| Parkour |
Website Links For Parkour |
Information About ™Parkour |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT PARKOUR | |
| parkour | |
| subculturesparkour | |
| subcultures | |
| french art | |
| leisure activities | |
| recreation | |
|
Parkour (also called '''PK''', '''free running''' and '''le parkour''') is a physical discipline of French origin in which participants attempt to pass obstacles in the most smooth and fluid manner possible, using skills such as Jumping and Climbing , or the more specific Parkour Moves . The obstacles can be anything in one's environment, so parkour is often seen practiced in Urban Area s because of many suitable public structures that are accessible to most people, such as Buildings and Rails . A traceur is a participant of parkour. WHAT IS PARKOUR? Parkour 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. According to founder David Belle , the "spirit" of parkour is guided in part by the notions of "escape" and "reach"; that is, the idea of using physical agility and quick thinking to get out of difficult situations, and to be able to go anywhere that one desires. However, fluidity and beauty are also important considerations; for example, Sébastien Foucan , a traceur who trained with David Belle during the infancy of the art speaks of being "fluid like water," a frequently used metaphor for the smooth passage of barriers through the use of parkour. Similarly, experienced Traceur (parkour practitioner) Jerome Ben Aoues explains in the Documentary '' Jump London '' that: ''The most important element is the harmony between you and the obstacle; the movement has to be elegant ….If you manage to pass over the fence elegantly - that's beautiful, rather than saying ‘I jumped the lot.’ What's the point in that?'' To some people (particularly non-practitioners), parkour is an Extreme Sport , to others a discipline more comparable to Martial Arts . Some consider it a combination of the two, recognising similarities between parkour and the stunts and techniques of Hong Kong martial arts star Jackie Chan , whose fight and chase scenes take place in industrial or urban environments. Still others see it as an art form akin to Dance : a way to encapsulate human movement in its most beautiful form. 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." TERMINOLOGY Practitioners of parkour ( Pron. IPA //) are known as traceurs, a term of French origin {Link without Title} . 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.'' Over time, '''free running''' has also been widely used by journalists to describe activity that is parkour-like, but that has often placed more emphasis on 'showy' moves that are not normally a feature of pure parkour. 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. Freestyle Parkour has however lately fallen out of use as Urban Freeflow, the main proponents of it have recently abandoned Freestyle Parkour and reverted to Parkour. The issue has been somewhat confused as they have never issued a statement clarifying their stance however they have stated that they intend to proceed with conventional Parkour. This is regarded as being due to a large backlash from the Parkour community against Freestyle Parkour, with many arguing that Freestyle Parkour in itself is a contradiction in a name, that Parkour never can include "Freestyle" movements in any shape or form. Notable objectors to Freestyle Parkour included PAWA itself. MOVES Popular moves in Le Parkour include:
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''. IMPLEMENTATION There are fewer predefined movements in parkour than Gymnastics and other Extreme Sports , in that parkour is about unlimited movement over obstacles; the ability to improvise is as important as being able to replicate previously practiced moves. Despite this, there are many standard "basic" movements that many traceurs practice. Most important are good jumping and landing techniques. The roll, used to limit impact after a drop and to flow easily into the next movement, is often stressed as the most important move to learn. Vaults are used to clear solid obstacles and come in many forms. Some recognised types of vaults add only technical skill (and hence sometimes aesthetic value) to a move and often not functionality, even sacrificing functionality for a more impressive look. These tend to be looked down on, as they are inefficient movement and thus not truly Parkour. Many vaults are maximally functional to certain situations, but learning specific vaults is not as worthwhile as learning to improvise and adapt to differing situations. For clearing gaps a number of methods are generally used; each is dependent on the particular obstacle in question, and as with the vaults a good improvisation technique aids traceurs far more than a pre-learned collection of techniques. Tricks, such as flips, are a topic of much debate amongst traceurs. Most experienced traceurs agree that since flips merely add to the aesthetic value and are rarely (see below) the most efficient way of passing an object, they are not parkour. Newer, poorer informed traceurs tend to argue that parkour is about being free to move how one wishes and try to incorporate certain tricks into their style of movement, however this violates the defenition of Parkour as efficient movement. This confusion is often due to confusion with l'art du deplacement as practiced by the group Yamakasi. L'art du deplacement consists of total freedom of movement, Parkour on the other hand is about efficient movement. Flips however are accepted in Free Running as Free Running places more emphasis on aesthetics. David Belle has since released a statement declaring in no uncertain terms that Parkour is about efficient movement, and therefore flips and tricks are (in almost all cases) not Parkour. In this statement Belle also clarified that Free Running and Parkour are two different arts, Free Running being one in which visual flair is also a goal, parkour being soely focused on efficient movement. A statement from PAWA on Free Running: Free Running ? A kind of demonstration mixing parkour technics, and acrobatics to be more spectacular and serve the medias and marketing, but also a sport. The term Parkour has been invented by David Belle and Hubert Koundé in 1998 and the word Free Running has been created much later by Sebasten Foucan for the purpose of spreading Parkour in a marketing fashion (they thought the word "parkour" wasn't international enough and Sebastien Foucan proposed them this word). The problem is that they fully mixed acrobatics to impress people. This is where Freerunning becomes different from Parkour. To make a comparison, Free Running is like artistic katas in martial arts, the goal is only to be spectacular. So it is related to parkour but doesn't answer to the same philosophy. I mean, when you pratice to show how spectacular your jump is gonna be, people aren't focused anymore on the difficulty, on the obstacle but on you. This showing off attutude isn't the parkour philosophy which preaches for humility. In this, Free Running and Parkour are fundamentally opposite even if the first one is related to the second one. Like the traditional way and the freestyle way. A movement by itself is not parkour unless it is used the right way. Vaulting a single rail could be considered parkour so long as it gets you somewhere