Le Parkour – Salute2

A few years ago now I was watching tv and I stumbled across this documentary featuring these French guys somersaulting and doing back flips off rooftops, jumping over walls and all kinds of crazy stuff. I came to find out that it’s called free-running (Le Parkour or the Art of Movement), and is a sport/hobby/discipline like martial arts. The movement was started by some of France’s inner-city youths as a pastime and is considered as an offshoot of martial arts. Since then, the parkour phenomenon has gone global and is being commercialized. It’s everywhere, and especially big in Europe where it started.

You see it in music videos, tv ads, Casino Royale, Bourne Supremacy and there’s even a movie dedicated to it featuring the co-founder David Belle called District 13. The wicked thing about the art of movement discipline is that anybody who has the stomach for it can take it up and excel with dedication.  There’s no need for expensive equipment, and in all the footage I’ve seen of it you see multi-racial groups of people performing it (i.e. no discrimination).