Abu Dhabi Week goes on an urban adventure with UAE Parkour
The sun is shining brightly and there’s a cooling breeze coming in off the sea. An athletic figure dressed in black is standing on top of a wall at the entrance to the beautifully landscaped underpass on the Corniche opposite the Abu Dhabi skatepark.
Adjusting the volume on his arm-mounted iPod, he takes a deep breath and starts to run. Moving gracefully along the top of the wall, he reaches the end and launches himself effortlessly over a two-metre gap, the sole of his shoe resting fleetingly on the top of a spout of water shooting from the fountain beneath him. Landing softly he continues to run and somersaults off the end of another wall. Over a short walkway, it looks like there’s nowhere left to go – until with feline grace, he vaults a waist-high wall and jumps to grab hold of a ledge above his head. Pulling himself up quickly, he stands and turns to survey his surroundings, a small smile breaking out on his calm face.
His name is Mohammed Hesham and he is one of the core members of the UAE Parkour team.
Developed in France in the late 80s by David Belle, Parkour is an extreme sport that focuses on moving through an urban environment in the quickest, most rational way possible by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing and jumping over any obstacles in the way.
Coming to prominence in the BBC documentary Jump London and, more recently, in films like Casino Royale and Prince of Persia, Parkour practioners (or traceurs) train to be able to identify and utilise alternative, more efficient paths of getting from point A to point B using only their bodies. The chief aim is never to move backwards but instead overcome obstacles fluidly, with strength, originality and speed.
“It’s a philosophy,” says Hesham, who has been practicing the sport for five years. “Parkour is all about getting from one point to another as quickly as possible. Really what we do is a combination of Parkour and free running – so we mix vaults, monkeys and running with flipping and more acrobatic stuff to create our own styles.”
“Freedom of movement is definitely what it’s all about,” agrees Zach Gillroy, Hesham’s young Australian friend and fellow core member of the UAE Parkour team. “Just doing whatever you want, getting over obstacles as easily as possible and expressing yourself.”
“It allows you to be creative and it’s not like any other sport,” continues Hesham. “In gymnastics, for example, if you don’t land perfectly and move a step forward or backward, then you’re going to get marked down. But Parkour is free, it’s not restricted, you can just do your own thing.
“Secondly, it’s also great mental and physical training – I’d say it’s 60 percent mental and 40 percent physical. You have to deal with your fear, ask yourself ‘can I do this?’”
“You know you have the physical ability to do something but sometimes your mind just holds you back,” adds Zach. “You just have to have the strength to overcome any doubts you may have.”
Hesham and Zach have now been joined by a group of seven or eight enthusiastic young traceurs. We take a seat on a nearby plantbed and watch as they go through some stretching exercises before starting to run in tandem along walls, swinging over rails, jumping gaps and climbing on ledges.
The cameraderie among the group is tangible and contagious. Hesham and Zach impart advice and encouragement to the less experienced members of the group. Whenever someone pulls off a particularly hard flip or precise jump, there is applause and whoops of joy from the other guys.
Quite a crowd has gathered to watch the training session. A group of bemused Indian workers enjoying their day off sit on the edge of one of the water features, dangling their feet in the water as they take photos. Runners, cyclists and pedestrians pause as they pass by to see what all the commotion is about.
“The Corniche is the perfect place for Parkour,” says Hesham. “There’s lots of different shaped walls and obstacles we can use. We don’t put a limit on where we can go, Parkour is all about adapting to the environment – any environment – and using what is around you. It doesn’t matter if it’s an urban environment like here, or in the middle of forest or even in a big open space, there’s always something we can use.”
The UAE Parkour team train regularly throughout the week but hold an open session every Friday from 4pm to 8pm on the Corniche opposite the skatepark, where anyone is welcome to join in.
“We started off training just once a week, then we moved up to three times a week and now we train almost every day. We’ve started doing some shows and events now too – we did one last weekend at Al Forsan, we performed on the Corniche on National Day and we’ve just finished doing some 3D filming for Sony,” says Hesham.
“We’re looking into building an indoor headquarters for the team, mainly for safety reasons so we can teach beginners with no danger of them getting hurt. We’ve also just joined up with Haddins Gym in Zayed Sports City so hopefully we’re going to be doing lots of stuff together really soon.
“The plan is just to let people know what we do and raise awareness of what Parkour is all about – to show people what they can do if they put their mind to it.”
Anyone interested in finding out more should visit the team’s facebook page UAE Parkour, follow them on twitter
@ParkourUAE or contact Hesham on 056 762 8742 or Zach on 050 101 9613.
Jon Muller
