Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Adepts
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Digital Heroin
A regular person looks at the city around them, and they see concrete and glass, maybe a little fancy architecture to catch the eye. Not this man. I know only his name, and that is David Belle. He is a practitioner of the art of parkour, the expression of flow and grace through movement. He is an adept, in body and mind:

http://www.lookatentertainment.com/nneu231.../vids/v-489.wmv

Oh, and that was one cheesy intro, yes it was. Regardless, this guy is the reason they have to put disclaimers all over parkour sites. Daayum.
Digital Heroin
And damnit I should know better than to post again after an error...
Kyuhan
There was a thread or two about him before. Truly awsome. I read somewhere that he has a 20 foot standing broad jump.
weblife
Hehe, thats cool. But really, it should be no surprise that its possible. He moves like a chimpansee or similar ape, which makes sense.

But daamn he must be training alot.

The Adept in the SR sense, would be able to do this, be better at it, and at the same time have a list of other feats that he can Also do.

Respect to this guy though. cool.gif
Digital Heroin
Remember, Adepts weren't even recognized at first, because they're power isn't always flash and bang. This guy is real life, just better... well, ok, not real life. I don't go jumping rooftop to rooftop, that's way advanced parkour. I'd be lucky if I could leap a rail without ranging my shin off of it.... which didn't happen while I was drunk in Prince Rupert, nope, not at all. Part of me watches this and thinks: 'yeah, this is what Adepts do in their spare time'
sanctusmortis
I remember watching him train a load of kids. It is well and truly amazing, but I'd say it was more Athletics 6.
Smiley
Wow. My second man-crush. After Johnny Depp.
FrostyNSO
Websense catagorizes this guy as "tasteless".

I'm sure if I ever saw what this guy was doing, it'd be really cool. grinbig.gif
toturi
Is anyone reminded of the Matrix?
Kyuhan
Speaking of adepts, has anyone seen Criss Angel? That bugger can do some amazing stuff, he catches arrows and lights himself on fire and levitates and stuff. He's a stage magician who does stunts and his street magic would make David Blaine's head explode.
Wounded Ronin
Parcour is a sport/hobby that more and more people started to get into. It's like doing Jackie Chan stunts as a hobby.

Personally, I don't think it's worth the risk.
sanctusmortis
It's also known as "free running". Like any socially acceptable hobby (ie, sporting and not just for toffs), it's getting a computer game series...

The stuff they do is amazing. The documentary following Free Running UK was amazing; stuff like the training apparatus used being basically improvised formations made out out of crash pads rigged together, kids at the age of 7 springboarding into a flip to catch a ledge, and a grown man literally running across the roofs of Wembley...
Shockwave_IIc
Think the BBC had an advert (of Sorts) with someone free running across london.

Talia Invierno
For Nike, I think: and there was more than one of them.
Shockwave_IIc
QUOTE (Talia Invierno @ Jul 10 2005, 10:08 PM)
For Nike, I think: and there was more than one of them.

If it was then it wasn't on the BBC. They don't do product adverts.

The one i saw was Definatly BBC

And those Other Threads
A New Martial Art
Need An Adept Power
Great Leap, Improved Acrobatics
Frater Inominatus
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin)
Personally, I don't think it's worth the risk.

Try it once and you'll change your mind. love.gif
Critias
QUOTE (Frater Inominatus)
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ Jul 10 2005, 09:25 AM)
Personally, I don't think it's worth the risk.

Try it once and you'll change your mind. love.gif

Your mind might be changed by a concussion, but it's a change, all the same.
Frater Inominatus
There are risks to everything in life. Eating, sleeping, even breathing. Besides, bones heal, concussions too. It's just pain. It's all only temporary anyway, so why not enjoy life and LIVE?
Smiley
Even death is not to be feared by those who lived wisely.

Siddartha Gautama.
Wounded Ronin
QUOTE (Frater Inominatus @ Jul 10 2005, 06:05 PM)
QUOTE (Wounded Ronin @ Jul 10 2005, 09:25 AM)
Personally, I don't think it's worth the risk.

Try it once and you'll change your mind. love.gif

I'm sure it's an amazing feeling. But, you know, intellectually, the risk to reward ratio isn't very good. The risk of serious injury is much more present than in many other highly rewarding activities I could do, such as playing judo, playing boxing, playing a video game, playing SR, etc etc etc.

It's all about risk management. I don't drive, either, because I've lived in cities and the risks associated with driving are relatively high compared with the risk of my getting injured if I play judo or something. I try to eat a balanced diet low in fat and cholesterol because of the risk of death by heart disease for people living in the US.

