Join the city's parkour community as it comes together for a fun jam session this weekend as part of worldwide celebrations of its co-founder's birthday
Deepak Mali, a stalwart from the parkour community in Pune, will also be in the city to participate in the celebrations
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This Saturday, if you drop by Carter Road in Bandra, you might just be in for a treat. It's the day when the city's parkour community comes together for its annual celebration of We Jump The World Day.
It is a global event, from the parkour and free-running community, where practitioners of all levels gather together for a jam on April 29. "It is also the birthday of one of parkour's founders, David Belle, so some athletes thought it would be fitting to declare the event on this day," says Rishi Prasad, co-founder of Mumbai Parkour.
Rishi Prasad
Parkour, which is usually carried out in urban spaces, evolved from military obstacle course training, and involves navigating the environment in the most effective way possible, using a combination of running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, jumping, rolling and other movements.
He adds that We Jump The World Day was held by practitioners across the world for the first time last year. "We were part of that jam, too, but we did it on a smaller scale. We hope it will be bigger this year."
The rules for the event are simple: there are no rules. You swing by the Carter Road amphitheatre, where everyone will be gathering, meet new people who practise parkour and free running, and train with them. "This doesn't mean beginners are not welcome. They can drop by and give it a go. The only difference is that this won't be a structured class, but will involve learning by doing," shares Prasad, who first got into parkour around seven years ago.
He informs us that the form, although still niche, has grown remarkably over the last few years. "When we started out, we didn't even know that it was called parkour. But the community is quite large now, and we even conduct classes in Andheri and in outdoor locations right from Churchgate to Malad."
However, in general, Mumbai isn't too familiar with the heart-stopping moves associated with the sport. Prasad reveals that they occasionally get yelled at while they're training in public spaces, although the perception is quickly changing.
"Parkour has that 'wow' factor, and companies want that in their ads. And now that they know there's a local community of parkour practitioners, they don't have to fly people down from elsewhere. We were in a music video for Blackstratblues, and one of the other co-founders, Cyrus Khan, was in the Da Da Ding ad that went viral. He is also in talks for a part in a movie," shares Prasad.
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