Is it possible for a pianist to practice parkour?

[refugepiano]

I was wondering if any pianist here practices parkour.
I was wondering, since I want to become a performing pianist and enter the Conservatory of Music in Melbourne. However, I've been becoming quite interested in parkour in the past months, and I was thinking if it was possible, or more importantly how risky is parkour for a musician. I knew a few good musicians that practice parkour, but they were guitarists and I never talked directly to them before I moved out of the country.

So, is it possible? If it's not advisable I will simply forget about it.

Also, yes I know that it is not a good idea to jump off buildings.

EDIT: Reply 12 has an example of what I would like to learn.

[pianoplayjl]

Parkour/freerunning is awesome and I never thought it would be mentioned in this forum! You can do parkour if you want to but the risk of injury is very high. No I wouldn't do parkour to the point of jumping everywhere but you can do basic parkour for leisure. Parkour is an art, a spiritual activity. I wish I can do it. It will definitely influence your studies at the conservatorium to some degree.

PS. Check out Damien Walters.

JL

[birba]

It IS awesome!  Go for it!

[candlelightpiano]

What IS parkour? Do you play piano at the top of a building??

[pianowolfi]

I love parkour and of course I'd very much like to do it myself but I think it might not be my most outstanding talent, so I'm very cautious aka completely inactive at it I don't want to break any fingers, let alone any vertebras. I think it's like other challenging activities like for instance rock climbing, you have to start slowly and act with caution!

[pianoplayjl]

What IS parkour? Do you play piano at the top of a building??

Parkour is a spiritual activity and sport. It is when you get from point A to B in the fastest way possible by utilizing the environment around you i.e. jumping fences, leaping over buildings, etc. If you watch any Jackie Chan movies, he uses alot of them.

JL

[Bob]

Sounds like an incredibly bad idea to me.  Google around for videos of how people fall when the mess that up.

[49410enrique]

yes it's possible but you must weigh in on the calculated risk.  things to consider are how advanced you are willing to go when developing the skill let, what king of coaching you are edit-having, your practice facilities, you natural talent (i.e do you have highly diveloped unusually keen kinesthetic sense and proprioperceptive reactions to your body movements in different planes in space, etc.).

how long you want to stick with it...

i.e i am a recreational athlete and mainly practice gymnastics and olympic weight lifting, i have very good natural athletic abilities and take precautions, i have still been injured a couple of times badly to the point i could not play for quite some time (i had a wipeout on my gymnastics rings and landed on both my hands from a decent high from upside down, i thought i had broken both wrists i didn't but the soft tissue damage was severe it even two years later i have some residual issues so lots of movement rehap and prehab are necessary or i cannot play).

if you do anything like this long enough even with proper precautions you run the risk of injury, i try to keep it in controlled training environment but parkour by its nature is out and about, the risk for catastrophic injury is exponentially higher  bear that in mind as you decide on your practice...

[collectivecolors]

I would think that it would be possible. But, just don't try to do anything major if you aren't entirely sure you can. Kind of like before learning to play a very difficult piano piece you first learn easier ones and work your way towards more difficult/more impressive pieces.

[timothy42b]

parkour is for drummers, not for musicians.

Pianists should do naisekandmine instead.

Here's a wiki explaining it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_carrying

Oh wait, you have to be married...................................never mind. 

[ajspiano]

parkour is awesome.

i know more or less nothing about it though so my opinion is probably invalid..  i think if its at all dangerous for a pianist its probably only because its dangerous for everyone.

just a side thought..  my respect for any pianist would increase significantly if they ran over the steinway to get to the seat instead of walking around it..

[49410enrique]

i think as pianists we can already keep a beat (lol mostof us anyways...) we can always take after this guy and practice dance attack lol still even this has it's risks, i'm sure you'd get punched eventually 

[refugepiano]

I thought that I should show an example of what I would like to learn, and to further diferenciate between freerunning and parkour.

I would like again an opinion in the matter, although by everyone's comments I am reconsidering and researching on the matter.

[Bob]

One athlete.  Nicely produced video.


A handful of reality....

Parkour, the spiritual act of "parking" or... planting one's face or back awkwardly against random pieces of asphalt or public utility objects.  

You know you'll make a mistake.  Mistakes are part of the learning the process.  Looking at these videos, most likely it's going to be a faceplant, some kind of broken or sprained ankle, or bending/cracking your back.  I was thinking it wouldn't wouldn't be good for piano because of the hands, but the hands and fingers really aren't the things being damaged in these videos.  Although I suppose it's possible to land the hands on something that bites into them a bit and doesn't release them.  I knew of kid who once jumped up and grabbed a door frame only to discover that it had nails pointing upward.  He gripped it and then gravity pulled him down.
  
It must be a European thing.  I've never seen anyone doing this live myself.  

[pianowolfi]

There are tutorials...disclaimer included

[Bob]

*Bob wonders why there aren't any Americans who are overweight doing this stuff.*  It's always a gymnast type of guy.  For that matter, you never see any gymnasts who are overweight.

[traciemorris]

Possibly because the gymnast can handle themselves carefully and an overweight person cannot being at such a good height! And a common man can be fearful at the moment!

[49410enrique]

https://www.break.com/web-user-yt/01-03-2012/epic-girl-parkour-fail-to-the-face-2282926

[pytheamateur]

Parkour is a spiritual activity and sport. It is when you get from point A to B in the fastest way possible by utilizing the environment around you i.e. jumping fences, leaping over buildings, etc. If you watch any Jackie Chan movies, he uses alot of them.

JL

Oh yes, in Rumble in the Bronx, Jackie Chan jumped from the roof of one building down onto the balcony of another building across the street to escape from some thugs.

In another film, he jumped off a castle to a tree.  Unfortunately the branch gave way and he nearly died.

Parkour in its extreme form is courting with death, so it has implications not only for a pianist, but anyone who is not suicidal.