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Overview
The cultural phenomenon parkour is a physical activity which is difficult to categorize. It is not an extreme sport,[4] but an art or discipline that resembles self-defense in the martial arts.[5] According to the founder David Belle, the physical aspect of parkour is getting over all the obstacles in your path as you would in an emergency situation.[6] You want to move in such a way, with any movement, that will help you gain the most ground on someone/something as if escaping from it, or chasing toward it.[6] Thus, when faced with a hostile confrontation with a person, one will be able to speak, fight, or flee. As martial arts are a form of training for the fight, parkour is a form of training for the flight. Because of its difficulty to categorize, it is often said that parkour is in its own category: "parkour is parkour."
An important characteristic of parkour is efficiency. A traceur moves not merely as fast as he can, but also in the least energy-consuming and most direct way possible. Since parkour's unofficial motto is être et durer (to be and to last), efficiency also involves avoiding injuries, short and long-term.
Parkour is also known to have an influence on practitioner's thought process. Traceurs and traceuses experience a change in their critical thinking skills to help them overcome obstacles in everyday life, whether they be physical or mental boundaries.[7]
Terminology
- L'art du déplacement and "le parcours" were the first terms to describe this form of training.[8]
- The term parkour IPA: [paʁ.'kuʁ] was defined by David Belle and his friend Hubert Koundé in 1998. It derives from parcours du combattant, the classic obstacle course method of military training proposed by Georges Hébert. Koundé, who is not himself a traceur, took the word parcours, replaced the "c" with a "k" to suggest aggressiveness, and removed the silent "s" as it opposed parkour's philosophy about efficiency.[2][9][10]
- Traceur [tʁa.'sœʁ] is the substantive derived from the verb "tracer". Tracer normally means "to trace", or "to draw", but also translates as "to go fast".[11]
History
Inspiration for parkour came from many sources, the foremost being the 'Natural Method of Physical Culture' developed by Georges Hébert in the early twentieth century.[12] French soldiers in Vietnam were inspired by Hébert's work and created what is now known parcours du combattant.[13] David Belle was introduced to the obstacle course training as well as Hébert's methode naturelle by his father, Raymond Belle, a French soldier who practiced the two disciplines. David 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.[citation needed]
After moving to Lisses, David Belle continued his journey with others.[13] "From then on we developed," says Sébastien Foucan in Jump London, "And really the whole town was there for us; there for parkour. You just have to look, you just have to think, like children." This, as he describes, is "the vision of parkour."
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 story 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 practiced 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 over what David Belle referred to as "prostitution of the art," the production of a feature film starring the Yamakasi in 2001. Sébastien Foucan, David Belle, were amongst those who split at this point. The name 'Yamakasi' is taken from Lingala, a language spoken in the Congo, and means strong spirit, strong body, strong man, endurance.
Philosophy
| Our aim is to take our art to the world and make people understand what it is to move. David Belle, BBC News.[14] |
This is a main part of the physical art that most of the non-practitioners have not seen or heard about, yet according to the founding fathers of the physical art it is an integral part of parkour, in the words of David Belle and originally by Brendan Eiznekcem:[citation needed]
“I want to live and share what I have learned, not just write it in a book that will make it a dead activity and we don’t want the sport to die”.[citation needed]
It is as much as a part of truly learning the physical art as well as being able to master the movements, it gives you the ability to “overcome your fears and pains and reapply this to life” as you must be able to control your mind in order to master the art of parkour.
Andreas Kalteis, an Austrian traceur, has stated in documentary Parkour Journeys:
"To understand the philosophy of parkour takes quite a while, because you have to get used to it first. While you still have to try to actually do the movements, you will not feel much about the philosophy. But when you're able to move in your own way, then you start to see how parkour changes other things in your life; and you approach problems — for example in your job — differently, because you have been trained to overcome obstacles. This sudden realization comes at a different time to different people: some get it very early, some get it very late. You can't really say 'it takes two months to realize what parkour is'. So, now, I don't say 'I do parkour', but 'I live parkour', because its philosophy has become my life, my way to do everything." [7]
Another aspect of the philosophy is freedom. It is often said that parkour can be practiced by anyone, at anytime, anywhere in the world. This freedom has made it a powerful cultural force in Europe, with its influence spreading around the world.
Rivalry-free
A campaign was started on May 1, 2007 by Parkour.NET portal[15] to preserve parkour's philosophy against sport competition and rivalry.[16] Defenders argue that competition pushes people to fight against others for the satisfaction of a crowd and/or the benefits of a few business people by changing its mindset.[15] Parkour is unique and cannot be a competitive sport if it ignores its altruistic core to self development.[15] If parkour becomes a sport, it will be hard to seriously teach and spread parkour as a non-competitive activity.[15] And a new sport will be spread that may be called parkour, but that won't hold its philosophy's essence anymore.[15]
Movements
There are fewer predefined movements in parkour than gymnastics, in that parkour is not made up of a list of appropriate "moves". Each obstacle a traceur faces presents a unique challenge on how they can overcome it effectively, which depends on their body type, speed and angle of approach, the physical make-up of the obstacle, etc. Parkour is about training the body and mind to be able to react to those obstacles appropriately with a technique that works; many times that technique cannot and need not be classified and given a name. In many cases effective parkour techniques depend upon rapid redistribution of body weight (as the name would suggest) and by utilizing momentum to perform seemingly impossible or difficult body maneuvers at speed. Absorption and redistribution of energy is also an important factor, such as body rolls when landing which reduce impact forces on the legs and spinal column, allowing a traceur to jump from greater heights than those often considered sensible in other forms of acrobatics and gymnastics. According to David Belle, you want to move in such a way that will help you gain the most ground as if escaping or chasing toward someone/something. Also, wherever you go, you must be able to get back, if you go from A to B, you need to be able to get back from B to A,[6] but not necessarily with the same movements or passements. Despite this, there are many basic techniques that are emphasized to beginners for their versatility and effectiveness.
Most important are good jumping and landing techniques. The roll, used to limit impact after a drop and to carry one's momentum onward, is often stressed as the most important technique to learn. Many traceurs develop joint problems from too many large drops and rolling incorrectly.
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