Julie Angel – Craig Constantine

Rediscovering movement

Play is a big part of our lives as children, but why do we lose our playfulness as we age? I talk a lot about the emotional and physical aspects of play, especially regarding Positive Ageing and aspects of Parkour. So many people feel like play is out of reach as they approach midlife, even though it’s an innate part of you.
~ Julie Angel from, https://julieangel.com/discovering-the-power-of-play-in-midlife/

Angel doesn’t write often, but when she does it’s something nice like this. I just want to say that physical movement and play are inseparable—without the former, you’re not really doing the later.

Or, perhaps I just want to say two things; That first thing, and that Angel is the film–maker who created my favorite video to share when people ask me, “what is parkour?” Movement of Three.

Actually, I want to share three things: Those two things, and Julie if you’re reading: OMG the cannoli!

A terrible mistake

May 3, 2018

Suddenly, a decision I hadn’t even been aware I had made – giving up the thrill of movement for movement’s sake – seemed like a terrible mistake. I felt the same as if I had thrown out my entire music collection by accident.
~ Julie Angel from, http://julieangel.com/be-brave/

I completely agree with this sentiment. By the time I realized how much I had given up, it was far too late for me to recover what I had lost. These days everyone says complementary things about how much I’ve changed, or how well I’m doing. All I’m thinking is, “if only I hadn’t . . .”

Parkour as a technology of the self

December 22, 2016

(Part 61 of 73 in series, My Journey)

I’m working on a crazy idea as a side project. Totally unrelated, I’m reading Julie’s CinéParkour. I’m just reading along this evening, and I get to this paragraph. This is so apropos of my train of thought these past few weeks.

Mind.
Blown.

Traceurs are active subjects within dominant power relations who use parkour as a technology of the self; an active transformative tool, to create and understand themselves and move away from fixed notions of identity and behaviour. Through a process of critical thinking and self-awereness traceurs problemitise and set ethics by which they adhere to. Parkour becomes a ‘practice of libery’, where traceurs practice freedom as a lifestyle, based on inventions and styles, that create ethics centered around creative environmental interactions and connections, to reclaim the body as an autonomous vehicle, away from the dominant notion of ‘bio-power’ and other dominant discourses.

~ Julie Angel, from CinéParkour, pg 152

‘technology of the self’
‘freedom as a lifestyle’
‘ethics centered around creative environmental interactions and connections’
‘reclaim the body as an autonomous vehicle’

The inconvenient truth

June 19, 2015

http://www.goseeanddo.com/parkour-the-inconvenient-truth/

The idea of what parkour can be and the current reality of what parkour is are not the same as far as who participates. The issue of gender can’t be ignored in parkour. You hear a lot based around the idea of ‘parkour is for everyone!’, well theoretically yes, but if all you really see is young guys then if you are not a ‘young guy’, it many not occur to you that it could also be for you. Parkour as an activity is not alone in this.

~ Julie Angel