Putting the Function in Functional

This is Tommi. He lives in Reykjavík, Iceland and is 21 years old. And yes, that's him in the picture jumping from rooftop to rooftop minus the safety net. Tommi participates in a sport called Parkour: "...the main purpose of the discipline is to teach participants how to move through their environment by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing, and leaping. Parkour practitioners are known as '"traceurs"', with their female counterpart referred to as '"traceuses"." (Wikipedia). Take a look.

To me, the amazing thing about his sport is that it exemplifies the ability of the body's capacity of absorb and distribute impact. The skeleton alone isn't capable of handling these forces. The surrounding tissues, the myofascia, gets involved to spread this impact safely across an area to diminish the force of the impact.

I am not suggesting that you go out and leap over cars or picnic tables. What I am advocating is that you become aware of how your body moves through its environment. Take walking for example: All of us do it but are you aware of your posture and balance when you're doing it? Are you leading with your shoulders, is your jaw forward, are you looking like our genetic cousins from the ice age? A teacher of movement once tole me, "Walking is like a dance: sometimes you're in step, sometimes you're not" In other words, you need to practice this movement and be aware of how you move through your environment. More about this later.

As for Tommi and the others who practice his sport, watching that dance is pure joy.