Jake Gyllenhaal's Blog on Manliness

Lesson Number 4:

A Man Is Skilled

Pretty self explanatory but still...
A man must be capable in any situation.
He must have the skills needed
to withstand the
hits life sends his way.

An incredibly useful skill to
 have is that of adaptation to the enviorment your in.
Especially
movement , such as  "l'art du déplacement" or
Parkour.

               In the movie,the Prince of Persia, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Prince Dastan a incredibly skilled practitioner of parkour as it is now called.He uses parkour in the story to fight,evade, and get around his surroundings with amazing stunts. Gyllenhaal prepared weeks in advance physically for the role. He developed the skilled needed by being taught by the founding father himself David Belle. In the movie there are deft defying leaps and stunts all done with no wires just guts from the stunt men above and of course Gyllenhaal himself. Parkour for those of you that dont know is at a basic level the art of movement over a usually urban terrain , useing the structures presented there as catapults not crutches. The practitioner must be in top physicall form or at least match his level of fitness and skill to whatever feats he attempts to be "safe", for you could harm yourself  all to easy. Parkour is manly as it requires all the manly traits like, physical strength and endurance, judgement ans skill. Jake Gyllenhaal was man enough to do a movie and  adapt to what was expected of him. He did it and got out of it a probably great workout and experience. Therefore I challenge you to go out and find a skill that you wish you could master and do it!

by Nathaniel Garcia