Comments on: Gymnastics, but entertaining.

Gymnastics, but entertaining.

TwelveTwo — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:50:55 -0800

Parkour is nothing new. It has been posted about before. However, what is new is this stunning example of the gymnastics in action. Watch, enjoy.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:01:07 -0800

badass

By: goatdog

goatdog — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:02:17 -0800

Parkour? That video is mind-blowing.

By: Kickstart70

Kickstart70 — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:04:39 -0800

Pretty amazing. Makes me wish I was a little less careful in my youth and in a lot better shape.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:09:27 -0800

The purpose of Russians is to flip out and kill people.

By: tula

tula — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:14:12 -0800

batshitinsane, but in a good way.

By: anthill

anthill — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:16:02 -0800

The french hip hop was an excellent soundtrack. There were some killer moves in there - the sheer red brick wall one was the most unexpected. I read once that the original 'purist' parkour has no fancy flips or tricks, and aims to traverse a space in as straight a line as possible. That seems like almost a more noble way to play the game - just take off like an arrow and let nothing stop you. Not even a Lada. :)

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:17:47 -0800

Reminded me of first learning how to do the wall kick jump in Mario on N64 - because it seemed so implausible. Great video.

By: gsteff

gsteff — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:22:45 -0800

Holy fuck. Those guys should become criminals.

By: TwelveTwo

TwelveTwo — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:24:53 -0800

Or crime fighters! No criminal could escape them!

By: vernondalhart

vernondalhart — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:28:45 -0800

Man, that reminded me of games like Prince of Persia. Except that I thought that those sorts of moves were just made up. Apparently not. Wow.

By: Baby_Balrog

Baby_Balrog — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:30:31 -0800

man i wish i could do that so bad.

By: Mr_Zero

Mr_Zero — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:33:16 -0800

They are like big spiders.

By: booksandlibretti

booksandlibretti — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:36:10 -0800

That's insanely awesome, and not just because all the gymnastics in empty warehouses reminded me of Kevin Bacon in Footloose. It really viscerally brought home to me that humans are animals, and our bodies were made to do more than get us from A to B. Or at least, they can get us from A to B more interestingly than they do now, and sometimes to X, Y, and Z without benefit of P or Q. Seriously, how long until this is Nike's newest, hippest ad?

By: filchyboy

filchyboy — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:38:24 -0800

Actually I belief Nike has already run an ad revolving around parkour in France.

By: arcticwoman

arcticwoman — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:41:33 -0800

Or superheroes.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:44:40 -0800

So *that's* what those eastern European gymnasts do after they turn 17 and get dropped from the squad...roid-rage through delapidated housing estates!

By: scarabic

scarabic — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:45:16 -0800

Fucking OW my creaky body hurts so goddamn BAD after watching that dang VIDEO. THANKS

By: nightchrome

nightchrome — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:48:21 -0800

I too wish I had found this stuff back when I was young and stupid (and in shape).

By: longdaysjourney

longdaysjourney — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:56:23 -0800

I want to see the blooper reel.

By: shinynewnick

shinynewnick — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 06:09:50 -0800

That last link just takes me to an empty Google Video search result for "russian". Anyone else have this problem?

By: banished

banished — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 06:10:26 -0800

Video no longer working.

By: 13twelve

13twelve — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 06:11:25 -0800

the link doesnt seem to work for me; I just get a google video search page saying its returned no results

By: kika

kika — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 06:11:47 -0800

Your search - russian did not return any results.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 06:23:01 -0800

I think it's a temporary problem with google video. No videos seem to be serving up.

By: shoepal

shoepal — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 06:23:04 -0800

(another parkour themed thread of yore)

By: hypersloth

hypersloth — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 07:45:36 -0800

ditto: Your search - russian did not return any results. :(

By: vernondalhart

vernondalhart — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 08:16:57 -0800

Huh. The video worked for me last night, but it isn't now. That's too bad.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 08:49:42 -0800

Can anyone mirrror it? Please?

By: stumcg

stumcg — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 08:53:48 -0800

yes, interest piqued but no video at the end of the google rainbow :'(

By: callmejay

callmejay — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 10:18:45 -0800

It's working again. I can't believe the athleticism of those guys. I'm very jealous.

By: alms

alms — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 10:20:44 -0800

Just got the video at 1:15 EST. I was disappointed for the first two minutes. Then, wow. I thought you needed special effects to do stuff like that.

By: kenko

kenko — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 11:18:59 -0800

That first jump onto the pillar is pretty fucking awesome.

By: Freen

Freen — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 11:21:11 -0800

I'd like to second the "batshitinsane" comment above.

By: kosher_jenny

kosher_jenny — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 11:27:33 -0800

...Spiderman? Nightwing? Seriously, these guys should become crime fighters. That was bad ass.

By: vronsky

vronsky — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:32:23 -0800

Jackie Chan who?

By: dhartung

dhartung — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:05:09 -0800

Why did he call Kottke at the end?

By: jouke

jouke — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:08:12 -0800

Strange: russians with french hip-hop. Unlike other parkour vids this one has a storyline. What happened in the end?

By: jcruelty

jcruelty — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:31:30 -0800

holy moly!

