Parkour flow - A destructive experience

New plans

Next week I will release some practical insight about a topic that is related to parkour, dance and art: Interpretive dynamics.

The idea behind it, is related to the creation of basic criteria, themes and principles that can allow anyone to start looking into movement expression with a new awareness.

These guidelines can help you build movement sequences of any kind, starting from nothing but a thought.

However, before digging deeper into this production of constantly making something new, I felt the need to do a totally opposite experience first.

Let’s freeze all the new stuff for a moment and give me the chance to disentangle a darker topic first.

The creation process is as important as the destruction process

What do I mean? Well, being too attached to what we create is a dangerous thing to do*. I believe it can only lead to frustration and self demolition. On the contrary, we should take every movement as a unique act isolated in time, that guides us forward in our practice, step by step. We should create and then let go of it, keeping with us the process that brought us there.

Monks getting ready for a Mandala creation (or building the death star, not 100% sure of which one)

Today’s experiment consisted of 30 minutes of flowing around with the environment. The only rule was to never stay completely still. What changes will occur during the movement creation as the tiredness comes by?

At the beginning, everyone’s** focus was into making aesthetically pleasing creations. No one was thinking about the long road ahead. Up, under and around the bars, individually selecting the best moves that first aroused in our minds. Every choice was appropriate and harmonic, even though everyone was doing his own thing.

As the heart started to beat faster and the breath to get heavier and heavier, the first notes began to be played out of tune.

Everyone fell in the same routine loop: similar ideas popped up in our minds, regarding what movement to choose next. At this point, the energy was dropping down. The quality of the choices was compromised. If we wanted to keep up with the process, something had to change. The group widened up for a second. From distance it was probably like a single organism that had to reorganize its own thoughts. A shared movement conscience started to grow. We started playing one another in the tiredness. Grabbing one another, making suggestions and fighting like human cubs until the final relief.

Sun and fatigue made our faces look purple and fluorescent. Like a Macaco’s butt.

A visual representation of what happened below:

1st - fast motions, smiles, focused minds, individual harmonic movements.

14th minute - smaller motions, a lot more walking, stronger echoes in movements, legs made of glue and slower body-mind connections.

20th minute - everyone has his space, eyes do not predict movements anymore, getting closer to the end. Hypnotic situation.

27th minute. Towards the end - last phase. Interaction. The death of the ego, the birth of the wego.***

Don’t forget to let go of your creations. The physical outcome is not the only point.

Marcello.

Notes:

* If you are interested about this, I suggest you check out Tom Weksler and fighting monkey’s workshop.

**Raffaele Najjar, Nicolò Geretto, Tommaso Molinari and me.

***beautiful term I got from my friend Shanti Zimmermann