Parkour in India is as old as NOS. No, not Nitrous Oxide Systems from the fast and the furious yaa, apna NOS. What, you don’t know who NOS is?! You sadist caveman with a leafy skirt! Fine , I’ll help you this once. NO, not with the skirt you….aaaah!

I can safely say that NOS is the oldest traceur in India. Currently the most active community for Parkour in India is “Parkour India”(www.parkourindia.net). Parkour India operates in a few cities like New Delhi, Mumbai , Chennai , Kolkata etc. NOS happens to be the in-charge of the Parkour India and Parkour Mumbai (www.parkourmumbai.com) forums.

(Btw, if you wanna know what a tracuer is or learn more about Parkour, take a look at this article if you haven't already)

Cut to the chase, there ain’t a better guy we could’ve caught on to if we wanted to write this thing. These are the personal details of NOS that we were given by the man himself:

Real name :  ………………. (NOS is all we need to know)

Age :   NOS does not age.   (that’s right, he does not. I asked him this question in the most twisted and shrewd of ways. All I got was this.)

So basically for us mortals NOS is much like Achilles without the darned heel problem. Yeah, that’s pretty much what we thought too after the initial interaction. Boy , were we wrong!

NOS is a part of the Team NUTS from Mumbai. So, how did he start practicing parkour? “I have been doing Parkour all my life (subconsciously, as it’s just an art of movement) until 3 or 4 years ago when I accidently discovered on the internet that it was now actually a formal discipline and was called 'Parkour'.” NOS has always been an athlete and was primarily into martial arts. So adapting to parkour wasn’t too difficult for him as his body was already conditioned. Achilles, told ya!

Like every other first generation traceur, NOS had to train with the help of online stuff. Soon a few like minded bullet minds from Mumbai met up and started practicing parkour together. One thing led to another, and soon there was Parkour India (with the help of Team MUTANTS from New Delhi). Just when you’d think it was all rosy, the theory of ‘Three Phases’ hit them hard.

“Over the years I have noticed phases that occur in almost every traceur as they progress. The first stage is the amazement stage where you find out about David Belle and Parkour on youtube and you rediscover what you think is possible. The second stage is where everything goes wrong because most noobs jump right in and try to mimic what they see the experienced traceurs doing because they don’t realize how much conditioning and training the experienced traceurs have under their belts. And the third stage is the most important stage of all because it’s the stage that makes or breaks them as true or fake traceurs.

It’s the stage when the noobs realize they are not as good as they think they are and there is something different between them and the traceurs they are trying to mimic (that something is strength and technique or power and control as some call it). This stage usually hits about 6 months to a year into training. If the noob goes one way he will become strong and smart and talented, if they go the other… they get hurt or they quit after they learn a few semi-impressive tricks.”

So the Mumbai guys hit phase three. And guess who was the last man standing from that test………..Achilles, obviously!

Also Team Mutants went defunct last year. So NOS is one of the last traceur left from the first generation of Indian traceurs.

The scene in India is better than before but a lot still needs to be done. While Parkour has been gracefully accepted in the west, our rigid mindsets are holding it back here. Will India ever match up that level of popularity? No-one knows yet. The one question that confused me was, is parkour in India a newborn or a dying breed? NOS sums it up appropriately for me:

“It’s somewhere in he middle I would say. There are a lot of factors why Parkour in India can never take off big time the way it does in other countries. Some of the main ones being lack of infrastructure, people's general attitudes, people's attitudes here toward physical training and physical culture, and Indian lifestyles. All of which are not conducive for the growth of such an activity at all.”

It is at this point that all of us find it the easiest to blame the system/government to not have done enough. If you were ready to jump on that wagon….hold on and SHUT UP you cynical, ‘I wont move my lazy rear but I’ll blame the govt!’ retard!

The Sports Authority of India (SAI - part of the Sports Ministry, Gov of India) extended a helping hand to Parkour Mumbai and provided them with adequate training equipments and time at their gym recently. NOS trains youngsters too. The youngest student is 17. But don’t they say ‘early starters do well’? NOS contradicts : “I don't train children younger than that. They are too immature to understand the philosophies behind this discipline, and if they don't understand the philosophies, they will only try to attempt foolish stuff unneccesarily and open themselves up to injury. Besides, it's their age to be free and just play around, and not be bound by the shackles of a formal class.”

Finally I asked him that if me or some other Whackko becomes his fellow traceur (far fetched, I know!) what cool name would he give us? Since all traceurs had a really cool pseudonym I noticed. All I got was “It's not really necessary to have Parkour pseudonyms, but if you do want one, you need to earn the hard, old-fashioned way. You cannot choose your own Parkour name, you have to be assigned it by someone else, who tend to do it based on some memorable event related to you, or maybe your quirky tendencies and temperament, etc. So if you guys want Parkour names as well, you'll have to train with us for a few months to see if you become eligible for embarrassing, erm, I mean cool Parkour pseudonyms.”

In a shell-nut : We’re not cool enough for Mr. NOS a.k.a Achilles.

Not done man. I thought you owed me one for all those times you kept me waiting while you ate(liar!). I see the love man….i see it!

A Few Videos..

One awesome Parkour video : 

Here's a training video : 

Also, do take a look at this link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPN3gLVDsOY It's Insane!

Image and video Credits : Parkour Mumbai (www.parkourmumbai.com)