CHAPTER 1

I. Background of the Study

Ninja Moves, a parkour gym, would be for the benefit of adults, teenagers, or kids

who are seeking new, fun and exciting ways to do training, looking for a place to spend

time with family, friends, or co-workers, or spending past time on being healthy and fit.

Since no one still offers such business in the locality then there is a possibility that it

would succeed and will gain profit. Many people nowadays want to experience

something new and since this business is not yet in town, even when it is already a

world renowned past time, then it may be likely that they will buy such service and at the

same time enjoy the service offered by the gym. Though it would be a start-up business,

the gym may be known most especially to teenagers and young adults because the

adventure and thrill they seek outside is just a walk away from their homes.

Parkour is a training discipline using movement that was developed from military

obstacle course training. This activity includes running, climbing, swinging, vaulting,

jumping, quadruplet movement (crawling), and other movements as deemed suitable for

the situation. Such activities will be brought inside the seclusion of the gym in order to

accommodate customers who would want to do parkour no matter the weather

condition may be.

The gym would be owned by partners since the contributions needed for the

business to start would be heavy for only one person to burden. At least when there are

people who divide for the contributions then there is lesser weight to carry. It is also

beneficial for the business to be managed by partners rather than a sole proprietor
because the management of such business is more of service intensive and needs

more people to oversee the different activities in the gym.

Taking into consideration that most people nowadays are mostly conscious about

their health and have also observed that in actuality there are only a few fitness gyms

that offer these types of services, which is why we decided to propose this research and

see if it would be possible to bring about a new type of gym.

II. Rationale

Ninja Moves, a parkour gym, is intended for the residents of Bontoc, Mountain

Province and its neighboring places. It significantly acts as a recreational establishment

that brings the essence of outside activities into an enclosed space, where people can

spend their time working out in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle and their physical

fitness. In which case, this parkour gym aids to the needs of people who yearns for

thrills and strenuous trainings and activities while maintaining and developing their

physical fitness and appearance without having to travel to far places and staying under

the burning sun while doing some workouts.

III. Objectives of the study

This study aims to answer the following questions:

A. Is parkour gym familiar to the community of Bontoc and its neighbouring

places?

B. Is the parkour gym feasible to be established in Bontoc?

C. What will be the impact of establishing a parkour gym in Bontoc?

IV. Related Literature

1. How familiar are the people of Bontoc to Parkour Gyms?

Parkour defined

Parkour, which originated from France in the late 1980s, is a type of urban

acrobatics which is now officially recognised in Britain as a form of sport (Mould, 2017).

Parkour involves running, vaulting, jumping, climbing, rolling, and other

movements, other than simply walking, to get from one point to another. The people

who practice such are called “Traceurs” with the feminine form being “Traceuse”. A

group of traceurs are usually seen doing parkour at the park or at any place which they

seem fit to practice parkour.

Parkour can be defined as the practice of moving logically and creatively through

a – typically – urban setting to get from a start point to an end point as quickly as

possible. This involves physically overcoming barriers on any given route, creating

inventive but practical ways in which from get from A to B as efficiently as possible.

(Kenny 2015)

If you know James Bond’s movie, Casino Royale, then you have witnessed an

example of parkour in the movie. Parkour is actually an adoption of the things they do at

a Military Training Camp. The person credited as the Father of Parkour and the one

who developed it from military training to what it is today is David Belle.

Now, Parkour has spread widely across the globe and some had also adopted

such into their education curriculum and into their training. There are some who does
not confide to having such sport be known to all but the World Free-running Parkour

Federation (2008), Fédération Internationale des Arts du Déplacement (FIADD; 2012),

and Mouvement International du Parkour, Freerunning et l’Art du Déplacement (founded

by Belle, Foucan, and others in 2014) tries their best to hold Parkour Competitions

wherein traceurs may join and compete with fellow traceurs.

Parkour on relation to fitness

There is no single definition of fitness for sports. It has different meanings which

actually depends on the specific demands of the sport and your personal status (Sports-

Training-Adviser, 2009-2018). But in relation to this research, we are focusing on the

physical and mental fitness.

At the most basic level, parkour is a form of exercise, similar to Cross Fit or other

functional training programs that aim to utilize as many muscles as possible as

participants move from one point to another and navigate all of the obstacles between.

“We consider parkour to be the base of fitness and the base of human movement,” says

Tyson Cecka, executive director of Parkour Visions, a Seattle-based teaching and

coaching organization.

The sport attracts young thrill-seekers, people who want to be able to take on

anything. People have different reasons why they are doing work outs. For some, it’s

just a way to get in 90 minutes of exercise without it becoming boring or routine; for

others, it’s about discovering their body limits.

