YouTube/Hyphen Magazine

A traceur--parkour practitioner--at UC Berkeley

Parkour – that popular urban sport invented by disaffected Parisian youth who performed daring acrobatic feats amidst crowded suburban housing projects -- has found its way to UC Berkeley, reports Hyphen Magazine.

The sport involves, among other things, climbing walls and balconies, balancing oneself on rooftops, and a lot of running, jumping and rolling, often from one building rooftop to another.

According to Hyphen, it seems UC Berkeley’s campus is the ideal concrete playground for the sport.

“Good spots tend to be universities and schools,” Albert Kong, a six-year Parkour veteran, told Hyphen. “They have a lot of diverse, interesting architecture that’s close by.”

The traceurs (parkour practioners), shown here in a Hyphen video, have also formed their own community on campus. Cal Parkour meets every Thursday.

Jodie Rodriguez, one of many participants in the sport, said she likes the diversity of the sport, and the community. “The community is really strong. They’ve become some of my closest friends.”

Marisa Lee is one of them. “I would really like to see more girls come out and explore parkour as an option to, you know, going the gym,” she said.

Justin Tang told Hyphen he likes martial arts, but added that parkour is “stilll as aggressive, but it’s more fun.”

“I love how when you’re, like, standing at an obstacle that you haven’t done before ... and there’s just that little barrier, that adrenalin rush, like right before you’re making that jump,” said Tang. “But making that jump, and accomplishing it, feels so good,” he said.

And no, you don’t have to be a UC student to join in.