After years of evolution, Parkour/Freerunning
is breaking into mainstream gymnastics clubs
By Dwight Normile
F you’re like most people, you were
exposed to Parkour several years ago via
email. The subject line probably read something like “Check this out!” Curious, you
watched a short video of a young man running, vaulting, balancing, climbing and flipping
across an urban landscape. No rules, boundaries
or apparent limits to stifle the acrobatic journey.
Thanks to YouTube, Parkour—or “
Freerunning” (more on that in a moment)—has spread
to all corners of the world. And though bounding
over, around or under things has been around for
centuries, in the early 1900s French naval officer
Georges Hebert systematized it. He believed athletic ability should be combined with courage,
which led to his “Natural Method,” an altruistic
lifelong physical training encompassing every
imaginable exercise (crawling, running, climbing,
swimming, throwing, etc.). “Being strong to be
useful” was his motto.
In 1989, French teens David Belle, Sebastien
Foucan and several like-minded buddies began
practicing Parkour (coined from parcours,
meaning journey or route), which literally kept
them on the streets near Paris. The philosophy
was simple: negotiate any obstacle as efficiently
as possible, as if being chased. Its practitioners
were called traceurs. By 1997 the group called
itself Yamakasi, a word derived from the Lingala
language meaning “strong body, spirit, person.”
Like gymnastics, Parkour was bound to grow.
Frenchmen David Belle (top left)
and Sebastien Foucan (left) are
considered the founders of
Parkour, nearly 20 years ago
near Paris. Foucan eventually
split with Belle and created his
own discipline, which he called
Freerunning. His Freerunning
chase scene in the 2006 film
“Casino Royale” (above) is said
to be the best stunt ever produced in a James Bond movie.
Feeling stifled by the constraints of merely going
from point A to B, Foucan developed Freerunning in 2001. He wanted to encourage complete freedom of expression.
“I’m the founder of Freerunning but ready to
see it evolve,” Foucan told IG. “Freerunning is
freedom, and it’s not my possession. I was
deeply influenced by martial art philosophy and
started to put it in Parkour first.” (Belle did not
respond to an interview request for this story.)
Simply put, Freerunning differs from Parkour
in that it allows more gymnastics, among other
movements. And if you’ve ever seen some of the
videos on You Tube, you will quickly realize that
many of these guys (and girls) are incredible acrobats. With most landings on concrete, dirt or
grass, Freerunning skills are honed by instinct
rather than by formal instruction.
But even that is changing in England, where
British Gymnastics is taking steps to integrate a
form of gymnastics called “Freestyle” into its disciplines. In November it held a pilot coaches’
training course at Basingstoke Gymnastic Club,
near London. “The course was full,” says Martin
Reddin, Head of Education at British Gymnastics. “We also have about 50 other coaches
