Free spirit

Leaping tall buildings with a single bound is thought to be the domain of Superman, but Hamilton traceur Barnaby Matthews runs, vaults, leaps and jumps through space using the French-founded discipline, parkour.

"This is where I often come to warm up," says Hamilton teenager Barnaby Matthews, looping his bag over his head and dumping it on the grass beside a large tree behind Bryant Hall at Waikato University.

Grey track pants and a black t-shirt, printed with the words "Reach" and "Escape", hang loosely off his limber frame.

He tests the slipperiness of the green branches with a sneaker, and then bounds into the heart of the tree, jumping cat-like from branch to branch.

Hand over hand, he confidently scampers up a branch, high into the leaves, then propels himself forward, swinging with two hands, throwing himself across space like an acrobat on a jungle gym.

Matthews, a 19-year-old Wintec sports and exercise science student, is a traceur, a practitioner of parkour.

Parkour is an athletic discipline founded by Frenchman David Belle in the 1990s, focused on moving the body from one point to another quickly and efficiently, and overcoming obstacles.

It is not a sport, more a discipline like martial arts, with a mental focus and altruistic philosophy.

Matthews has been doing it for about three or four years, since he was a Hamilton Boys' High School student.

A mate showed him parkour clips on the internet, and he was hooked.

His friend got bored after about six months, but Matthews continued to progress, and has travelled overseas to Australia and France to meet up with other traceurs. "I go to Sydney and random places and meet up with local groups to show me around the good spots."

It appeals to his sense of fun, and desire to challenge his body and mind. "When you are doing it, you are thinking with a playful mind, it's kinda cool. Look at gibbons, with their crazy long arms, swinging through the trees at ridiculous speeds. A lot of traceurs try to imitate certain animals that are really efficient with their movements."

His sense of space is highly developed. "After you've been doing it for a while, you get an eye for it. You know within a centimetre if it is more than you can do," says Matthews. "You start to see the world completely differently to everyone else. Instead of seeing a wall, you see obstacles to be overcome."

THE term parkour derives from parcours du combattant, an obstacle course method of military training developed by French naval officer Georges Hebert during World War I and II. He set up methode naturelle sessions comprising walking, running, jumping quadrupedal movement, climbing, balancing, throwing, lifting, self-defence and swimming.

There was not only a focus on physical development, breathing and energy, but on morality, including helping others.

David Belle was trained in the method by his military-educated firefighter father Raymond Belle, and later developed those techniques into what is now known as parkour.

As martial artists are trained to fight, traceurs are trained for flight and escape.

You can see parkour on YouTube clips, Nike ads and Madonna music videos. The opening scenes of the 2006 Bond movie, Casino Royale features parkour, with Bond chasing the baddie, played by famed traceur Sebastian Foucan.

He makes it look easy scaling fences, jumping between construction site beams high in the air and leaping down several storeys, seemingly defying gravity as he lands with a gentle roll and runs off.

It can be hard work though, demanding top levels of fitness. "You pretty much use every muscle in your body," says Matthews, breathing deeply from his warmup. "I've pretty much been useless at sport until I found this."

Waikato University is one of the only local spots to do parkour. Garden Place is no good, and Waikato Hospital has revamped the area where he used to practise.

The ideal parkour environment features walls and obstacles to jump and go over, sturdy rails to traverse, and stairwells to leap. It can be done in urban or rural landscapes, as long as there are obstacles.

Wellington is the best place in the country, Matthews reckons, but Sydney is better, and the town of Lisses in France, where Belle and Foucan developed the discipline, is the ultimate playground.

"The architecture there is amazing, although most people wouldn't think so. It is flat, blocky with lots of grey buildings and walls, but it is perfect for what we do."

He's been there once, and had a blast, although parkour is more popular in the UK than France.

"It's still quite niche though, not many people know about it."

The gear is inexpensive loose comfortable clothes and good flat sneakers with a bit of grip. Sneakers with a plastic arch instep can make a traceur slip.

"There is no need to join a gym," laughs Matthews, demonstrating a few pull-ups, and running leaps. "Gyms are a waste of money if you know how to use your body and have an education and an open mind."

There are numerous moves, including rolls, drops, balances, vaults, cat jumps and tic-tacing (kicking off a wall to clear an obstacle or get higher to grab something).

But it's not about showing off. "It's about moving efficiently," says Matthews.

He doesn't like an audience, it puts him off.

Over by the campus shops, he does a cat leap over a wall, pulls himself up and over a second floor stairwell, landing softly on the landing. He demonstrates a roll to break a fall, tumbling into his shoulder, over, and into a run.

By the lake, he makes a precision jump from a static start over a 3m gap. It is amazing, a feat of will and mental concentration, as well as skill and athletic ability.

He gets a few odd looks, but most university students walk by nonplussed.

Matthews has had a few run-ins with campus security, who have twice asked him to move on. One security guard screamed at him, as he did a cat balance, walking on all fours up a wide concrete stair rail outside IJK block, "are the stairs too good for you?"

"I got down and left straight away. It wasn't worth it," says Matthews. "If someone asks us to move on, there is no point arguing."

He doesn't seek out rooftops, or big leaps across high buildings those moves are for music videos and not what parkour is about. "You don't go looking for buildings to scale," he says. He wants to set a good example, and doesn't want to get kicked off campus, his only good training spot in the city.

He says traceurs are not trespassers or vandals. "The last thing we want to do is break a rail or damage something, then we can't do parkour. My friends in Sydney will actually go around and fix things, bolt down loose boards and things like that."

Matthews says beginners need to be careful and should start off getting advice from more experienced traceurs. "People start off doing stupid stuff, and jump off stuff when they don't know their limits. Training (for beginners) needs to be more structured."

He recommends parkour novices check out www.nztraceur.com, an online portal and noticeboard full of tips and contacts. The Australian Parkour Association also has lots of information for beginners (www.parkour.asn.au).

In Hamilton, there is a casual group who do parkour, and meet on a Sunday, but Matthews tends to train alone, usually a few hours at a time.

In four years of practising parkour, he has hurt himself only once, breaking a collarbone during a roll when he fell incorrectly. "It was right at the start, in my first five months of training and I wasn't as fit," he says. "I can't stress enough how important safety is. You have to look before you jump, check there are no loose bricks and rails are bolted down. There is no point injuring yourself, it is the last thing we want to do, as you can't progress."

Knee problems are the most common problem for traceurs, with lots of jumping and landing. Techniques such as rolling and running help absorb the shock and disperse energy into forward momentum.

There are no national games or competitions for parkour practitioners. With it's non-competitive philosophy, it's against the spirit of the discipline, although that hasn't stopped advertising agencies and Gen-Y orientated brands such as Nike, Sony PlayStation and Adidas trying to cash in on the parkour phenomenon, says Matthews cynically.

He is in his first year of sports science studies, but is already seeing his education in psychology, training and nutrition benefiting his parkour practice.

As for the future: "I'd like to get into stunt work," he says with a grin.

Watch this space. Hamilton's own Barnaby Matthews could one day be leaping across a movie screen near you.

For more images, see Picture Show, E12, and www.waikatotimes.co.nz and click on the slideshows tab.

 

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