony?

7. NOPE NOPE NOPE.

8. Please stop. You're going to go splat. Like a melon. It's going to be really gross and ruin someone else's day.

9. Ok, how often do you wear out a pair of pants and shoes doing all that, every day or so?

10. I want to get off of Mr. Toad's Wild Ride!
posted by loquacious at 8:00 PM on January 11, 2021 [4 favorites]

I didn't used to have a problem with vertigo/heights but a couple of near accidents with dodgy ladders over very deep drops in 1989 put me off. My palms were very perspirey

ocswar a lot of Storrer's UK stuff appears to be made in Hampshire, lots of large urban areas, ports and installations

There's a good roof run, really dodgy, about 7:03 (also here @ 5:00 watch for next 5 secs or so), consequences of a miss would be bad. IDK how much they check/garden routes b4 they run, I've built a lot of buildings and most surfaces are finished rough - protruding rivets/screws/nails, weak areas, sharp areas on roofing...

For something more guerilla try SHIEY. IDK this guy's long for this world, but he's sure exploring some boundaries legal and physical.
posted by unearthed at 8:14 PM on January 11, 2021

I'm generally fonder of the style of parkour where they aren't familiar with the route so it's more down to earth than the ten-foot leaps across rooftops, but the video is certainly intense!
posted by tavella at 8:46 PM on January 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

This prompted me to look up how frequent serious injuries or death are in parkour, and while they have certainly happened, they're not especially common. I guess the trick is to train and learn the terrain enough that it's safe to can do crazy shit that I could never in a million years even consider.

Also, I found the cuts between location visually pretty cool, but I think the disorientation they incurred on the balance lessened the video for it. ("What oh I guess we're here now" was like 10% of my time watching it)
posted by aubilenon at 8:58 PM on January 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

The heights did not bother me. My knees truly ached after about 2 minutes. Being in my late 50s, I could probably, if I practiced, jump over a crack in the sidewalk. As a parent of 3 20 somethings, I wonder if these kid's parents know what they are up to. I guess my kids could be doing it and I do not know it, and the one in the military probably is doing worse (with a weapon in hand).

Ah. Youth, those were the days.
posted by AugustWest at 9:37 PM on January 11, 2021

Loved the mall cop in the early minutes, "Can you just get down from there?"
posted by chavenet at 2:54 AM on January 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

"Parkour!" ^{©Harry Dresden}
posted by TheophileEscargot at 5:22 AM on January 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

I started getting queasy about 1 minute in, even though I don't think of myself as having vertigo. The video is beautiful but kind of repetitious, and I asked myself "Why am I putting myself through this?", so I stopped watching.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:47 AM on January 12, 2021

I'm guessing Mumbai, Jaipur, Paris, London, Cairo(?)

and Portishead.

I was like No, boys, stop it, for most of the video. On the other hand I like the routes that are systematic and quirky rather than just ... if ANYTHING unplanned for happens you're dead. If you don't like your life that much then where's the jeopardy? It's boring really: hot-headed rascal does stupid risky things. But I liked the stepped balcony descent, the more topographically interesting ravines, and Portishead (here's a 'how we did it.')
posted by glasseyes at 8:05 AM on January 12, 2021

If I was an arthroscopic surgeon, I'd probably be screaming at these people.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:17 AM on January 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

spacewrench, maybe it's Mustang Wanted you were thinking of?
posted by Caxton1476 at 9:52 AM on January 12, 2021

Here's a short compilation of Mustang Wanted dances with death
posted by Caxton1476 at 9:54 AM on January 12, 2021

I'm guessing Mumbai, Jaipur, Paris, London, Cairo(?)

The second location (at 0:16), with all the hot air balloons is Cappadocia, Turkey.
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 12:25 PM on January 12, 2021

I assumed "Storror" was the dread of driving a moving truck on Storrow Drive
posted by dismas at 12:50 PM on January 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

Agree with Gomez, Cappadocia with the balloons. I just wish they'd quit tearing the shit out of the unique and fragile "fairy chimney" rock formations by sliding down them.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:02 PM on January 12, 2021 [2 favorites]

I made it one minute and fifteen seconds before I had to call it quits. But very cool for sure.
posted by sjswitzer at 1:15 PM on January 13, 2021