Parkour
Parkour is an athletic training discipline or sport in which practitioners interact with their environment by moving through it efficiently or creatively, often while performing feats of acrobatics. With roots in military obstacle course training and martial arts, parkour includes flipping, running, climbing, swinging, vaulting, jumping, plyometrics, rolling, and —whatever is suitable for a given situation. Parkour is an activity that can be practiced alone or with others, and is usually carried out in urban spaces, though it can be done anywhere. It involves seeing one's environment in a new way, and envisioning the potential for navigating it by movement around, across, through, over and under its features.
Historically, flips and other acrobatic movements were not considered essential to the discipline of parkour, and the term freerunning was applied to parkour-like movement that emphasized artistry rather than efficiency. However, as the parkour culture evolved, its distinction from freerunning became increasingly blurred. Parkour athletes now broadly agree that flips are unambiguously part of parkour.
The practice of similar movements had existed in communities around the world for centuries, notably in Africa and China, the latter tradition popularized by Hong Kong action cinema during the 1970s to 1980s. Parkour as a type of movement was later established by David Belle when he and others founded the Yamakasi in the 1990s and initially called it l'art du déplacement. The discipline was popularised in the 1990s and 2000s through films, documentaries, video games, and advertisements.
Etymology
The word parkour derives from parcours du combattant, the classic obstacle course method of military training proposed by Georges Hébert. Raymond Belle used the term "les parcours" to encompass all of his training including climbing, jumping, running, balancing, and the other methods he undertook in his personal athletic advancement. His son, David, further developed his father's methods and achieved success as a stuntman, and one day on a film set showed his 'Speed Air Man' video to Hubert Koundé. Koundé suggested he change the "c" of "parcours" to a "k" because it was stronger and more dynamic, and to remove the silent "s" for the same reason, forming "parkour".A practitioner of parkour is called a traceur, with the feminine form being traceuse or simply a "Parkourist". They are nouns derived from the French verb tracer, which normally means "to trace", as in "tracing a path", in reference to drawing. The verb tracer used familiarly means: "to hurry up". The term traceur was originally the name of a parkour group headed by David Belle which included Sébastien Foucan and Stéphane Vigroux.
A jam refers to a meeting of traceurs, involving training lasting anywhere from hours to several days, often with people from different cities. The first parkour jam was organised in July 2002 by Romain Drouet, with a dozen people including Sébastien Foucan and Stéphane Vigroux.
History
Origins
The practice of similar movements have existed in various communities around the world for centuries prior to the foundation of a parkour movement, which was influenced by these earlier traditions. Such athletic traditions had existed among various indigenous peoples in Africa for centuries. A similar discipline in Chinese culture is qinggong, a Chinese martial arts training technique that also dates back centuries. It was notably taught at the Peking Opera School in the 20th century; the school's most notable students are the Seven Little Fortunes, including Sammo Hung and most famously Jackie Chan, providing a basis for their acrobatic stunt work in Hong Kong action cinema from the 1970s onwards.Georges Hébert
In Western Europe, a forerunner of parkour was developed by French naval officer Georges Hébert, who before World War I promoted athletic skill based on the models of indigenous tribes he had met in Africa. He noted, "their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring, and resistant but yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature." His rescue efforts during the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on Saint-Pierre, Martinique reinforced his belief that athletic skill must be combined with courage and altruism. Hébert became a physical education tutor at the college of Reims in France. Hébert set up a "méthode naturelle" session consisting of ten fundamental groups: walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, balancing, throwing, lifting, self-defence, and swimming. These were intended to develop "the three main forces": energetic, moral, and physical. During World War I and World War II, teaching continued to expand, becoming the standard system of French military education and training. Inspired by Hébert, a Swiss architect developed a "parcours du combattant"—military obstacle course—the first of the courses that are now standard in military training and which led to the development of civilian fitness trails and confidence courses.John Ciampa
Born in 1922, John Ciampa was an acrobatic stuntman and entertainer known by the stage names of the Human Fly, the Flying Phantom and the Brooklyn Tarzan whose acrobatic buildering and freestyle tree climbing bear striking resemblance to late 20th Century parkour. Those feats were featured in two 1942 Paramount Pictures newsreels coincident with the release of the feature film Tarzan's New York Adventure.Raymond and David Belle
