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Christoph: I'm Christoph, studying Computer Science and have been doing Parkour for about a year.
Daniel: I'm Daniel, apprentice, and trained Parkour since April of this year.
Jonas: I'm Jonas, doing an volunteer service at the "Naturschutzjugend" (Red: environmental protection youth) and trained Parkour since about a year ago.
How long does Parkour exist in Dresden?
Christoph: I can only tell it out of my own experience, our group met a year ago in the forum of parkour.de. We met for the first training a year ago in the city, since then we have been training with a hard core and a changing team. There are some other people and groups in Dresden who are doing Parkour but we'll have to establish contact to them yet.
And how many people here do practice Parkour on a regular base?
Jonas: The number is alternating, at first we were ten, then six. There are new ones coming, who try, stay a while and then leave.
Christoph: But we did notice that there is a hard core of six or seven people who meet regularly.
And in which setting are there regular meetings?
Daniel: About one or two times per week and additionally individual training. It depends on the person how often.
Christoph: Mostly we meet on weekends because most people may come then. Sometimes that's both saturday and sunday. Apart of this everybody does something for himself: strength, coordination or special technics.
Parkour is yet comparatively young, how do new influences come to Dresden?
Christoph: I have to contradict there, Parkour is not so young at all. David Belle has been doing it for 18 years now. There are no new innovations in my opinion. The movements are clearly defined, there are few but clearly separated basic movements and you have to combinate these properly.
Daniel: You see alternative movements in the net but they are in most cases inefficient and straining after effect, so they are no real Parkour.
Christoph: Yes, the exchange occurs in a big message board, parkour.net. That is the meeting point where all the traceurs meet, international too. When there are big events it is being announced there and if you are looking for traceur groups you can coordinate that well in the forums.
Jonas: There were frequently some requests from Saxony (Red: federal state in the east of Germany) by other groups who wanted to train with us but we haven't got to know many people further away. You can compensate some things by the message boards but if you train with the people you learn more and you are able to exchange better.
Which are the specialities that Dresden offers for Parkour?
Christoph: From my point of view, Dresden is not an ideal city for Parkour, there are better ones: the olympic village or the red city in Munich or the Velodrom in Berlin. There are some concentrated spots here where one can train diffenent things but there is no connected way that one could perform. But there are some areas where there may yet be something to be found, Prohlis or Gorbitz for example (Red: concrete-style settlements at the border of Dresden). But apart of this Dresden is only "usable" in some spots.
And what is different from Parkour in Dresden compared to other cities?
Jonas: An important difference is that we have no members who are training Parkour for more than a year. This would have been convenient, we could have avoided the mistakes we have done until now.
What does Parkour give you?
from the background: Everything!
Christoph: This is being discussed frequently and to cite Larry Flint: opinions are like assholes, everyone got one. Seriously, there is a different personal view for everyone what Parkour gives you and what lesson you learn from it. For me this is training patience. Parkour takes a lot of time, you have to bring a lot of patience for this. This doesn't only have a positive effect on Parkour but also on life. You learn to stay longer at one task, also if there are no immediate results.
Daniel: In first case, it is the control of my body, with advancing in training you notice what you can do with your body and how you got it under control. Apart of this it is the idea and feeling of freedom because you can move with less restrictions.
Jonas: That you learn to treat with problems and that you learn to search for other ways when you know that you can't beat something. You don't always have to climb that three-metre-wall. Additionally it is, like said before, the treatment of your body, also food.
Christoph: Movement.
Daniel: Nothing to add. That is also one of the requirementes, you should enjoy to move.
Then we already reach the last two questions. Where do you see problems for Parkour?
Christoph: At first about the freedom of movement in public areas. Parkour was thought not to go usual ways. But in cities there are more and more tilled areas, free areas disappear. You want to get across this but if you don't pay attention it may happen that Parkour gets a negative image and the freedom of movement is cut down by prohibitions. The second big problem is the commercialisation. The hype is very big and Parkour gets wasted, also in movies like James Bond and in music videos like Madonna.
Daniel: The hype will drop, it will not be in the media that much anymore. But I hope that the established groups will move on and give it to the next generation in their surrounding leading ahead setting good examples.
Christoph: I see it positively, the idea is hope.
Thank you for the informations, have a nice day.
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