My rant...

While training I have met many intelligent, fun, people. I have also met very egotistical, self assured, and ignorant people that honestly are wasting our oxygen levels by just breathing. But I am getting bias already .

I stand around and look at the little group I used to train with and see that the future for them is dark, only because they do not really understand the true essence of Parkour. I mean not to be close minded: I understand that many people practice for their own reasons such as for their own enjoyment, self expression, self relaxation (besides beating off) or even for a purpose of the army, emergencies, football or whatever. But I have also noticed how people refer to practicing as 'Yea I JOINED Parkour' or 'Yea I JOINED MXF and they are cool guys'. Why not 'I began practicing Parkour' or 'I like to train [for] Parkour'? I have noticed how people treat this like a game or club that has weekly meetings and we sit around and drink sodas while discussing our latest crushes on Daniel Ilabaca, or Dan from PKGen. It's like joining the Procrastinators Club, but we have not had a meeting because we keep putting it off.

In the last 'training session' I had with the MXF guys, it was just like this:
Say hi to everyone.
Begin to practice Wall runs/Wall ups/Climb Ups.
Stop to start talking.
Get back to practicing.
No one takes advice from anyone for anything because they believe they need no practice.
Spend the rest of the day in this continuous loop.
Oh and crack stupid jokes that make no sense and have a 26 yr. old act like a 2 yr old.

So my concern is that Parkour is no longer becoming a discipline or actual study that has lead me to begin reading Philosophy, Chemistry, Biology and Human Anatomy but it has become a fad. I have never seen more materialistic, egotistical, bombastic, chauvinistic people in my life than in a male fashion show. It seems like the ones who want to make huge jumps, fags, flips off of 30 story buildings while clapping their hands 1 million times and reciting the French National Anthem have become more prevalent than the ones seeking answers, looking for a true reason to study something for its value.

I met a kid who I thought was an alright guy who listens to the advice I can give him. The next day he is talking about how big his calves are, how he was the shit in High School football, how he has huge power in his Quads and Hams. How his posterior chain is so powerful he could snap an elephant in two. This guy I now loathe. Not because he is just a sheer asshole but he sets a really bad example for what Parkour really is. I mean, is not Parkour to be a paradigm for self realization and efficiency of movement in case of some horrible emergency or to flee danger? Is it not to be strong to be useful while at the same time knowledgeable of our own bodies and their limits?

I have not been practicing for that long but I have noticed how the dogmatic views of someone have begun to poison the practice we love so much. I mean the 'leader' of MXF would tell the only guy who could do flips, to do one every time a group of people came by or asked if the LEADER could do one. If the kid was not there then they would say 'uh no we can't bro sorry not now, we can later though just drop by'. For lack of better English; that is bullshit.

I have been reading about the ways of the Samurai and how dedicated they would be from sun up to sun down, how they would meticulously train small insecurities they may have with their own technique and power. Now a days people do not have time for such discipline, we see China now as some sort of hell for Traditionalism and linear class segregation. It is beginning to change but here is my real question: Is it better to try and please others with good looks, nice shirts, and funny smelling shades just to get laid? Or is it better to do what you feel is right, or deem efficient in the long run rather than immediate satisfaction? In other words is it better to die an active monster or to die as a disciplined monster?

If you think I am dead wrong please let me know, the more I am wrong the more I can learn. That is why we fall anyways, to get back up and learn that gravity still works.

Yo.

That's some pessimism, as far as I can tell ^^

is it better to do what you feel is right, or deem efficient in the long run rather than immediate satisfaction?

You have answered your own question by asking it! You're writing this because the behaviour, habits or else of those people you describe are DIFFERENT from yours, don't you? Then it's your call! If you don't agree with those people, well, let'em be and just go your own way.

I really do not see the problem. Honestly. There are dumb people evrywhere, there are "assholes" everywhere, not only in PK, so you better get yourself used to it
You can't change most of them, so I think you should leave it as it is.

Go your own way, alone or with people that share your points of view, but don't bend under those assholes in anyway.
In Russian there is a famous motto (from a popular song): "Не стоит прогибаться под изменчивый мир, однажды он прогнётся под нас" which means "There no use to bend under the changing world, some day it will bend under us".

I am being pessimistic but only because to me it seems that these guys wont be able to go as far as people who are really dedicated to it can be. I mean already one guy has to opt out because he has knee problems in both knees, from really bad technique, conditioning; and all that jazz.

I do have fun when I train but there is a time to be serious, and a time to really focus. To me the time to be serious is when you are just beginning, which I am, and the people I know who have been at this for about 2-3 years now are very...............blocky? The time to have fun (for me again) is when I am proud to have done what I can or what I have achieved and when people of lesser skill are around, I just keep quiet and play around, sometimes even help the person out or chill with them when they are tired.

Now I feel like the most negative guy in the world...

Here let me show you of what I mean:

The VERY VERY VERY skinny one has been training for 6 yrs, the rest for about 2-3 years.
The kid in all white, is very gifted very talented, he is the one who is told what to do...

Can't we have the url anyway ?

sounds like you got pissed off by those who dont agree with you...
live with it.

@FsmAwsome damn straight am pissed, thats why I write on these, to not shoot off my mouth in front of those guys...doesn't seem right or nice.

@Ivano ah okay, its just that it kinda bothers me that they would tell the kid in all white to do stuff... >.< thats why I wrote this to 1 blow off steam, and 2 to see if it was wrong or not (either just in my point of view or everyone else's, I wanted to see what else people thought). TO ME I just think its wrong that a kid like that has to be told to do flips and stuff by people who cannot do it, then that blind anger leads into the anger of 'Why don't you guy actually practice and do it yourselves than just talking crap?'.