We’ve all seen Casino Royal, the most recent installment of the James Bond franchise. For the sake of giving this article a great lead, we’ll also assume that your favorite part of that movie was the beginning chase sequence. Bond’s target was able to swiftly and cunningly jump to and from narrow platforms, swing through narrow gaps between obstacles and fall from twenty-foot heights at great speeds.
It turns out that this chase scene’s style is commonly practiced. Going by the name “Parkour,” meaning “the art of movement,” it stems from French firefighter Raymond Belle’s lessons with colleague and physical educator, Georges Hébert. Belle and Hébert developed “Free-running,” a way to best overcome obstacles fluidly in a natural environment. Hébert later published his and Belle’s methods in the former’s book “Méthode Naturelle.”
Parkour developed after Raymond’s death, when his son David and his friend Sébastien Foucan (the acrobat who played Bond’s target in CR[1]), altered free-running’s fundamental principle. Where free-running was allowed more opportunity for acrobatics, David developed Parkour to focus on efficiency. He says that “parkour is getting over all of the obstacles in your path as you would in an emergency…(to) move in such a way, with any movement, as to help you gain the most ground on someone or something, whether escaping from it or chasing toward it." Kerry Folan of the Washington Post says that “as martial arts are a form of training for the fight, Parkour is a form of training for the flight.”
I thought I had never met any acrobats (or “traceurs”) for this sport, but then I ended up meeting one over this previous summer. The entire sport fascinated me and I needed to know more about. After talking to this traceur, named Austin Gall, I had to get it into writing for this newsletter.
But how does Parkour pertinently connect with art and make it worthy of “That’s Art?” When I first asked Austin, he responded with this allegory: “Parkour is like the Rennaissance sculptor who receives whatever lump of rock he can from the supplier; it’s up to him, based on the size and shape of it, to think of something that he can carve from it. With parkour, you are likewise given a random urban landscape to figure out how you’re going to maneuver in it.”
The philosophy of Parkour varies between each traceur, much like art. Generally, Parkour is about overcoming obstacles both physically and mentally, testing the limits of your body and facing fear. “First there's the fear of the unknown; doing something you've never done before in a new place you've never been to.” Austin says. “Then of course is the fear of injury since the sport can be a little risky at times.”
Parkour is also about conquering your environment and deviating from the everyday route to forge your own path. “You don't walk in a straight line, holding your briefcase with your head permanently fixed straight ahead like everyone else,” Austin says, “you find a new way to move around and use it as a way to express yourself.”
Like the filmmaker who is never without their camera or the writer who is constantly jotting down ideas, Austin is always examining his environment. When he passes a brick wall with divots, he tests it to see which way he can climb over or along it. Or if he sees a ledge and some rails at a school, he remembers it for future use.
For Austin, that it was is the most attractive part of the martial art. “Its an outlet for all my energy; it is a way of getting back to the tree-climbing days of youth,” he says. “It's a form of play and experimentation with your body and with everything around you. For me it's just doing different, difficult things. Can I climb up that tree and jump from there to that wall, and then swing around that lightpole and land on the handrail over there? Why not try?”
For anyone who is interested in Parkour, Austin says that all of the people with whom he traces with have different backgrounds. Austin was a gymnast and coach; he is also a weightlifter. For the others in his group, there are those with experience in martial arts, football, dancing, and so on. Though there are plenty for whom Parkour is their first real form of exercise or sport.
Despite these differences, all traceurs choose Parkour for one common reason. “You’ll be walking through a park and see all of these crazy guys doing pushups on steps, doing pulls up on a branch, and then get up and sprint off to somewhere,” Austin says. When he first started doing Parkour, Austin found himself as one of those “crazies.” He then realized that these guys weren’t so crazy after all; this was a gymnasium without rules. It’s a kind of experience that makes one realize that you don’t have to be in a gym to get exercise. It was especially liberating for Austin since gymnastics had been too riddled with scores, a competitive nature from judges, coaches and even other gymnasts.
I then ask Austin what the most daring stunt was that he ever did. He laughs and says that, “Although I have seen and done a lot of crazy things, that’s not the essence of Parkour.“ There is a short pause. I’m a little embarrassed about my question. “But if you must really know,” he continues, “I love big running jumps across gaps.” I perk up a bit. “There's nothing like launching your self into space like that; running at top speed, seeing the drop in front of you, and then flinging yourself out, sucking your legs up and flying. As you come down you extend your legs and get ready for impact. The ground or rooftop flies up into you but you use a roll to deflect the impact. It's something that you need to work up over a long time, physically and mentally.”
I ask Austin if one of the problems with transitioning from the padded surroundings of a gymnasium is the safety. This would then affect the ability or willingness to take from what you do in the gymnasium and apply it to concrete. But to Austin, the streets are more real and challenging since there is more at stake. It forces one to be absolutely positive of what they’re doing instead of just being reckless. Again, this is also what Parkour teaches: to think scenarios through.
Otherwise, Parkour is practiced just about anywhere: business parks, schools, and crowded cities. Austin says that the Bay Area and San Fransisco are perfect training grounds. Even If one lives in a rural area it's possible to find a high school or college campus that will have enough obstacles to train on.
Best of all, anyone can do Parkour. The supposed basic necessities for Parkour (agility, flexibility, strength, speed and problem-solving) can be trained and improved upon or even developed when first taking on Parkour. In Austin’s opinion, “a positive mindset is what's key…you need to trust yourself and be willing to push your body.”
To catch Austin in action, he is on youtube at the following links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADruhn8JXWs
[1] Quite a twist, huh? Bet you didn’t see that one coming.
Photo Courtesy of MarkMadeo.com
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