In the 1990s in the suburbs of Paris, teenagers created what would become a global artform/extreme sport. Like most culture, it was woven from many influences. It was a way to be skilled at running from urban danger. It referenced the cool of hip hop culture. It enacted a film fantasy of agile ninjas sneaking through the urban landscape. The father of one of the pioneers was a military man, who taught his son the sorts of manoeuvers we see in every film of “basic training”. In French, an obstacle course is called a “parcourse”, so the son, David Belle christened his version “Parkour”.

Belle’s compatriot Sébastian Foucan reminds us that most children clamber over barriers, stand on things, jump, chase each other, try to get up on the roof of the school.  As we “mature”, we stop playing with our environment. We stay on the ground, on the path, between the walls. But in the suburbs of Paris, some young people didn’t stop. Foucan says “we continued to interact with the world as a child would.” The jumps got bigger. 

In fact Parkour was nascent in many communities where idled children met hostile modern architecture. A British parkour practitioner explains: “We tried to skateboard and rollerskate. The city installed buttons on the ground. We tried to use the parks, we were told we were too old. So we began to play with the environment of the city.”  In this sense Parkour’s resonance with hip hop becomes more tangible; the magnificent agency and creativity of youth making art from abandonment. 

The mayor of Lisses said that when he took office “young people were running up and down the walls like cats.” When they were televised in 1998, others near and far recognized their own play. Through television and internet, vocabulary and technique could be shared and advanced. A global subculture emerged. 

Belle and Foucan are the most famous of the nine members of the first group, Yamakasi, an African word meaning strength, used in French to indicate high energy. Their district was Evry (adjacent to Lisses). They described the action as “L’art du Displacement” (the art of motion). Belle later promoted the term ‘Parkour’. Foucan promoted ‘freerunning’. Practicants are known as “traceurs” (tracers). But to this day many French people continue to call it “Yamakasi”.   The second group to become known was Daniel’s Team Adrenaline, from Gennevilliers.

To think of Parkour as art or sport is not quite right. It is utilitarian. It is a way of going from Point A to Point B in the most direct way, without being diverted by obstacles. “It follows a path, always moving forward. Never going backward” (Foucan) An early British Parkour practitioner, Jonathon Budden, points out that it’s ubiquitous, when crowds move through public spaces “there’s always that one persons that’s going a little bit faster, taking the inside route to get to a meeting faster.” When Parkour was adopted into films, at first by French filmmaker Luc Besson, it was added to the repertoire of chase scenes and criminality. But it’s important to remember that for the pioneers, training their bodies to vanquish their environment was a choice against criminality. They formed supportive, multicultural teams in the midst of thnically divided communities. They became “addicted to effort” (Malik, Yamakasi). 

They imagined and seized the built environment as a playground, a terrain of expression. Budden says “We’ve just elaborated on this with a bit more confidence, enthusiasm, imagination.” It’s a form of movement adapted for the city. “Oh, it was built for something else? Sorry.” 

Foucan explains that Parkour is a way to confront your doubts and fears and demons and find confidence. Evenually to “control your fears”. It’s always impressive to hear men admit fear, moreso when their response is developmental and communal. Yann describes it as a combat to improve yourself. The quest of Parkour is the “same as the quest in the mirror”, explains Malik. “We learn to surpass ourselves.” Charles says that overcoming obstacles in Parkour enables people to realize they can overcome obstacles in real life in the same way. 

In their documentary, Gravity Style: Come Fly with Us, Charles and Malik tell the story of the group Yamakasi beyond their famous stunts and films. They created a formal assocation with membership and insurance, offering training to others. For the first year, students were not allowed to jump. Unlike sports, the objective of Parkour training is not about finding talent, it’s about enabling everyone to “make the impossible possible”, giving confidence. This experience generates an “addiction to effort”, because training imparts a growing experience of “freedom”. Daniel explains they trained more than six hours a day. “We didn’t set an end time”. When a cartoon was made about Parkour, Charles and Malik were not sought out primarily for movements, but for their “character”. 

Parkour is also about aesthetics. Jérôme Ben Aoues explains “The most important thing is the harmony between you and the obstacle. The movement has to be elegant. Length and distance only add to the beauty of the move if you manage to pass over the fence elegantly.” It avoids not only the routine of spatial organization and predetermined routes, but also reinterprets going somewhere as a creative and pleasure-seeking process. 

What a revelation for those of us who still walk, although we dance at night.

Practicants of Parkour use the walls to repel around obstacles, climb the walls, weave their bodies between metal bars, swing joyfully around poles, jump between cement barriers, or from roof to roof. It takes sophistication and skill to continue to enact a childlike perspective. Daniel Adrenaline advises “You must become familiar with every obstacle, understand its mechanics, and practice. Repetition is the basis of success.” In thei

Although Parkour traceurs often train and film in teams, Foucan recommends also practicing alone. “Because when you are alone you are a little bit afraid, and you need to find why. and the solution.” 

Here is the first video of Daniel’s Team Adrenaline, c. 2004.