What is Parkour?
Parkour precision jump
Parkour is about movement. Not just any movement. It’s about moving through an environment (natural or urban) as smoothly, efficiently and quickly as possible. It involves walking, running, jumping, crawling, climbing and balancing. It is about interacting with the environment as you move fluidly through it, overcoming obstacles as you go.
Parkour, but with the addition of tricks and stunts, giving free running an aesthetic element.
So depending on who you talk to free running is either a different form of Parkour or it is not strictly Parkour at all, but more of a close cousin.
Parkour is of French origin and dates back to the turn of the century. But how did Parkour develop?
Parkour is a discipline founded by David Belle in France in the early 1990's. Says David about his art:
Parkour is a method of training which allows us to overcome obstacles, both in the urban and natural environments. It's a weapon in disguise. We train and when one day we encounter a problem we know that we are able to use it. It can be the art of flight, of the chase, of helping someone with a problem, or something ordinary.
Parkour is firstly about the useful side, to teach people how to trust themselves, to learn to be careful. The philosophy is always to advance, never to stop. If some time you have problems, like in life, if you have an obstacle you must always continue forward.
What exactly is parkour and Freerunning?
Parkour and Freerunning are different but not entirely. Parkour was developed prior to Freerunning by David Belle. It consists of vaults and jumps. The deep philosophy behind parkour is not be controlled by your surroundings, which most people are. They have to walk along certain designated paths to get from A to B, but by using parkour there are no architectural boundaries and your path is free for you to choose.
The word 'Freerunning' was first developed by Sebastein Foucan in order to make the word 'parkour' more accessible to an English-speaking audience. But Freerunning now does differ slightly from parkour; the freerun philosophy is less about choosing your own path but more about fun and creativity. Freerunning involves somersaulting, flipping and flaring and has a second goal of trying to make Freerunning look impressive.
HISTORY
Arguably, the movements of parkour are as old as mankind. In the Jump London documentary Sebastien Foucan says, “Free running has always existed, free running has always been there, the thing is that no one gave it a name, we didn’t put it in a box.” He makes a comparison with prehistoric man, “to hunt, or to chase, or to move around, they had to practice the free run.”
Inspiration for parkour came from many sources, one of which is the ‘Natural Method of Physical Culture’ developed by George Hébert in the early twentieth century.
David Belle was introduced to this method by his father Raymond Belle, a Vietnamese soldier who practiced it. The word Parkour derives from “parcours du combattant”, the phrase referring to the obstacle courses of Hébert’s method. The younger Belle had participated in activities such as martial arts and gymnastics, and sought to apply his athletic prowess in a manner that would have practical use in life.
After moving to Lisses, Belle continued his journey with others. “From then on we developed,” says Foucan in Jump London, “And really the whole town was there for us; there for free running. You just have to look, you just have to think, like children.”
This, as he describes, is “the vision of Parkour.” According to Foucan, the start of the “big jumps” was around the age of fifteen.
Over the years as dedicated practitioners improved their skills, their moves continued to grow in magnitude, so that
building-to-building jumps and drops of over a storey became common in media portrayals, often leaving people with a slanted view on the nature of Parkour. In fact, ground-based movement is much more common than anything involving rooftops.
The journey of parkour from the Parisian suburbs to its current status as a widely practised activity outside of France created splits among the originators. The founders of Parkour started out in a group named the Yamakasi, but later separated due to disagreements. The name 'Yamakasi' is taken from Lingala, a language spoken in the Congo, and means strong spirit, strong body, strong man.
Risk of harm
Parkour is not widely practiced in dedicated public facilities such as skate parks. Although efforts are being made to create places for it, some traceurs do not like the idea as it is contradictory to the philosophy of freedom. Traceurs practice parkour in urban areas such as gyms, parks, playgrounds, offices, and abandoned structures. Concerns have been raised regarding trespassing, damage of property, and the practice in inappropriate places. However, most traceurs will take care of their training spots and will remove themselves quickly and quietly from a public place if asked. The Magpie Youth Centre freerunning club in Glen Parva, Leicester, England has raised 40,000 Euros to build a freerunning park/training utility on the park opposite the youth center.Concerns have been raised by law enforcement and fire and rescue teams of the risk in jumping off high buildings. They argue that practitioners are needlessly risking damage to both themselves and rooftops by practicing at height, with police forces calling for practitioners to stay off the rooftops. Some figures within the parkour community agree that this sort of behaviour is not to be encouraged.
American traceur Mark Toorock says that injuries are rare "because participants rely not on what they can't control – wheels or the icy surfaces of snowboarding and skiing – but their own hands and feet," but Lanier Johnson, executive director of the American Sports Medicine Institute, notes that many of the injuries are not reported. When injuries do occur, many members in the parkour community encourage pursuing the most scientifically sound method to recovery and future prevention.
