One visit to almost any district in the city of Pittsburgh, and you will be as convinced as I am; Pittsburgh is an amazing place to learn Parkour & Freerunning.

Steel City is known around the world for the steel industry that was bustling here in the 20th century. It is also known as the “City of Bridges”, with almost 500 different bridges throughout the area..and some that haven’t even been counted. This industrial background set a precedent for the elaborate, Neo-Gothic influenced architecture we see around the city. Luckily for us traceurs, these spots lend them selves extremely well as training spots for Parkour!

Also, the city provides great backdrops for parkour videos.. (you can find some video examples here)

So what is parkour?

Parkour – The art of getting from point A to point B as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Let’s imagine you’re getting chased, and you are running in a straight line away from your attacker (a logical assumption).. all of a sudden your escape is blocked by rails, walls, drops, etc. What do you do? Do you waste time by going around the obstacle and risk being caught? HECK NO! You gotta use your awesome parkour skills to get over, under, through the obstacles (eg, you gotta parkour that sh*t).

Back to Pittsburgh.. A couple of weeks ago I re-visited my home and got a chance to re-connect with the amazing parkour environments of this city! I grew up in Pittsburgh and started learning Parkour at 16. FIrst, I started learning by just jumping over trash cans and the like, until my eyes opened to the possibilities of the unique training spots in this city. I was able to find a spot to train just about anywhere.. from the University of Pittsburgh’s campus in Oakland, to Allegheny Square, Mt Lebanon, any of the CCAC Campuses, and even the Mckees Rocks bottoms.

When my interest was first sparked in the direction of this discipline, I met up with the Pittsburgh-based parkour group, Team Sanjuu (formerly PKFR International). I trained PK with them for about a year, and then left for college in 2008. Back when I left there was only a handful of people trying to learn the fledgling art of parkour.

Today there are many more practitioners in Pittsburgh, and the community is growing every day. Between the University of Pittsburgh’s own Panther Parkour club, Team Sanjuu, and other groups that spring up every day, parkour & freerunning jams and events are being hosted every couple of weeks. These are usually open to all levels of Traceurs (parkour practitioners), and the “real” global parkour community is one of the most welcoming to beginners. Since learning parkour is a lot about self-realization, fellow traceurs share tips and insights openly with each other.

If you are in or near Pittsburgh and want to learn parkour and freerunning, I encourage you to just get outside and explore! If you would like some guidance from experienced practitioners, get in touch with one of the groups I linked to above. Or if you prefer to learn on your own, YouTube (and the internet at large) has a lot of good tutorials!

Below are some more pics I snapped of parkour spots in Oakland, near the University of Pittsburgh campus.

I will write an in-depth article on Parkour/Freerunning sometime in the future, so stay tuned! For now, perhaps consider liking my facebook page or subscribing to my mailing list in the sidebar?

– Rustic B

ps

Pittsburgh is also a great place to learn Martial Arts Tricking! (Click on the picture to learn how)

