- I want to thank the City for believing in us and the
obscure art of Parkour, which no one had heard of, impossible to explain. Today
is truly a big day, thank you so much! And remember: never stop playing!
I am late, but the opening is late too and I am
walking up the green slope just as Trouble 1 is holding his speech. I am so
happy to be here. That I am able to be here this very moment. This, to my
son and his friends, historic day.
Trouble 1 climbed before he could sit and walk.
Trouble 2 was more cautious about his body, but of course tagged along with his
older brother. And boys from the villages around the lake had a similar mind
set, some more adventurous than others. The older they grew, the higher they
climbed and jumped. The swings, tree tops, roofs, sandpits, big rocks, summer
and winter, a lot of body and very little brain.
Nine-ten years ago they moved their physical
activities from the rural place where they were children to a more urban
setting. They had found the French extreme sport Parkour, which was just the
perfect match and a natural development for their skills and urge.
Now, this was when my concerns about their intense
extra curriculum PE stepped up to worries. The woods and sandpits are, after all,
kind of soft. City alleys and parking garage aren’t. The ER visits became more
frequent and I taught them not to run when someone called the cops because of
their odd behavior, but to educate the Umeå police about Parkour and their
doings.
Yesterday, the first of three planned redesigns for
the downtown city parks was finished and opened to the public. Broparken (The
Bridge Park) is a green rolling terraced slope facing the Umeå River and at the
bottom there is the Parkour Park. The finest in the world. And I am listening
to my oldest son inaugurating the park, thanking the City of Umeå for believing
in him and his crazy friends, making their impossible dream come true.
It was about seven years ago when they first started
making their initial sketches for a Parkour park. They were leaning in bunches
over my kitchen table, sighing about the dark future for their new love. I
encouraged them to move forward and they did. They very much did.
They started a Parkour association, which has grown to
be one of the biggest and most vibrant in Sweden. They have tons of classes and
courses, winter and summer, and their students are from pre school age and up.
Suddenly I could here them talking about meetings in the City Hall with top
names within the City. They had no idea of course about the dignity of all
this, only frustrated about the slow pace of the proceedings within the power
of democracy.
Yesterday Umeå Parkour association UPKF and the City
of Umeå opened the first outdoor park in the world specially designed for the
art of Parkour. The early climber Trouble 1 and his adventurous friends have
grown into young men, very responsible when it comes to everything connected to
their precious baby Parkour. They have developed the initial park sketches at
my kitchen table to a unique place in the world, and the City trusted them with
an absolute prime spot for it, right at the river in downtown Umeå.
-
I want to
thank the City for believing in us and the obscure art of Parkour, which no one
had heard of, impossible to explain. Today is truly a big day, thank you so
much! And remember: never stop playing!
I arrived just in time to hear my
oldest son, confident and natural, glowing of happiness, holding a
speech at
the opening of a City park. Broparken is the first achieved goal out of many planned for
Umeå, The European Capital
of Culture 2014. A bunch of crazy
kids have accomplished an
impossible dream and provided Umeå a cutting edge
culture and a beautiful and functional place
for it to happen. I am not sure
that they completely comprehend the greatness of their achievement,
but I hope
they will. Because it is extraordinary.
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