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Urban Freeflow (often abbreviated to UF) was a United Kingdom-based parkour and freerunning related company that was founded in 2003.
Five Urban Freeflow members left the group after participating in a 2009 corporate-sponsored race that featured only Urban Freeflow runners, [1] effectively ending the organization's business operations.
Established in 2003, Urban Freeflow was founded by Paul Corkery (known as Ez), a former boxer who saw an opportunity to connect the international parkour community through an online forum. As the first mover, the company managed to be profitable as the momentum of parkour and its popularity grew.
The corporate structure of the group was compromised in 2005 when Companies House dissolved the trading company for failing to meet their statutory filing obligations. At this time, Ez and former partner Mark Toorock (M2) split and Ez formed a new company, Urban Free Flow. [1] The company sold branded clothes, many of which feature the Urban Freeflow trademarked Glyph logo.
Urban Freeflow was criticized for organizing freerunning competitions sponsored by Barclaycard. The critics believed that freerunning, like parkour, should be a non-competitive activity. There are also complaints of the corporate nature of the event, many freerunning sites saying that the introduction of merchandising and sponsorships would compromise the true nature of the sport. Ez has replied "The people who are saying this are the ones who don't have any sponsorship." [2]
Parkour is an athletic training discipline or sport in which practitioners attempt to get from one point to another in the fastest and most efficient way possible, without assisting equipment and often while performing feats of acrobatics. With roots in military obstacle course training and martial arts, parkour includes flipping, running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, jumping, plyometrics, rolling, and quadrupedal movement—whatever is suitable for a given situation. Parkour is an activity that can be practiced alone or with others, and is usually carried out in urban spaces, though it can be done anywhere. It involves seeing one's environment in a new way, and envisioning the potential for navigating it by movement around, across, through, over and under its features.
A street game or street sport is a sport or game that is played on city streets rather than a prepared field. Street games are usually simply play time activities for children in the most convenient venue. Some street games have risen to the level of organized tournaments, such as stickball.
Freerunning is an athletic and acrobatic discipline incorporating an aesthetic element, and can be considered either a sport or a performance art, or both. Freerunning is similar to parkour, from which it is derived, but emphasizes artistry over efficiency and speed. Freerunning involves interacting with physical obstacles in creative ways, such as by climbing, jumping or running; the obstacles may be purpose-built or may be part of a pre-existing natural or man-made environment. The movements are usually adopted from other sports, such as gymnastics, tricking or breakdancing. Freerunners can create their own moves, flows and lines in different landscapes. Practitioners of freerunning usually do parkour as well. Freerunning was founded by Sebastien Foucan, who discussed the subject in 2003 documentary film Jump London.
Sébastien Foucan is a French freerunner.
David Nicolas Williams Belle is a French actor, film choreographer and stunt coordinator. He is deemed the founder and leading pioneer of the physical discipline parkour, coining it based on his training and the teachings from his father Raymond Belle.
Freeway Park, officially known as Jim Ellis Freeway Park, is an urban park in Seattle, Washington, United States, connecting the city's downtown to the Seattle Convention Center and First Hill. The park sits atop a section of Interstate 5 and a large city-owned parking lot; 8th Avenue also bridges over the park. An unusual mixture of brutalist architecture and greenery, the 5.2-acre (21,000 m2) park, designed by Lawrence Halprin's office under the supervision of Angela Danadjieva, opened to the public on July 4, 1976, at a cost of $23.5 million. An expansion of the park that stretches several blocks up First Hill, including a stairway and wheelchair ramp, was opened in 1982.
Košarkaški klub Vršac Meridianbet, commonly referred to as KK Vršac Meridianbet, is a men's professional basketball club based in Vršac, Serbia. They are currently competing in the Basketball League of Serbia. Their home arena is the Millennium Centar, with a capacity of 4,400.
Investec is an Anglo-South African international banking and wealth management group. It provides a range of financial products and services to a client base in Europe, Southern Africa, and Asia-Pacific.
The ASEAN Club Championship or ACC, also known as the Shopee Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an international club football competition organised by the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) between domestic champion clubs. The competition is backed by AFC and FIFA.
Red Bull GmbH is an Austrian multinational private conglomerate company known for its range of energy drinks of the same name. It is also known for its wide range of sporting events and teams. The headquarters of Red Bull GmbH are located in Fuschl am See, Salzburg.
Skateboarding sponsorship is the commercial sponsorship of an individual or team of people who participate in skateboarding, competitions or public activities. Typically, the individual or team will receive cash payments, reduced-price or free merchandise or equipment from a sponsor in return for public and in-competition use of that sponsor's merchandise or equipment for promotional purposes and recipient testimonial or endorsement. Skateboarding sponsorship may also extend to the sponsorship of major competitions or venues by larger distributors or manufacturers of skateboarding equipment and merchandise.
The Australian Parkour Association (APA) is an incorporated association concerned with the promotion and teaching of parkour throughout Australia. At present, the APA has over 100 active members, while many times that number have attended or regularly attend APA-run parkour classes.
The World Freerunning Parkour Federation (WFPF) is an international federation or organization that was established in 2007. Its focus is to bring together patrons of Parkour and Freerunning and aims to bring the sport and philosophy to the mainstream audience.
Luci Romberg is an American stuntwoman. She is also the co-owner of Tempest Freerunning, a parkour lifestyle brand that also operates multiple training facilities and is based in Los Angeles.
Tricking is a training discipline that combines kicks with flips and twists from martial arts and gymnastics as well as many dance moves and styles from dance. It is a martial art that borrows techniques from taekwondo, kung fu, wushu, capoeira, and more. It aims to achieve an aesthetic display of different combinations of "tricks". Tricking practitioners are commonly referred to as trickers. Examples of tricking techniques include the 540 kick, the corkscrew (cork), the flashkick, the butterfly twist and the double leg.
Red Bull Art of Motion is a parkour and freerunning competition, established in 2007 and created by Red Bull. It is an international competition with qualifiers being held in various regional competitions around the world throughout the year. Winners from the regional competitions each year earn their ticket to get to the finals, held towards the end of the year.
Ryan Doyle is a freerunner, martial artist, coach, and actor from Liverpool, England, and is a founding athlete of the World Freerunning and Parkour Federation.
Daniel Marcus Ilabaca is a free runner and traceur. He along with Ryan Doyle, are the founders of the World Freerunning and Parkour Federation.
Storror is a group of seven parkour and freerunning athletes from the United Kingdom. They run a YouTube channel. Storror was established in 2010 by brothers Max Cave and Benj Cave, as well as Drew Taylor. They were later joined by Toby Segar, Callum Powell, Sacha Powell, and Josh Burnett-Blake. Storror have made the documentaries SuperTramps: Thailand (2015) and Roof Culture Asia (2017). They made their feature film debut in Netflix's 6 Underground (2019).
PK Gaza is a parkour and freerunning team based in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. The team was established in 2005 by a group of young athletes who were introduced to parkour through online videos. Despite the constraints of living in a conflict zone, the team has continued their commitment to the sport. PK Gaza practices parkour as a way to navigate physical and psychological obstacles, promoting movement in a region where access and mobility are frequently restricted due to the ongoing conflict.