by JACQUELINE SCOTT
Intern Lifestyles Reporter

Some people walk.

Some people walk with style.

The term “freerunning” was coined during the filming of “Jump London,” as an Americanized version of the European “parkour.”

“Parkour is if you’re going to get one from one point to the other, in the quickest way possible,” sophomore building sciences major and free runner or “traceur” Ryan D. Brown said. “Freerunning is more expressive, aesthetically focused stuff.”

Traceurs use the landscape to jump walls, between buildings and over railings with the goal of flipping or spinning from point A to point B as efficiently and quickly as possible.

Brown first became involved with the concept of freerunning when he acted in “Tarzan” during his senior year of high school.

“I had seen videos online of freerunning and thought of it as probably everyone else, ‘Oh that’s pretty amazing, but I can’t do that.’”

Even after swinging on vines during his “Tarzan” stint, Brown stuck with freerunning and preoccupied himself with the physical conditioning that accompanies the craft.

“It’s important for people to understand that there is a lot of physical conditioning to it,” he said. “It’s about slowly building up. If you begin working at a level you can manage and slowly push your limits to the point that you can do a back-flip off of a 10-foot wall and land perfectly safe.”

Joe Norkus and Chapin Campbell took the campus by storm during their years at Appalachian State University by skimming benches and tables with duct tape on the bottom of their shoes.

To stay on their game, they visited the gym to work certain muscle groups, modifying the way machines are used.

“We don’t use the machines as we’re told to,” Norkus said.

Aside from the physical, freerunning also requires psychological training.

“With extreme sports, I feel like the idea is to have no fear, just rid yourself of that fear and go for it,” Brown said. “Parkour is more about managing that fear,” Brown said.

Brown also compared parkour or freerunning to a martial art as opposed to an extreme sport.

“Martial arts and parkour are about the slow progression up to that level,” he said.

Since delving into freerunning, Brown has rid himself of some fears and has worked up to completing tricks that he’d seen on online videos as something that he wishes he could do.

The existence of free running is also alive on campus.

“It used to be, that when I trained, people would wonder what I was doing, but the other day, two people stopped by and asked me if I was doing parkour,” he said. “It’s gotten more exposure to the masses.”

Some free runners use props, such as duct tape or gloves, but the most essential parts come down to the shoes and landscape to work with.

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