What is Parkour?

Parkour (also referred to as "Free Running") has gotten a lot of press and attention in the last decade. It's heavily utilized in the film and video game industries for action sequences and motion capture; Casino Royale famously utilized the talents of founding member of the Yamakasi, Sebastian Foucans (Edwardes, 2009), and Athletes like Jesse LaFlair have appeared on TV shows and movies like Hawaii 5-0, X-men: last stand, and even video games like the Assassin's Creed and Uncharted Franchises.

While the activity is sometimes viewed by society at large as a somewhat delinquent activity for teenage vandals, Parkour in actuality is much more like a martial art of movement. It teaches it's practitioners how to safely, effectively, efficiently, and creatively traverse one's environment, utilizing the body's momentum and redistributing it in different ways to perform a diverse array of impressive physical feats.

While it's routes go back to George Heberts' "Natural method" in the mid 1800's, Parkour as we know it developed on the street of the Lisses, a Suburb of Paris, in the late 80's (Edwardes, 2009). Since then, it has evolved into a highly diverse and acrobatic practice.

With that said, all movements in parkour can be broken into 6 different disciplines: Running, Jumping, Climbing, Balance, Stealth (technique), and Touch/ sensitivity (Edwardes, 2009). Most importantly though, Parkour at it's core is about creativity, exploration, experimentation, and play.

Below is an example of the embodiment of those principals (DISCLAIMER: Minor Swearing in video)