1 . Rushing down the path, the traceur (跑酷者) is on the lookout for his next obstacles such as fire escapes, walls, or fences. As soon as he realizes a massive brick wall stands between him and where he wants to be, he unintentionally grabs on the wall with his hands and lifts himself to stand on top of it. His next move is a jump that lands him back on solid ground; however, noticing that he is unstable, he rolls to avoid injury.

Traceurs are athletes who perform remarkable gymnastics actions in urban environments. Serious traceurs are fascinated not just by the physical challenges of Parkour, but by its philosophy. Those who learn to excel at Parkour claim to develop not just physical fitness, but increased self-confidence and critical thinking skills, as they train themselves to find ways around every obstacle in their paths.

Because of these philosophical foundations, Parkour is often described by traceurs as more of a lifestyle or an art form than a sport. Passionate traceurs are determined to keep Parkour from becoming a competitive attempt. Competition, they argue, devalues the philosophical theory behind Parkour. People who practice Parkour should be more concerned with their relationship to the environment than with a ticking clock, a score, or a cheering crowd. Furthermore, traceurs should work with each other to improve confidence, awareness, and unity. Competition, they argue, only brings about feelings of conflict and disharmony.

While Parkour purists suggest that the philosophy behind Parkour helps to limit injuries, they must remember that not everyone who tries to leap over a mailbox is an experienced traceur trying to get in touch with his or her environment. Adolescents attempting to carry out these acrobatic (杂技的) skills could severely injure themselves. So while newcomers to Parkour might be eager to investigate this art of movement, it would be wise for them to remember the physicality behind the philosophy. After all, philosophy is not much good to a broken leg.

3 . On Sunday, Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia shocked the running world by breaking the women’s world record for the marathon by over two minutes. Assefa finished the Berlin Marathon in just 2 hours, 11 minutes, and 53 seconds.

But Assefa’s record was far beyond what most people expected. After all, it was only her third time running a marathon.

“I wanted to break the marathon world record,” she said, “But I couldn’t imagine that it would result in a time under 2:12.”

When Assefa was younger, she started by running short races, called sprints. Then she became a middle-distance runner, running the 800 meters (half mile) race. Her best time in the 800 meters was 1 minute and 59 seconds.

Last March, she ran her first marathon. Then last September, she entered the Berlin Marathon. She won, and set a new women’s record for the course, finishing in 2:15:37.

This year, she ran almost four minutes faster than she did last year. In both races, Assefa ran faster in the second half of the race than she did in the first half.

Her time of 2:11:53 was over two minutes faster than the old women’s record (2:14:04), which was set in Chicago in 2019 by Brigid Kosgei of Kenya.

When she finished the race, Assefa kneeled down and kissed the pavement before raising her arms in victory.

Though Assefa made it look easy, she said winning the race “…was the result of hard work.” Assefa was coached by Gemedu Dedefo, who has helped train many Ethiopian star runners.

4 . For the rapidly decreasing number of Americans who’ve never heard of pickleball, the unknown game is one of America’s fastest-growing sports.

Invented in 1965 by three middle aged fathers in Washington State, pickleball is an unusual cross among tennis, pingpong and badminton, played with paddle (球拍) and a perforated (穿孔的) plastic ball. The founders are said to have named the game after a family dog called Pickles.

Most of pickleball’s main players—those who play more than eight times per year are over age 65, but the game is getting younger, with the strongest growth among players under 55. But with so many new players, the US is struggling to keep up with the demands for courts. The country has only about 10, 000 places to play, but that continues to grow by several dozen every month.

The Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) Tour was formed in 2018 and the professional players are drawing more and more attention. Traditional broadcasters’ interest in the sport is growing. So far, pickleball fans can watch amateur (业余的) and professional matches on sports or social channels, mostly online.

“The ability for a sport to find an audience quickly via social media is unmatched,” said Ben Shields, who lectures at Mit’s Sloan School of Management and studies the sports industry. “I think if pickleball can continue to grow its participation and find ways to make the sport a fascinating product, it could be a big competitor in the global sports industry soon.”

Slow movements, calming thoughts and deep breathing —— this is the Chinese art of Tai Chi. People     1     (practice) it for hundreds of years, and it helps improve strength. According to     2     new study, researchers point out it is also known     3     (reduce) the effects of Parkinson’s disease by several years. Parkinson’s disease,    4     influences the brain, leads to shaking and difficulty in speaking and     5     (move).

To find out more, researchers from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine     6    (careful) observed a group of 330 people with Parkinson’s at     7     (differ) times. One group of 143 people did Tai Chi twice a week for one hour,    8     the other group of 187 people didn’t. The results were published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery in October 2023. They showed that the progression (进展) of the disease was slower in the group that did Tai Chi     9     in the group that didn’t. This group also had better balance and movement, and less back pain. Based on these results, they said that Tai Chi can be used to help keep Parkinson’s     10    (patient) active.

10 . The alarm signals us to get up in the morning but it doesn’t wake up our body.     1    . In fact, this action does a lot more for our bodies than just wake us up.

It will adjust our muscles.

When we sleep, our muscles lose tone (紧实度) and gravity pulls the fluid into one place along our back.    2    . For just a moment, stretching will release the muscles from their resting place, so that they can work on their proper positioning. This process will help us calculate the movements we need to get up and start moving.

    3    .

When we stretch, we help the blood flow, which automatically decrease pressure. This is because the part of the nervous system that is responsible for our heart rate, digestion and endocrine functions gets a jump start.

It will help the brain send stronger signals to the muscles.

    4    . This means that as we stretch, our brain sends stronger signals to our muscles. Then the feedback received back lets the brain work on how strong the signals should be to perform different tasks.

It can help with stiffness (僵硬) and tightness.

Spending more time in a single position can affect our body and cause tightness and stiffness. When we stretch after waking up, it works out the joints and muscles,    5    .