Parkour and Free Running

Parkour, Free Running, l'art du déplacement. If any of these sound familiar, then you have stumbled upon a recent cultural phenomenon that, as of yet, has received relatively little exposure to the mainstream world. However, there are a lot of sources out there, trying to explain these disciplines, that don't really know what they're talking about, or are just generally giving you a lot of inaccurate information.

The reason for this is because most of the specifics are up in a sort of debate over the aesthetics, philosophy, and intentions of the disciplines. For every seemingly knowledgeable source making one claim, you can usually find another source claiming the exact opposite.

The most common misconception is that Parkour and Free Running are the exact same thing. This is information that I can entirely assure is wrong. They are often confused because of the strong similarities between the two. So, what's the difference?

Well, Parkour is the American term for l'art du déplacement, which is French for "The Art of Movement." Parkour was founded by David Belle in France. Parkour focuses on training one's body to be able to move from one point to another as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Free Running is a physical art, in which the focus is performing movements or tricks that exhibit freedom and beauty. Free Running incorporates some Parkour techniques, but brings it's own set of movements that are exclusive to Free Running such as the "Wall Spin," in which a person places his hands on a wall and does a complete sideways flip while his hands remain on the wall. As such movements are inefficient for getting from one point to another, they cannot be classified as Parkour. The creation of Free Running is most often credited to Sebastien Foucan, a close friend of David Belle.

The misconception is understandable as they carry strong physical similarities, however the philosophies and mindsets of each is vastly different. Free Running is an expression of individuality, an art form. Parkour is a physical discipline meant to train one's body.

When confronted with danger, the human body has two possible natural responses, referred to as the "Fight-or-Flight Response." To give one a reference point, Martial Arts will better prepare one's body to fight, when confronted with danger, in the same sense that Parkour will better train one's body to exhibit the "Flight" response.

Both, however, are often miscategorized as sports or extreme sports. This is also untrue. As I have already mentioned in this article, although, they are both quite difficult to accurately categorize, Parkour is a physical discipline and Free Running is a physical art form. Neither has any rules, nor teamwork, nor competitiveness and therefore do not exhibit the aspects of a sport.

Traceurs, male practitioners of Parkour or Traceuses, female practitioners of Parkour often take strong action to maintain the "purity" of Parkour. Some would see it as quite simple to convert to a sport, but the vast majority of Traceurs and Traceuses are firmly against it, and prefer it as a self-discipline.

In substitution of competitions that are common with sporting events, there have been numerous "Parkour Jams" set up all around the world, in which multiple obstacles will be set up to bring Traceurs/Traceuses together, to join in the fun together, raise morale for each other, or just to learn new techniques and movements.

Parkour and Free Running are rising fast all over the world, and if you are someone who hadn't heard about it before this article, then you can rest assured that this won't be the last time that you'll hear about it.