“Parkour speaks to our inherent desire to play, to move, and to explore.” says

Cecka. It’s what we do as kids naturally. You can go outside somewhere, and even if
you’ve been there hundreds of times before, you can easily find something new,

challenge yourself in a different way just by approaching from a different angle. Youth’s

themselves are inherently attracted to parkour and every kid wants to learn to do back

flip or run and jump over things.

There are advantages in doing parkour and listed below are some of it:

o Full body workout – Parkour workouts encompass total body fitness. Running

and jumping over and through obstacles requires work from all muscles. Parkour

adds a fun twist to your usual static gym routine. It encourages play while

tackling practical and fundamental movements.

o Promotes quick-thinking skills – Parkour requires participants to negotiate

obstacles quickly. These sudden moments require you to exercise your brain and

think on your feet. Practicing instinctive decisions making skills in parkour can

lead to participants trusting their instinctive decisions in everyday life.

o Fosters creativity – Parkour encourages participants to use their creativity.

Every obstacle you meet in parkour won’t have an obvious solution, so you must

use your creativity to overcome it.

o Boosts confidence – Parkour builds confidence by allowing people to be able to

conquer things they would never have even attempted before. For example,

when you see a large wall that before seemed like an impossible feat and you

learn how to scale and get over it you may feel as though you can accomplish

anything.

o Skill-related fitness – Skill-related fitness includes agility, balance, power,

speed, coordination, and reaction time. In parkour you have to call upon these
 skills when jumping, climbing and balancing through obstacles. Though these

skills aren’t required for everyday life (imagine using parkour to get to work!) they

are still very beneficial to have in your arsenal to ensure your physical fitness.

o Builds core strength – The core is the center of your entire body and is

responsible for helping you bend, twist and transfer power and strength across

your body. Developing a strong core through parkour exercises also helps to

prevent lower back injuries. Having a strong core fostered by parkour helps you

maneuver through obstacles with ease.

o Bone strength – Like many other high impact sports, parkour helps develop

bone strength. You do a number of lower body and upper body high impact

movements, enabling your body to build stronger bones from the impact they

endure.

o Cardiovascular endurance – Parkour requires participants to be

extremely active.The constant moving and jumping leads to increased stamina

by participants, ensuring your heart is strong and enabling increased oxygen

supply to your body.

o Reduces antisocial behavior – Parkour has been proven to reduce antisocial

behavior. In a study conducted through a youth incentive in Westminster in

conjunction with parkour coaching, crime rate between youth ages 8-19 was

reduced by 69% during the time they coached parkour. Parkour gives people a

positive way to direct their time and energy by presenting them with new

challenges and obstacles each time they engage in the activity.

 o Anyone can do it – Popular media makes Parkour seems like it consists of only

large movements and flips, however, that is not all there is to it. Most parkour

movements come from simple movements that easy to learn. You can also do it

anywhere as there is no special equipment required.

The point is to achieve an awareness of surroundings emphasized in martial arts

disciplines, another facet of parkour that adds to its appeal. It is like the players of this

sport are basically training to overcome obstacles. “You’re are practicing problem-

solving skills, and that very quickly starts applying to your personal life. A lot of people

are passionate about parkour because of the confidence it builds, giving them increased

capacity to deal with life’s challenges,” Cecka said.

2. Is a parkour gym feasible in Bontoc, Mountain Province?

Increasing demand for fitness gyms

“We have created this group because we are motivated to let interested

participants do what they have experienced doing”. (Jacinto & Estorco). People in

Bontoc are becoming more and more health conscious and are searching for gyms

in order to work out or lose weight.

Parkour gyms have seen increased demand as the training protocol has been

featured more and more in films and commercials. The increasing popularity of

American Ninja Warrior also helps, observes Ryan Ford, cofounder of APEX

Movement, which now has five locations. (Halvorson, 2015)

 “This year’s American Ninja Warrior was the most popular season yet, so it’s not

uncommon that new people come through our door and ask if we have things like a

salmon ladder [a popular ‘obstacle’ featured on the television competition]. ANW has

generated quite a buzz.”

Demand for gyms and fitness centers remains consistent with spending by U.S.

consumers, growing an average of 1.4 percent a year between 2008 and 2013,

according to IbisWorld, a research firm based in Los Angeles. The industry now

generates nearly $26 billion in revenue a year, IbisWorld reports. A June 2012

IbisWorld report found increased demand for and spending in specialty gyms.