I don't understand how you can say that that's not living. It precisely is about living; living intelligently.

Also, depending on the height from which you fall and how you fall, you might get something that you don't recover from. Not all injuries can be recovered from fully, and strange falls from ten stories up could certainly produce some permanent injuries if you're unlucky enough.
Frater Inominatus
How can you say the reward isn't worth the risk when you haven't tried it? Have you ever accomplished something amazing? If you have then you know the exhilaration of that success goes with you for the rest of your life. Hiking the AT, reaching a summit, crossing the finish line of a marathon, all these bring with them an incredible feeling of accomplishment that you just can't get from video games.

Driving a two and-a-half hunk of metal at seventy miles per hour on a narrow stretch of concrete with a hundred other people doing the same thing might be called risky by some. But for those who do it it everyday there is no more risk than walking down the street. They have trained themselves, either through doing or by being instructed, on how to safely make the trip.

QUOTE (Sun Tzu 4 B.C.)
Measurements of space are derived from the ground


The same goes for free runners, parachutists, and rock climbers. The actual risk of serious injury is very small. I would have to guess it is far less than the ratio of drivers to injuries. Free runners train hard on soft mats for long hours before taking it to the streets. It may look spontaneous and wild, but it is well planned and well prepared for. Risk is relative. If some guy got up off the couch one day and said, "You know, I think I'll go out and do some free running today." He would end up on a hospital gurney within five minutes of his attempt. Now take someone like David Belle. He is in amazing shape. He has trained hard. He has conditioned his body to an extreme level. The likelihood of him injuring himself is negligible.
As to judo or boxing, if you were competing I could agree that you might get the same sense as from free running. And while I enjoy playing video games and SR, they do not cause your adrenaline gland to spasm wildly, or your brain to secrete serotonin, non of the effects you get when performing extreme sports.
weblife
QUOTE
How can you say the reward isn't worth the risk when you haven't tried it?


Sorry, that bit is just too dumb.

Its like promoting drinking, or marihuana, or speed, or heroin. "Come on man, you won't believe how great it is!"

Running around on buildings are dangerous. Most people need their adrenaline fix, some can get it doing safer things.

Jrayjoker
QUOTE (weblife @ Jul 11 2005, 08:30 AM)
QUOTE
How can you say the reward isn't worth the risk when you haven't tried it?


Sorry, that bit is just too dumb.

Its like promoting drinking, or marihuana, or speed, or heroin. "Come on man, you won't believe how great it is!"

Running around on buildings are dangerous. Most people need their adrenaline fix, some can get it doing safer things.

Don't go bashing on drinking! LOL

You make your choices. I have done plenty of risky things (like jumping off roofs into shoulder rolls) to see if I could do it. At the time It was invigorating, but looking back I could have easily misadjusted, hesitated, or just plain not been able to do it and gotten really hurt.
weblife
Hehe, I made the blurb morally dynamic.. No matter (I hope!) who reads it, they will find something in that list thats beyond their moral code. biggrin.gif
Frater Inominatus
Comparing the promotion of extreme sports to promoting drugs is equally as dumb.

There is a large and distinct difference between doing something that destroys your body, regardless of the preparation you make before doing them (drinking kills brain cells, marijuana leaves muck in your brain, speed and heroin can both leave neurological damage) and doing something potentially dangerous. You can safely jump out of an aircraft with the proper preparations: Instruction, proper equipment, and physical training. With these tools you can jump with confidence and enjoy the ride. In the same way, you can perform extreme sports with the same level confidence.

QUOTE (Weblife Posted on Jul 11 2005 @ 09:30 AM)
Running around on buildings are dangerous


So is football, rugby, and jai-lai; and millions of people around the world play them.
Tanka
To quote a fairly famous movie:

"You have to give up. You have to realize that some day, you are going to die. Until you know that, you are useless."

If you live every day in fear of death, you will never accomplish anything worthwhile. If you live every day knowing that some day you will die, you'll take greater risks and make greater accomplishments.

That is the mindset that I follow. Take the risk. If you fail, get up, dust yourself off, wipe off the blood and try it again later. Failure is not a bad thing, it just means trying harder until you succeed.
Kyuhan
...or die trying.
Tanka
Better to die doing something fun than to die of old age.
Apathy
QUOTE (tanka @ Jul 11 2005, 04:12 PM)
Better to die doing something fun than to die of old age.

Hmmm, not sure I agree. I'd rather die of old age, having lived a full life doing lots of fun things.

I'm sure the rush of free running, base jumping, and train spotting can be intense, but for me it's not worth it.
Kagetenshi
If you consider train spotting to be too dangerous to be worth it, I can only imagine what you must do for fun. Fold paper towels?

