tool name

Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008

Path less traveled: Parkour gives local teenagers better understanding of surroundings

You might see an abandoned park bench in a plaza and think nothing of it. Same goes for the hand rails that line the walkways and the short wall further down.

Not Serafino Bohrer-Padavos and Seth Bumgarner. The spry teenagers spot opportunity in this same location.

"We see things in a different way," Bohrer-Padavos said. "Once you start doing this kind of stuff, it opens your eyes to different pathways."

And just like that, they're off -- speeding through a series of vaults, jumps and hand-plants that take them from Point A to Point B faster than any walkway would allow.

What they're doing is called Parkour (park-CORE) -- an underground sport that incorporates the stamina of soccer, the agility and balance of gymnastics and the discipline of karate.

Most of the time, though, practitioners look like ping-pong balls bouncing through a courtyard, parking lot or downtown area.

"Anyone can do this," said Bohrer-Padavos of the free-flowing activity spawned by David Belle, a French stuntman and physical educator, and made famous in movies like "Casino Royale."

"That's what is so great about this sport."

Bohrer-Padavos was flipping through the pages of The New Yorker about a year and half ago when he came across on article on Parkour -- a French term for "obstacle course."

The curious 16-year-old remembers being intrigued by the way people moved over, around and on top of the urban environment around them.

Halfway through the article, he was hooked -- ready to storm the streets of Merced.

"I thought it looked pretty interesting and just started doing it," Bohrer-Padavos said. "I think it was the physical aspect of it, being able to pull off these amazing acts of physical movement."

Bohrer-Padavos turned to the world's foremost informational resource for a deeper understanding -- Google.

He found Web sites dedicated to Parkour -- like PKCali.com, where he found Bumgarner -- and endless streams of video.

Since then, his life has been consumed by what he calls "the discipline."

He and Bumgarner practice three or four times a week, picking various locales where they can hone their skills.

"It gives you this feeling of accomplishment," said the 14-year-old Bumgarner in between gap-clearing jumps of about 8 feet.

While Parkour is similar in style to some of the more adventurous clips you might find on YouTube -- like Urban Ninja or Free Running -- Bohrer-Padavos insists Parkour isn't about testing your limits.

Traceurs -- as they are called -- don't do flips, try overly outrageous stunts or compete against one another.

Their movements are lightning fast, adding to the allure and danger, but much of what they do is practiced and choreographed.

"He was always an active child. He used to jump off of the couch," said Serafino's mother, Susan Bohrer. "One time we caught him climbing a tree shouldn't have been climbing at 8 years old.

"He was always agile as a child, but as he's grown, his judgment has improved."

Bohrer-Padavos and Bumgarner will rehearse moves until they're certain they've mastered them.

Sometimes, it will take them months to become comfortable with a particular movement.

"One misconception out there is that we're an extreme sport, stunt junkies or adrenaline junkies," PKCali.com co-founder Cliff Kravit said. "We're really not.

"Once you get past the novelty of moving differently, there's no rush. Just a sense of accomplishment.

"We're not looking to go big or go crazy. It's not about the tricks or moves. It's a tough concept for people to grasp. There is no set of Parkour moves out there.

"It's about making your body adapt (to your environment) so you can overcome any obstacle."

The purpose of the activity, Kravit says, is rooted in personal safety and the traceur's ability to get from one place to another without fear of time and obstacles.

A recent NBC broadcast depicted a group of traceurs in Los Angeles as "Urban Spidermen."

The name fits.

"If I need to save someone's life or if I need to save my own -- what can I do or how can I be useful to other people to get them out of those situations?" Kravit said in the interview.

Still, there are those who mistake Bohrer-Padavos and Bumgarner -- two students on track for early graduation -- as hooligan teenagers.

"We've had people tell us off. We've had a couple of people call the police on us," Bohrer-Padavos said. "But what they don't know is that we do this to benefit ourselves.

"We make it clear that we're not out here hurting anybody. We're always respectful."

And wildly athletic.

James Burns is a Sun-Star sports reporter. He can be reached at 385-2417 or via e-mail at jburns@mercedsun-star.com.