Helpful hints


Health wise

Ideally, anyone wishing to parkour is very fit, and had martial arts, or gymnastics training (preferably both).
It's not absolutely necessary, but if definitely helps. Many of us saw the videos of parkour online, then rushed
out and tried to do it ourselves (monkey see, monkey do). The lucky few of us who don't wind up in hospital after
our first 'run', discover we're not as fit as we thought we were. The next day/s are often filled with extremely sore joints
muscles, scrapes & bruises. One of the most popular places to start parkouring in is a local playground. They are
set up specifically for physical activity, and often have some nice soft ground covering. Remember to start
small, don't go and jump off a building straight away. The applies to each 'session'. Just run around for a
few minutes at the beginning, jumping small objects at first, just to get into the rhythm of it.
A few stretches always help too.

Jogging is a great way to keep fit, as it improves your stamina, leg strength and is a good way to find new
parkour spots. Obviously a good diet is essential for anyone doing parkour, or any other regular physical activity.
Parkour is high impact, so remember to keep them bones strong with lots of calcium. Their are some physics equations
that I half remember from high school that essentially tell us that the heavier an object is, the harder it hits the
ground, so if you're using parkour to get rid of some excess weight, try to avoid the big jumps for awhile
(fun fact: parkour has helped a few people slim down).

I have a confession to make, I'm a sugar junkie. This is bad as it really saps your stamina. I used to take some
sugared snacks along to get a bit of an energy boost, but it doesn't last long, and you feel really wrecked at the end.

IMPORTANT: Do NOT, drink alcohol, or take any drugs before a session. Some people (not us), take
a little 'something' to boost their confidence, and/or lower their pain threshold. This is a big no-no, as parkour
requires a high level of awareness, and good reflexes. Parkour is dangerous, and people have died parkouring. The
classic case was a guy who saw a parkour video, got drunk then tried to jump from the top of a six-storey high
parking garage onto a neighbouring building...he didn't make it.

The other two problems we face are tiredness, and overconfidence. Even the most professional professionals
of parkour have a bad accident from time to time. Below is Adelaide PK's own Shady, having some bad luck with
a double rail jump. As you can see his leg got caught on the first railing, then fell onto the second railing, flipping onto
his neck on the other side, much pain. This was attempted at the end of a long day spent parkouring in the city. A
picture of him successfully clearing the rails from a previous 'run' can be found in our pics section,
see if you can find it.




Never parkour alone

We've all had our share of bumps, scrapes and bruises from parkour. We've found that having someone standing by with a mobile, and
that all important 000 number in mind, is a good precaution, and one less thing the parkourist/s have to worry about. Also, parkouring tends
to attract attention, eg. security, and it pays to have someone back up your story of "Hey we're just doing some parkour, man!" Also,
you gotta have someone to take the photos/videos, and carry everything while you have all the fun. Sometimes crews get lucky
and the find someone who just wants to do the camera work, and not parkour, but most times you'll have to take turns.
Another problem, is that the number of psychos on the loose in our cities is increasing, and a lone parkourist looks an
easier target than


Be aware of your environment

I once stuffed up a simple fence jump, and landed right in the middle of the Glenelg tram tracks. Fortunately,
no trams around at the time. It was embarrassing, but could have been much worse, remember getting out of the
way of large metal objects is extremely tricky when injured, or unconscious. My advice, stay away from active
train/tram tracks and roadways (don't go parkouring through traffic, even if it's standing still).

Also do a quick check to make sure any surface you're planning to put any of your weight onto isn't slippery,
crumbling (brickwork, cement, etc), covered in sharp pointy things (some buildings put rows of spikes on top of ledges
to keep birds off them, they are painful, avoid them!), moss, treesap and good old bidsh*t. Also, not all rails are as
solid as they look, a quick shake test, and inspection of a rails anchoring is always a good idea.

Landing zones.

Jumping is fun, and long as you don't f*ck up the landing. Wet grass, mud and gravel are bad surfaces to
land on. The beach is good because of all the nice soft sand (most days). However sand is tricky to pk roll on,
gets everywhere (AAAAUGH, MY $500 CAMERA!), and you don't want to limit yourself location-wise.
If your planning to do vaults, leaps, etc over a wall, make sure there's nothing (bottles, bins, people,
a 3 storey drop!) unexpected waiting on the other side. Even is you've jumped a wall a 1000 times,
is no guarantee there won't be anything there this time.


Adelaide

Parkour rose to prominence in Europe, which has many interesting places, and architecture that seem perfect
for parkour. Adelaide also has some really wacky architecture/art laying around. A walk along North Tce in the city
can be great fun. Glenelg has some nice areas, not just the jetty either. Below is a picture of the amphitheater at the
Adelaide festival centre located at the corner of King William St and North Tce. Exploring this area is worthwhile,
we like to go back to it every now and then. Just remember, people are touchy when it comes to other people
mucking about on their buildings properties, so try to avoid running over rooftops you don't own.




Adelaide PK history

We found out about Parkour through the Internet, and after doing a bit of research
(checking out pics and vids). We found some really good sites  (eg. Urbanfreeflow), some which
featured tips for people wanting to try it out for themselves. Following a few links we found crews popping up all
over the place, even here in Australia. The next step, of course, was to check if it had cropped up here in Adelaide too.
It hadn't. Of course by this time we'd already gone out trying to parkour by ourselves. Our first 'run' attempt took place
on New years Eve 2004 at about 8pm on a local playground. We we're doing anything really hardcore, just a few
small jumps, and swinging around on the equipment. We discovered that it had been a long time since
any of us had done anything this physical for a long time, but we weren't completely hopeless.

Over the weeks that followed we would go out around our local area doing a bit more each time. We were a
little surprised at how quickly the basics of parkour were to pick up. This led to a few overconfidence stuff-ups,
but I'm happy to say that since we've started doing this we've yet to suffer any major injuries (we've come damn
close to a hospital trip more than once though). It was after a few months of 'training', there was still nobody else
parkouring in Adelaide, and I'd just bought a digital camera. We started taking a few pics on our 'runs' and were
happy to see some of those pics were fairly good. We submitted a few to Urbanfreeflows "Pic of the week"
and were happily amazed when some of them got featured. People started showing an interest in our
'work'. Shortly after, Adelaide PK hit the Internet.

The name: We went through a lot of names before settling on Adelaide PK. We went with PK as
a kind of shorthand for Parkour, it's good we did as shortly after there was a big split in the Parkour
community over what could actually be classified as Parkour. The original founder David Belle wasn't
happy with most of the new crews popping up that were relying more on stunt moves, than actually
flowing through the urban environment (core to his Parkour philosophy). Our PK neatly sidesteps
around this, we don't claim to be hardcore Parkourists. Many of the new Parkour groups have
decided to separate themselves from the core Parkourists, like Belle, and 'do their thing'
under the banner of 'Freestyle Parkour', we are one of them.