Born in 1939 in Vietnam, Raymond Belle was the son of a French physician and Vietnamese mother. During the First Indochina War, his father died and he was separated from his mother, after which he was sent to a military orphanage in Da Lat at the age of seven. He took it upon himself to train harder and longer than everyone else in order never to be a victim. At night, when everyone else was asleep, he would be outside running or climbing trees. He would use the military obstacle courses in secret, and also created courses of his own that tested his endurance, strength, and flexibility. Doing this enabled him not only to survive the hardships he experienced during his childhood, but also eventually to thrive. After the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, he returned to France and remained in military education until the age of 19, when he joined the Paris Fire Brigade, a French Army unit.Raymond's son, David Belle, was born in 1973. He experimented with gymnastics and athletics but became increasingly disaffected with both school and the sports clubs. As he got older, he learned of his father's exploits and was increasingly curious about what had enabled his father to accomplish these feats. Through conversations with his father, he realised that what he really wanted was a means to develop skills that would be useful to him in life, rather than just training to kick a ball or perform moves in a padded, indoor environment.
Through conversations with his father, David learned about this way of training that his father called "parcours". He heard his father talk of the many repetitions he had done in order to find the best way of doing things. He learned that for his father, training was not a game but something vital which enabled him to survive and to protect the people he cared about. David realised that this was what he had been searching for, and so he began training in the same way. After a time, he found it far more important to him than schooling and he gave up his other commitments to focus all his time on his training.
Yamakasi
David initially trained on his own, and after moving to Lisses, found other young men who had similar desires, and they began to train together. The group eventually included David Belle, Sébastien Foucan, Châu Belle Dinh, Williams Belle, Yann Hnautra, Laurent Piemontesi, Guylain N'Guba Boyeke, Malik Diouf, and Charles Perrière. The group began calling themselves the Yamakasi, from the Lingala ya makási, meaning strong in one's person, or "strong man, strong spirit".The group drew inspiration from Asian culture and Asian martial arts, notably the acrobatics of Jackie Chan such as qinggong displays in his Hong Kong action films, and the training philosophy of Bruce Lee, considering the latter to be the "unofficial president" of their group. The group also was influenced by the martial arts films of Belgian actor Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Discipline
The group put themselves through challenges that forced them to find the physical and mental strength to succeed. Examples included training without food or water, or sleeping on the floor without a blanket to learn to endure the cold. For example, no one in the group was permitted to be late for training, as it would hold back the whole group. If any member completed a challenge, everyone else had to do the same thing. During their training, no one was allowed to complain or be negative. Few excuses were allowed. For instance, if someone claimed that his shoes were too worn out in to make a jump, he had to do it anyway, even if it meant doing the jump barefoot. At the same time, everyone was required to have knowledge of their own limits.Respecting one's health and physical well-being was one of the foundations of the group. If any member hurt himself during or after the execution of a movement, the movement was deemed a failure. A movement executed only once was not considered an achievement; only with repetition was the challenge complete. Every movement had to be repeated at least ten times in a row without the traceur having to push his limits or sustaining any injury. If any mistake was made by any traceur in the group everyone had to start all over again.
Humility was an important principle. No traceur was allowed to feel superior to someone else, for example, by executing a movement only to show off in front of someone who could not perform the movement. If any traceur in the group claimed that he had completed a difficult and dangerous challenge that should not be attempted unaided, he had to prove his claims by doing the challenge again. Anyone who lied violated the principle of humility.
To join the group, new members had to be recommended by an existing member and then pass tests to evaluate their motivation for joining. Despite the huge emphasis on the collective, each traceur had to progress and develop independently—"to create the means to be yourself"—and there was a complete trust within the group. Every traceur was to encourage the others and show confidence through their behaviour. If a member violated the principles, the group could meet without the offending person to discuss various punishments. Anyone deemed unsuitable could be temporarily or even permanently banned from the group in order to uphold its disciplines and values.