When you think about all of the sports that could be played around the increasing sprawl of buildings one comes to mind. The growing sport of Parkour is one.
If you are in the dark about the sport of Parkour, remember that scene from Casino Royale with Cro-Magnon Bond chasing the bomb maker for the evil guy with the bleeding eye. Ok, that was a bad example.
Parkour is French for the “art of movement,” and is the sport of moving efficiently in a space. Mainly it means overcoming obstacles in an environment. If you don’t understand that, then you go over stuff in order to go somewhere else while not falling off of a building.
Some would argue that not falling off of a building is not a sport, and that is a valid argument. There is no organization to the sport and no real hierarchy in partaking of Parkour. But it is a physical activity that an out of shape man could not do, versus anyone hyped up on caffeine could dominate a couple rounds of “Counter-Strike,” and in the opinion of me this counts.
For those who do Parkour, they have proper names for themselves. Men who Parkour are called Tracuers for some odd reason that escapes me. The word itself derived from the French verb for tracing. But I do not see them tracing much of anything. And women who decide that the risk of near death from running over a building is a great idea are called Tracueses for the sake of appeasing the French into thinking their language still has relevance.
The sport has some basic moves to master in order to be considered competent in make believing you’re Spiderman. The move the beginner will master the most, the landing, is falling onto the ground with your knees bent. To add to the difficulty, you have to be on the balls of your feet.
Once the prospective Tracuer has put up with that complex maneuver, there are some more enjoyable moves for the trained Spiderman impersonator. One that is most well known is the speed vault, in which the Tracuer braces on a wall and pushes off to go over a wall or other impediment. Another advanced move is the under bar, which you swing over stuff.
So go enjoy Parkour if you feel the need to trapeze off of buildings, like your life has any meaning or anything.