faster than going around. PARKOUR IN THE MEDIA In 2001 French filmmaker Luc Besson made a feature film, ''Yamakasi — Les samouraï des temps modernes'' (Yamakasi — the modern-day Samurai), featuring members of the original Yamakasi. The film tells the (fictional) tale of a group of young thieves who use their parkour skills to evade capture, while stealing money to fund the healthcare of a child that was injured copying their parkour training. In 2004, Besson made Banlieue 13 , another feature film involving parkour, starring David Belle. The British public was first made aware of parkour on a large scale during 2002, via the BBC station trailer ''Rush Hour''. {Link without Title} This depicted David Belle leaping across London's rooftops from his office to home, in an attempt to catch his favourite BBC program. The piece generated a great deal of discussion, particularly after it was revealed that no special effects or wires were used. The biggest interest surge to date was created by the documentary ''Jump London'', which explained some of the background to parkour and culminated with Sebastien Foucan and two other French traceurs (Johann Vigroux and Jerome Ben Aoues) demonstrating their parkour skills at many famous London locations — HMS Belfast , Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre , Somerset House and the Tate and Saatchi galleries amongst them. It is perhaps worth noting that David Belle received no mention in ''Jump London'', despite often being accredited as the most important founder of parkour. ''Jump London'' was followed up by the sequel ''Jump Britain'', once again featuring Foucan and Ben Aoues, as well as several traceurs from Urban Freeflow, the leading group and central focus for the nascent British scene, which has since become the largest parkour community in the world. Issue 6 of the limited series Global Frequency , written by noted comic book author Warren Ellis , tells the story of a young traceur named Sita Patel who is tasked with the seemingly impossible task of crossing London in under twenty minutes to defuse a biological weapon. The issue, titled The Run, is a varied and detailed (and mostly believable) treatment of the topic. The series was published by Wildstorm Comics . The episode "Tri-Borough" {Link without Title} involves a murdered traceur. The pre-title sequence in the upcoming James Bond film, Casino Royale , has been confirmed as a roof-top chase that implements many aspects of Parkour. Sebastien Foucan has been hired to perform the stunts for the character that James Bond will be chasing. The scene will be filmed in Nassau, Bahamas , but the Bahamas have been confirmed as doubling for Madagascar . In addition to these examples, parkour has appeared in various television advertisements, news reports, and entertainment pieces, sometimes combined with other forms of stunts and acrobatics. In particular a South African television commercial for bread which featured solely one of the UK's Urban Freeflow group, and a series of Nike commercials {Link without Title} depicted traceurs clearing rooftop gaps and stairwells, ostensibly to show the benefit of wearing Nike shoes while performing such stunts. Additionally, Eidos Interactive has announced their intention to publish a parkour video game on the PSP platform under the title "Free Running", with a release date still to be announced. {Link without Title} Ubisoft 's Prince Of Persia series title character can be considered a traceur. COMMON DEBATES IN PARKOUR Tricks and acrobatics - are they parkour? Many traceurs are interested not only in movements that allow them to clear obstacles, but movements that create visual flair as well. Whether these could be called parkour or not is a common subject for disagreement in the parkour community. The original ideal of parkour was solely based on the speed and continuity of movement from point A to point B. While one creates art with the individual movements of one's body between two obstacles, the art loses its meaning when the aim of swift, effective movement is relegated to a secondary concern. This utilitarian attitude has no patience with " Hardcore " and dangerous movements executed as an end in themselves. The most commonly discussed movement is flipping, the basic move on which others under question are based. As a flip tends to break flow rather than add to it, many would argue it is not parkour. Others suggest that a flip can be implemented into a run while remaining flowing and if this is done then it is parkour. A common argument in favour of any movement being included under the banner of parkour is that since parkour is about being free to move how one wants, anything can be classed as parkour. This can be and has been applied to everything from acrobatics to stopping dead in a run. This argument can be criticized by taking it to its logical conclusion - if people can move how they wish and call it parkour, is hopping in a circle included? The current popular view is that although performing acrobatic tricks is an art form in its own right it is not parkour. That parkour should only consist of optimal movements for clearing obstacles in a flowing manner seems to be the current state where people are moving. The idea is that movement from parkour can belong in other art forms, and that there are motions similar to those in parkour that belong in other art forms as well. The originators of the discipline have however both stated in interviews that, although they do flips because they are fun, they do not consider flips to be a part of parkour. Purpose-built training areas Parkour was created as a way of being free in one's environment, a method of flowing movement over whatever obstacles one encounters. As the aim is to be able to fluently move over any obstacle, not to perform certain tricks or movements, the idea of a place specifically built for parkour is controversial. One frequent argument against parkour parks is that to practice parkour in a park would not be true to the philosophy behind parkour; that is, one would not be moving over obstacles designed to restrict or obstacles that naturally restrict movement. Put another way, parkour is about adapting movement to an arbitrary environment, not about generating artificial obstacles and then conquering them. Another suggestion against such parks is that if a parkour park is built then officialdom may be less lenient of allowing people to practice in public places. Those in favour of parks suggest that they would be excellent ways to practice movement in relative safety and security without the risk of getting into trouble. These parks would provide places where new traceurs could learn techniques more safely than in the street, amongst more experienced practitioners of parkour. At a parkour park one could meet other traceurs, adding to the social element many enjoy in parkour. The park would be used for practicing movement and improving techniques, but not for the actual performance of parkour; this would remain in the usual outdoor environment. A great training area is one where one can express oneself freely without police intervention. This debate mirrors the discussion around Climbing Wall s, with some sportsmen using a climbing wall simply to train for actual Rock Climbing and others practicing their sport solely on the wall. SEE ALSO NOTES & REFERENCES |
|
|