Today I have PT Michelle chatting with us about Parkour! It's featured in her second novel in the BKoD series, Lucid. Check out her guest post and enter the giveaway below!
• Pub Date: June 27, 2011
• Publisher: PT Michelle
• Format: Paperback/ebook, 357 pp
• Age Range: Young Adult
Nara Collins is an average sixteen-year-old, with one exception: every night she dreams the events of the following day. Due to an incident in her past, Nara avoids using her special gift to change fate...until she dreams a future she can't ignore.
After Nara prevents a bombing at Blue Ridge High, her ability to see the future starts to fade, while people at school are suddenly being injured at an unusually high rate.
Grappling with her diminishing powers and the need to prevent another disaster, Nara meets Ethan Harris, a mysterious loner who seems to understand her better than anyone. Ethan and Nara forge an irresistible connection, but as their relationship heats up, so do her questions about his dark past.
• Pub Date: July 7, 2012
• Publisher: PT Michelle
• Format: Paperback/ebook, 274 pp
• Age Range: Young Adult
Once Nara combines her prophetic ability with Ethan's power to outsmart Fate at his own deadly cat-and-mouse game, she's more determined than ever to help Ethan learn the meaning behind the raven sword tattoo that suddenly appeared on his back after their confrontation with Fate.
During her quest to uncover the tattoo's secrets, Nara enlists the help of some new friends and discovers her own surprising connection to Ethan.
While Nara digs deeper into the mystery, her desire for answers leads her down a dangerous path full of powerful and ruthless enemies. Swept into an age-old battle, Nara quickly learns that keeping one's enemies close can be a necessary evil, making an intangible enemy she can control far more preferable to the human enemies she can't.
PARKOUR IN LUCID
by PT Michelle
by PT Michelle
In the second book in my BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS series, LUCID, the main character, Nara, meets a guy named Drystan and soon discovers among other things that he has a unique talent. He's really good at parkour. What is parkour?
Here's how Drystan explains it to Nara...
“Parkour is perceived as constant movement using natural motion. The technique is very physical, but it’s a way of evaluating and perceiving your environment around you in a strategic way, where you don’t let your mind or physical barriers stop you.” ~ Drystan in LUCID
When Nara asks Drystan why he wants to teach her parkour, he says that it's all part of him helping her learn self-defense.
“...Defensively, if you can think at least two steps ahead of your pursuer, then your chances of getting away are much greater.” ~ Drystan in LUCID
And just like Drystan tells Nara that showing her parkour would be far easier than explaining it, I thought I'd share some visual examples with you. Click the links for the YouTube videos.
PARKOUR
You know that opening chase scene in the 2006 remake of Casino Royale (with Daniel Craig)? See here: (it starts at 5.02) That's parkour being used in the movies.
Here's a very well known traceur (the term for a parkour practitioner) in action, Damien Walters, doing all his great moves. Check them out and be entertained with his amazing flexibility!
SLACKLINE
In LUCID, Drystan takes Nara up on the slackline to teach her to learn to control her balance, since learning parkour starts with controlling one's balance. Do you remember the guy in the white toga/dress doing crazy bounces on a thin piece of line on stage during Madonna's Super Bowl performance this past year? That was Andy Lewis on a slackline. He's the world champion in his unusual sport. Here are a couple examples of tricklining (tricks/flips) done on a slackline.
Mike Payton on the slackline.
Andy Lewis, Mike Payton and others on the Conan show doing the slackline.
THE HISTORY OF PARKOUR
If you're curious about the history of parkour (where it came from and how it has evolved over time), here are a couple of links with all the deets! Parkour History and Wiki: Parkour.
I hope you found learning a bit more about parkour and slacklining interesting and that it has made you curious out LUCID! :)
P.T. Michelle is author of the young adult BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS series. When P.T. isn’t writing, she can usually be found reading or taking pictures of landscapes, sunsets and anything beautiful or odd in nature.
Giveaway Alert!!
- Prize #1: 1 print copy of BkoD
- Prize #2: 1 print copy of Lucid
- Grand Prize: 1 print copy of BKoD + 1 print copy of Lucid + Nara's necklace.
Use the Rafflecopter form below to be entered to win. Thanks and good luck!!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
This sounds like an awesome couple of books that I would love to read! Thanks for the giveaway!
ReplyDeleteI'm highly intrigued by Parkour. Until I read Lucid, I’d never heard of it, but now I’m seeing it everywhere… that’s how it goes, right? I just picked up an ARC to read and it’s all about Parkour too, and now I’m like, I so need to read this because Lucid really piqued my attention. I had no idea that the James Bond movies showed it in action… so going to go watch them again. Wish I was about 60 pounds lighter… I’d try Parkour myself! Great post!
ReplyDeleteShana @ A Book Vacation
These book sounds great. I have always loved to watch Parkour in action. It's crazy how athletic and talented some people are.
ReplyDelete