Le Parkour

Today we want to talk a little bit about Le Parkour, also known as free-running. It is an art form of human movement, focusing on uninterrupted, efficient forward motion over, under, around and through obstacles (both man-made and natural) in one's environment. Such movement may come in the form of running, jumping, climbing and other more complex techniques. The goal of practicing le parkour is to be able to adapt one's movement to any given scenario so that any obstacle can be overcome with the human body's abilities.

Its founder was David Belle. To some people (particularly non-practitioners), parkour is an extreme sport, to others a discipline more comparable to martial arts. Parkour is often connected with the idea of freedom, in the form of the ability to overcome aspects of one's surroundings that tend to confine - for example, railings, staircases, or walls. The practice of parkour requires considerable physical and mental dedication, and many adherents describe it as a "way of life."

Practitioners of parkour are known as traceurs, a term of French origin. The names free running and free runner have been very frequently adopted by the English language media as a result of their use in the television documentary Jump London. More recently, the term Freestyle Parkour was coined to refer to activity that shares some similarities with parkour, but that incorporates movements (such as flips, spins, and many others) that lie outside the realm of parkour as practiced and advocated by David Belle and others.

Eidos Interactive has announced its intention to publish a parkour video game on the PSP platform under the title "Free Running", with a release date still to be announced.

More links of notice:
Urban Freeflow - International Parkour community
Parkour.NET - International Parkour community
American Parkour - Parkour and Freerunning website
Space Chase - A short film featuring Parkour

This is an urban art form that we are very interested in and that we will try to promote hereafter. If you have something you would like to share with us about parkour please send us an email (you can find it in the sidebar).