Kyle Waite's muscles tense as intense concentration spreads across his face. He sprints toward a loading dock, then dives straight at it.
His hands thud on its wooden surface as he tucks his legs up to his stomach, and for a moment, the 16-year-old resembles a predatory cat in mid-chase. His legs extend as he swings his body through his arms, still firmly planted on the dock. His feet pound against the brick sidewalk as he lands and sprints away.
A criminal on the run? No. Waite is a traceur.
A traceur is a practitioner of the art of parkour, which Waite describes as "a discipline that trains you to use your environment to efficiently move from one place to another."
Originally "le parkour," the sport started in the French army for obstacle course training and was used in combat in Vietnam. Now, Waite estimates there to be 47 traceurs in the Gainesville area.
Waite, wiry with dirty-blond hair down to his collar, has been practicing parkour for a little more than a year, starting after he saw it on YouTube.
"Once you get into it, it alters the way you look at everything," he said.
Since then, he has been using videos as a guide and trains around Gainesville at the Sun Center, the Alachua County Courthouse and the Shands Emergency Care Center.
Waite said these are prime spots for parkour because they have what he calls "useless architecture." The walls, platforms, benches and even trees are collectively a jungle gym for Waite. He can barrel straight at a 6-foot wall and will be up, over it and dashing toward his next obstacle with the agility of a spider monkey.
"Yeah, I've been getting called that since I was like 6 years old," Waite said.
Despite the dangerous nature of the sport, Waite wears no protective clothing and usually prefers to perform his stunts shirtless. Aside from sturdy shoes and his wind pants, there is nothing between him and a broken arm or a nasty case of road rash.
Waite said that aside from a bad face-plant less than a year ago, he's never incurred any significant injuries, knocking on a wooden bench in the Sun Center as he spoke.
One of the stickier issues associated with parkour is its legality. Although he climbs on historic or costly structures, Waite said he's never been issued any kind of citation.
He said that he's been told to leave Shands once, but only because he was filming his stunts. He's also been told by various shopkeepers to leave the Sun Center, usually returning about an hour later.
Lt. Keith Kameg, spokesman for the Gainesville Police Department, said that although trespassing can usually be associated with it, parkour activities and climbing are not illegal.
"We don't recommend doing things like this because it ties up emergency services from your own stupidity," Kameg said.
Kameg equated the stunts to skiing down an unauthorized slope, which can be both a danger to the individual and an unnecessary response call for emergency crews.
Most of the people who speak to Waite are curious onlookers. One passer-by stopped after observing for a few minutes to ask, "What are you doing, planning your escape?"
"People think it's a threat to property," Waite said. "If people embrace it as exciting and interesting, it will really take off."
A fencing student at the Unified Training Center in Gainesville, Waite has two students of his own, Michael Geden, 18, and Stevan D'Agostino, 16. He meets them at the UTC on Saturdays at 1 p.m. and ventures into Gainesville's urban jungle to train.
Waite said he respects the environment he moves through and doesn't want to abuse it, a practice he said he hopes to pass on to his students.
"We're just here to train ourselves. We're not here to break stuff or steal anything," Waite said. "If it's in good condition, it works better for us as traceurs and citizens."
