The Popcorn Stand: What will young whippersnappers think of next

The OFD (old, fuddy duddy) is having a hard time keeping up with what the young whippersnappers (that’s a real olden times term for millennials) are doing and I was floored by the photos Appeal photographer Jim Grant brought back of some young whippersnappers “freerunning.” We featured one of those photos in Wednesday’s edition of the Appeal.

I was even more floored by the fact in my research freerunning has evidently been around since 2003. Freerunning is pretty much just that, running all over the place and places and I mean all over places. Look up freerunning in YouTube and you can catch kids running all over kinds of places whether it be up a tree or along a thin rail.

Freerunning, though, is more than that as its a form of acrobatic and athletic training based on Parkour (military obstacle course training) but has a lot more flexibility to it as far as what freerunners can do. Freerunning and Parkour as I understand it have essentially become interchangeable terms.

My understanding there’s even a bit of martial arts involved and I can definitely see MMA fighters using freerunning as a form of training. Really, any athlete could use freerunning as a form of training.

In freerunning you also add acrobatic moves known as tricking, which are pretty much whatever flips and twists you want.

Of course freerunning isn’t exactly the safest activity there is, but watching the kids do their freerunning on YouTube — let’s just say they’re absolutely amazing.

I’m so inspired — I may actually run up the steps to the second floor to get a bag of chips from the food court.

— Charles Whisnand