~J
Kyuhan
Hey, don't believe the hype, those Bounty Towel corners can get awfully sharp...they'll take your eye out. grinbig.gif
sanctusmortis
It is only by pushing ourselves that we improve ourselves. Muscle gain is only acheived by tearing the old muscle so new tissue can grow; any other methods (say, steroids) merely speed the process. The only way to improve maths skill is to really push at the boundaries of what you know in an effort to finally understand what you couldn't before. A treatment for cancer won't be found by chance, it will be found by hard work and determination.

Sure, not everyone wants to do parkour; but everyone should try do something that pushes them to their limits, either mentally or physically. Try nothing, gain nothing. How can you learn to swim if you never get in the water and try? How do you academically further yourself without working at courses and assignments?

And why live to an old age when all you do is sit and watch telly? The life of old people is hardly fun anyway; I'd rather take risks and do something with my time than sit and watch it go by.
Tanka
Exactly.

If I'm ever at the ripe old age of "geezer", I'd like to have my share of fun stories of the crazy stuff I did. (And hopefully I'll remember them, too.)
Frater Inominatus
Amen Brother!
Panzergeist
Any of you guys ever heard of a Buddhist monastic sect called Lung Gom? Supposedly, experienced Lung Gom monks can jump to twice their own height from a cross-legged sitting position, and run 300 miles in 30 hours, running nonstop without even stopping for a drink of water.
Tanka
Running 10mph? I'd personally have to see that to believe it.
Kyuhan
Ummm, I can run 10 mph, it's no big feat...just for nowhere near even 1 hour, let alone 30. nyahnyah.gif
Tanka
Ah, hm. I've always had problems with a sense of speed/distance.

Though, yeah, I'd have to see the 300 miles in 30 hours feat.

I know of people who've popped up five stairs without bending their knees, so I could possibly see going from a sitting position to twice their height in one jump.

It's improbable, but I suppose it is physically possible.
Jrayjoker
Watching these videos makes me sad at the general physical condition of the masses these days (including myself). Back when we had to use our bodies to survive the feats we consider extreme now were probably only a little extra exertion.
Frater Inominatus
QUOTE (tanka)
Running 10mph? I'd personally have to see that to believe it.

Justin Gatlin - 100-meter sprint in 9.85 seconds on Aug. 22. That's 23 MILES PER HOUR!!!
Tanka
That's also only 100 meters. While I can't sprint that fast, I can sprint fairly fast. Running 10mph for 30 hours is an entirely different matter.
Frater Inominatus
Granted it isn't three-hundred miles but the world record marathon runner (26 miles) completed it in 2:04:55, which puts him at an average speed of twelve and-a-half miles per hour. An unbelievable pace! He AVERAGED a 4:48 mile. My best time ever was 4:24 and I was dying at the end. The human body is capable of feats that defy reason.
Digital Heroin
I manage to walk the five hundred meters from my car to the ship I'm stationed on in about fifteen minutes. Go me!
Apathy
QUOTE (Kagetenshi)
If you consider train spotting to be too dangerous to be worth it, I can only imagine what you must do for fun. Fold paper towels?

~J

Hmmm, maybe I used the wrong term...I've seen a bunch of videos on the net of people who basically play chicken with oncoming trains - diving off the tracks at the last second. Don't know what it's really called, just seemed stupidly dangerous to me, though.

(Granted, it's not like the train can leave the tracks and come after you, but still looked dangerous.)
DrJest
Parkour, parkour... Is that the roofrunning thing? Extreme sports in the city? There's an excellent issue of Warren Ellis' Global Frequency where one of these roofrunners is tagged to cross London at rush hour to defuse a bioweapon.
Critias
How edgy and extreme and hardcore.
Kagetenshi
QUOTE (Apathy)
Hmmm, maybe I used the wrong term...I've seen a bunch of videos on the net of people who basically play chicken with oncoming trains - diving off the tracks at the last second. Don't know what it's really called, just seemed stupidly dangerous to me, though.

(Granted, it's not like the train can leave the tracks and come after you, but still looked dangerous.)

Ah, that makes more sense. For reference, train spotting essentially consists of hanging out at train stations and noting train numbers and times down in a little log book.

~J
Critias
QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Jul 13 2005, 02:36 AM)
For reference, train spotting essentially consists of hanging out at train stations and noting train numbers and times down in a little log book.

Significantly less edgy and extreme and hardcore!
Digital Heroin
Which is extreme to the max!!!!!1!!... if you dig trains a bit too much...
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012