Pondering the practice of parkour
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
Mrs. Doud has been trying to get me to exercise more than by just bending over to get my shoes off at night, and so I have been looking into the latest exercise rage. It is not, as you might imagine, looking at teenagers making fools of themselves on YouTube. Logging on to YouTube by myself is an exercise I haven’t mastered.
Rather, I am thinking of becoming a traceur, as practitioners of parkour are called. Traceurs look like modern dancers, “jumping, rolling and vaulting over, under and through objects found in typical urban settings,” according to a report on this subject by The Associated Press. Parkour has its roots in France, and you see it sometimes on TV.
I closed my eyes to imagine what being a traceur would be like while I was sitting on 6th Street waiting for a train to go by the other day, and I could see myself jumping up on the railroad crossing arm, vaulting to the top of the flashing-light standard and leaping over the top of the train to the crossing arm on the other side, then jumping over a car into the Sears parking lot.
From there, I would run along Gateway Drive to Yosemite and leap from car hood to car hood until I vaulted into Courthouse Park, where I would leap over people taking naps and playing cards. I would gallop along the rail edge of the bridge over the 99 freeway, and then run at full tilt until I got home, where Mrs. Doud would say, “Where have you been? Dinner’s waiting.”
At that point, someone behind me honks, and I jerk awake to see that all the cars in front of me have already crossed the railroad track and are heading for the intersection.
So much parkour exercise has worn me out already.