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 14:00:52 -0800

It loaded slowly for me. But holy shit. It may be redundant to repeat what everone else has said, but that shit is bananas. Incredible.

By: dontoine

dontoine — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 14:47:21 -0800

kinda reminded me of soccer practice

By: hincandenza

hincandenza — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 14:50:27 -0800

UbuRoivas: So *that's* what those eastern European gymnasts do after they turn 17 and get dropped from the squad...roid-rage through delapidated housing estates!

He meant it as a joke, but I have the same thought about these Parkour videos; you'd have to be an insanely well-trained gymnast to do these stunts, because you simply can't learn some of this stuff in a short while. You'd have to be in peak condition, and trained as a gymnast, to even start training for and attempting these maneuvers. For example, early in this video he's climbed to a roof top, and leaps over what looks to be not a wall, but the pit of an elevator shaft. Um... you can only make a mistake on a lot of these stunts one time. That supreme confidence in your strength, and accuracy, and spatial judgment, is not going to come from practicing in the parking lot like some skaters who forgot their boards one day. I never tire of these Parkour videos, and it really does reinforce how extraordinary the human body can be. No other animal on earth can do this. Other animals can be immensely faster, stronger, more agile in certain circumstances, but when it comes down to it human beings are probably the greatest physical specimen on earth, due to the asset of their minds. What other animal could imagine ways of climbing walls like that? There's one edit where they are viewed from the side leaping over some manhole cover type object, and the way they jump looks literally like some savannah animal: they come from the right side of the frame, body's elongated and horizontal, and as their hand touches the concrete, their legs come whirling into view to propel them forward. Looks just like some cheetah propelling itself at full speed.

By: hincandenza

hincandenza — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 14:54:12 -0800

Oh, and a question: the opening techno music, that also ended the video (with that simple piano riff)... I've heard that before in other things, commercials, etc. What is that?

By: turbodog

turbodog — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:03:19 -0800

It's "Clubbed To Death (Kurayamino Mix)" by Rob D from the Matrix soundtrack.

By: poweredbybeard

poweredbybeard — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 15:53:23 -0800

What other animal could imagine ways of climbing walls like that? There's one edit where they are viewed from the side leaping over some manhole cover type object, and the way they jump looks literally like some savannah animal: they come from the right side of the frame, body's elongated and horizontal, and as their hand touches the concrete, their legs come whirling into view to propel them forward. Looks just like some cheetah propelling itself at full speed. "No other animals are as agreat as us! Except for the animals which I shall now list." Humans weren't the first to think up climbing stuff. Nonetheless, parkour = infinite awesome.

By: armage

armage — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:13:15 -0800

The guys behind this are the Dvinsk Clan (Russian), and apparently style themselves as "gangstas". But you can download the FPP video (wmv) as well as another one that they've done. (The server is SLOW, so be kind.) (There's also one where three of them jump off a wall nude, but I'll let you find it yourselves, if you're so inclined.) Here's a list of more excellent parkour videos from Urban Freeflow, the main Parkour message board.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 16:45:50 -0800

Those guys should become criminals. Luc Besson already thought of that. About 15 years ago.

By: poweredbybeard

poweredbybeard — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:14:26 -0800

whoah, sorry, i came across sounding way more like a dick than i'd intended there.

By: papakwanz

papakwanz — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:56:11 -0800

Just add my voice to the chorus proclaiming: "Jeez, wish they'd had this back when I was young, in shape, and fearless/stupid"

By: hincandenza

hincandenza — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 18:46:44 -0800

Yeah, you kind of did, poweredbybeard- although you missed my point. My point was, even though humans are generally regarded as weak compared to other animals, from a physical stand point, stuff like this, or marathons, shows that our ability to make our bodies do some amazing things puts us physically above all other animals, even without talking about how we can invent technology to assist us. My point being, animals that can climb like us can't run like us, or swim like us. We're fantastically diverse... and that one clip, where those guys looked like cheetahs in full gallop, reminded me how much we are animals. We can look like galloping cheetahs in one moment, and clamboring monkeys the next, and leaping gazelles in yet another. I can't think of a single predator that could catch one of these guys through all the different terrains they could cover.

By: TrinityB5

TrinityB5 — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:32:10 -0800

hm, still trying to figure out how to actually download these files, for offline and on the go-viewing on my handheld...

By: darkstar

darkstar — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:33:05 -0800

Last night I watched the news from Washington, the capital. The Russians escaped while we weren't watching them, like Russians will. Now we know how they did it.

By: breath

breath — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 20:10:12 -0800

I can't think of a single predator that could catch one of these guys through all the different terrains they could cover. Isn't that one dude running from a dog in one part of the video? He loses it right after he dives through a car window, out the other side of the car, and then vaults over some sort of pole/fence. It looks pretty extemporaneous, which is to the credit of the editor. I wonder what the outtakes were like.

By: anthill

anthill — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 07:50:11 -0800

Here's a silly little Parkour game courtesy of the CBC. Kinda fun, but short.

By: alms

alms — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 11:45:14 -0800

A very sad story about why videos like this should come with the disclaimer: do not try this at home.