Unknown sports

One such sport is parkour, for example. Also known as le parkour or PK, this sport originated in France. The intention here is that participants (called ‘traceurs’) try to overcome obstacles in the city as smoothly and quickly as possible. In practice, this means climbing fences in public, jumping off rooftops, and so on. Actually a bit of monkey cages in the open air.

parkour
Parkour demands a lot from the body physically, but the creators of the sport also care about the philosophy behind it: freedom and pushing boundaries. Shortly after its invention in France, a number of Englishmen developed their own variant: free running or free-style parkour. The aim is to go from start to finish as gracefully as possible.

Parkour is an extremely risky sport. All the climbing, and especially the jumping, demands a lot from the body. For example, the shock released during parkour jumps is on average twice that of a car collision. Being able to land properly is therefore of vital importance. Parkour is therefore certainly not a sport to just start. The positive effects of this sport are comparable to the effects of athletics and gymnastics: more muscle strength, flexibility and endurance.

Hebertism
Hebertism is related to parkour, which, in contrast to parkour, has nature as its playing area. Trees, mountains and streams therefore play a major role in this. In French-speaking Belgium it is a household name and there is even a federation: the Fédération Belge d’Hébertisme. Not so strange of course, because a little hebertist can enjoy himself better in the Belgian Ardennes than in the Dutch polder.

The advantage of Hebertism is that it takes place in the fresh air and in that sense it can be compared to survival. Just like with parkour, hebertism is not a sport to just start. Practitioners will first need to have some basic techniques and the necessary stamina.

Build
Building is a sport developed by Frenchman Alain Robert. That says nothing about the principle of the sport, but the nickname of Robert already creates more clarity: Spider-Man. Indeed, builderen is climbing buildings without a rope. Robert has now climbed more than seventy skyscrapers and was arrested a number of times.

Incidentally, building is not always about the sport. Many get a kick out of the fact that the ascent is almost always illegal. It goes without saying that builders have the necessary experience in climbing, and do not just run into a skyscraper.

Flyboarding
In kitesurfing, the practitioner – a kiter or kite surfer – stands on a small surfboard, after which he is pulled by a kite, a large kite. Flyboarding, also called landboarding, is very similar to kitesurfing, although the waves of the sea have been exchanged for snow or sand and the surfboard for a large skateboard. On the beach there are wheels underneath, in the snow of course not.

In flyboarding, the practitioner hangs behind a kitesurf kite, a snow kite or a large mattress kite. The aim of the sport is not so much to achieve a high speed, but to make all kinds of jumps and movements: freestyling. Flyboarding is therefore more about the kick than about improving the body. Although the agility and stamina it provides are of course a plus.

chess boxing
Iepe Rubingh is a Dutch artist who created his own sport: chess boxing (literally a combination between chess and boxing). During a match there are a maximum of eleven rounds, starting with four minutes of chess. After a minute’s break, it’s time for two minutes of boxing, before returning to the chessboard after a minute.

The winner is determined by a knockout, checkmate or a decision of the jury. Rubingh is now chairman of the World Chess Boxing Organisation, which he founded. A common criticism of chess boxing is that chess is an afterthought. A good boxer but a bad chess player is more likely to win than someone who is bad at boxing but good at chess.