Spending in yoga and Pilates studios, for example, topped $6.8 billion in 2012, up

from $4.7 billion in 2007. (Korman, 2013)

Parkour in view of consumer behaviour

Atkinson (2009) carried out an ethnographic study with twelve parkour

participants in Toronto, Canada and utilised open ended interviews to collect their

experiences of being involved. He explains that in the last thirty years many resistant

alternative sports have been victims of incorporation into mainstream sports cultures.

They become institutionalised, formal, vertically hierarchical, and exist according to

intense competition, social exclusion and domination of others. Atkinson (2009)

suggests that participants of parkour collectively resist the social arrangements of the

city in a non-violent way and stimulate a critique of urban life in the modern world.

O‟Grady (2012) interviewed parkour participants aged between sixteen and thirty two

years old for a six month period in 2011 using semi structured interviews.
 The participants in her research talked about their personal development as well as

improvements to their physical ability. One participant said that most of his

improvements were psychological. A participant talked about how preparation for a big

jump provided insight into knowing personal boundaries (O‟Grady, 2012). Bavinton

(2007) looked at the subjective experience of parkour and suggests that participation is

concerned with internal space and physical strength. Lyng (1990) suggests that

participants seek to International Journal of Basic & Applied Sciences examine the

nature of their own will, wants and desires because their true nature is corrupted by

processes of consumerism. (Wallac & Apak, 2016)

“Parkour to me is expressing yourself through movements,” Mr. Doyle says in an

online video as he propels himself across Santorini. “It’s not such a bad thing to fall. It’s

not a bad thing to progress. You are achieving goals every single day. You connect the

dots and you find the quickest way to solve the problem.”

Growth of Parkour

With help from the internet, films and television shows, parkour has continued to

grow rapidly since the early 2000’s and this has resulted in the forming of many

communities all across the world. (Shaw, 2016)

The rise of YouTube is widely credited with helping spread the popularity of

parkour. Traceurs have posted their latest moves, experiments and mishaps, and this

has helped the sport go truly global and mainstream. (Sims, 2012)

But why is parkour now the world’s fastest growing lifestyle sport?
 o Made you look

The increase in visibility of parkour is of course a factor. Whilst less then a decade

ago most people wouldn’t have even heard of it, modern audiences have now come to

expect parkour as a staple in mainstream action movies, games and even television

shows like Ninja Warrior. It has also becoming less unusual to see people incorporating

parkour elements into other training practices or training full parkour in public, re-

energising the space in which skate boarding has become rather comfortable.

o Don’t need dollar bills to have fun

Gym memberships and equipment can be expensive. Even more so if you live in a

big city like London where not only are membership prices astronomical, but so to is the

price of the commute to the gym. With no money and informed primarily by YouTube

videos, people can start to take their first steps into parkour. In adopting this discipline

the world surrounding us transforms back into the playground that we viewed as a child,

with the walls, rails, steps and benches of urban planning offering opportunities to run,

climb and jump. Without the need for expensive apparel to look the part, it is also a

fitness movement that manages to overcome divisions such as status, with Parkour

Generations sessions seeing street kids training right alongside bankers and lawyers.

o Welcome to the jungle

Whilst bodybuilding is booming, so too is the other end of the spectrum, with people

desiring a holistic return to nature that involves not only their food but also their fitness.

MovNat and Wild Fitness or “Rewilding” are helping to redefine how people approach

health and fitness, in tandem with the growth in development of active wear products
that, rather than being restrictive or dull sensory feedback (e.g. shock absorption), are

purposely designed to strip back to the bare essentials and in doing allow the body to

return to doing what it does naturally. Whilst more commonly practiced in urban

environments, parkour is actually very much a part of this natural movement trend as it

enables it practitioners to ‘reclaim the streets’ and once again develop an physical

relationship with their environment.

o Human after all

The physical effects of practicing parkour don’t always mean broken bones or

missing teeth. In fact it has historically been one of the more low-injury sports due to the

fact that practitioners are more likely to be aware of the risks and instructors always

recommend to develop slowly and safely. Whereas a sport like football doesn’t always

have the same focus on safety, making it all too common to see a player come limping

of a pitch following a bad slide tackle. Parkour promotes flexibility and range of motion

with those who have trained to a more advanced level able to move with more effortless

fluidity than your average lumbering person. There is also the calorie burn that comes

from continued full body motion, not to mention the full body muscle development from

jumping and lifting your own bodyweight repeatedly. Parkour trains the body athletically,

densely packing muscle fibre into the lean build that for many is the preferred Bruce

Lee/beach body look and not the bulky, pulsating bodybuilder look. (HealthGauge,

2016)
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