Parkour, or free running, which initially was made famous through the film industry, is now gaining momentum in Russia, as RT’s Roman Kosarev reports.
Can you call it a sport if your performance is not rated? Well, these free runners do not care what you call their art form.Parkour practitioners, also known as tracers, are growing in number across Europe and the discipline is now making headway in Russia as well.Dan Edwardes regularly travels the world giving seminars and presentations on parkour, with this being his third visit to Moscow.His arrival always turns into a great spectacle put on by his Russian associates. An all-day outdoor party promotes not only a healthy lifestyle, but also raises doubts about the very laws of physics.Russia's climate does not allow for year-round outdoor parkour. But that is exactly the art's philosophy: to overcome an obstacle insurmountable in everyday life. “I understand that Russians don't have many opportunities to practice parkour, especially in winter when it’s cold and everything is covered with snow. Despite that, I was impressed with their technique and believe it has a future here,” says free runner Williams Belle.The global parkour community truly has no boundaries, with the world's youth united under similar slogans, which are to be healthy in body and spirit through the attainment of flexibility, reflexes, co-ordination and most importantly self-discipline.