The newly revitalized Puring Park in South Jakarta was abuzz with activity on a recent Sunday morning, with people of all ages enjoying the greenery and the park’s new facilities.

While many of the activities may be a common sight in many parks throughout the capital, such children having fun in the playground or people jogging or riding skateboards and scooters, one group of people was preparing to begin parkour training.

The park is being promoted as the first parkour park in Jakarta, with walls and bars installed for parkour enthusiasts.

After a warm-up, members of the Parkour Jakarta community lined up to practice their techniques. The traceurs took turns jumping over obstacles, then moved on to practice jumping against the wall.

The head of the community, Izzatul Jihadi, was busy helping out, providing some traceurs with an extra push to reach the ledge of the wall, and encouraging them to hold onto it for at least five seconds.

The 22-year-old joined the community in 2013, six years after it was first established in 2007, and is keen to motivate people to stay fit and healthy by practicing parkour.

“Parkour, by definition, is the practice of moving from point A to point B as efficiently as possible, using only the human body, with no protective equipment,” he said, adding that they usually practiced up to four techniques per training session, dedicating 20 minutes to each.

Izzatul noted that participation in the community had grown after the revitalized park was opened to the public in January. At their second training session of the year, he estimated that 50 people attended, up from the usual 30 to 40 participants.

One member is Mikayla Karissa Denel, a 16-year-old homeschooler with attention-deficit disorder (ADHD) who has been practicing parkour since June 2018.

“I have ADHD, which means it’s hard for me to stay focused. [Parkour] helps with my ADHD. Normally, if I haven’t practiced parkour in a while, my lack of focus recurs,” she said.

Mikayla also put her parkour skills to the test at two international tournaments in Malaysia and Singapore, where she came in second and third place, respectively, in the speed competition.

For Mikayla, it was her first time trying the parkour area at Puring Park and the first time she had visited the park. She commended the design of the park, and said it was one of the two parkour parks she knew of, with the other being in the satellite city of Bekasi, West Java.

“The place is nice. What is not so good is the bar, as it’s slippery and can easily injure our hands,” Mikayla said.

Also among the group of mostly under 25s was Sofian, a 50-year-old entrepreneur who has practiced parkour twice a week, on Thursday and Sunday, for a little over six months. He said he had tried other physical exercise but found parkour to be more fun and interesting with its combination of jumping and running.

He added that he had become more agile after practicing parkour, which made it easier for him to go up and down stairs.

“There are no age limits. You can start whenever, be it 50, 60, 70,” said Sofian.

However, Sofian said there should be more space to run and jump over obstacles, noting that the parkour area at Puring Park was dominated by walls.

The revitalization of Puring Park started in October 2019 as part of the Jakarta administration’s efforts to create more green spaces in the city.

Under Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan, the city has developed numerous taman maju bersama (move forward together park), a concept that replaced his predecessor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s child-friendly integrated parks (RPTRA).

Jakarta Forestry Agency head Suzi Marsitawati previously said the agency planned to build around 200 parks by 2020, with a proposed budget of Rp 190 billion (US$13.92 million), a Rp 60 billion increase from the Rp 130 billion allocated in 2019.

Anies said that local communities would play a part in designing the parks so they would serve the needs of their respective communities.

Muhammad Taufan Sudewa can attest to the administration’s commitment. He was a representative of Parkour Jakarta invited to discuss the revitalization of the park with the administration.

“The parkour area of Puring Park initially started from a collaboration between [our community] and the administration and the [Jakarta] Forestry Agency,” said the 30-year-old.

Drawing hope from the opening of a skate park under the Slipi overpass in June 2019, members of the parkour community tried to get the administration’s attention by commenting enthusiastically on the administration’s Instagram posts.

Their efforts were a success. The administration reached out to them and opened a dialogue with the community. Around four to five months since the initial meeting, Sudewa was contacted by a consultant team and they began designing the parkour park. (ydp)

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