The Art of Parkour

Hey there PEEPS! Well this week, i've decided to blog about an art called Parkour( pronounced as PAR KOR). My friends were hanging around their neighbourhood when they decided to try this out. Well, since its not really known to many, let me share with everyone of you what this Parkour is really about.

Parkour (sometimes also abbreviated to PK) or l'art du déplacement ( the art of movement in English) is a discipline that appeared first in France. More similar to a martial art than to a sport, Parkour focused on moving from one point to another as smoothly, efficiently and quickly as possible using the abilities of the human body. It is built on the philosophical premise that any obstacle, physical or mental, can be surpassed.

Parkour practitioners are often called traceurs, or traceuses for females.

Parkour is most often practiced outdoors, usually without spectators, and is not considered to be performance. The physical aspect of Parkour consists of getting over all the obstacles in your path as you would in an emergency. You want to move in such a way that helps you gain the most ground on someone or something, whether escaping from it or moving towards it. Thus, when faced with a hostile confrontation with a person, one will be able to speak, fight, or flee. As martial arts are a form of training for the fight, Parkour is a form of training for the flight. Because of its unique nature, it is often said that Parkour occupies a unique categorization.

A characteristic of Parkour is efficiency. Practitioners move not only as rapidly as they can, but also in the most direct and efficient way possible. This characteristic distinguishes it from the similar practice of free running, which places more emphasis on freedom of movement and creativity. However, it is not certain whether freerunning was initially intended to be similar to Parkour. Efficiency also involves avoiding injuries, both short and long term. This idea embodying Parkour's unofficial motto is être et durer (to be and to last). Those who are skilled at this activity normally have an extremely keen Spatial awareness.

HISTORY

Before World War I, former French naval officer Georges Hébert traveled throughout the world. During a visit to Africa, he was impressed by the physical development and skills of indigenous tribes that he met:^[18]

Their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring, resistant and yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature.

—Georges Hébert, ^[18]

On May 8, 1902 the town of Saint-Pierre, Martinique, where he was stationed, suffered from the volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée. Hébert coordinated the escape and rescue of some 700 people. This experience had a profound effect on him, and reinforced his belief that athletic skill must be combined with courage and altruism. He eventually developed this ethos into his motto: "être fort pour être utile" (be strong to be useful).^[18]

Inspired by indigenous tribes, Hébert became a physical education tutor at the college of Reims in France. He began to define the principles of his own system of physical education and to create various apparati and exercises to teach his méthode naturelle,^[18] which he defined as:

Methodical, progressive and continuous action, from childhood to adulthood, that has as its objective: assuring integrated physical development; increasing organic resistances; emphasizing aptitudes across all genres of natural exercise and indispensable utilities (walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, equilibrium (balancing), throwing, lifting, defending and swimming); developing one's energy and all other facets of action or virility such that all assets, both physical and virile, are mastered; one dominant moral idea: altruism.

—Georges Hébert, ^[19]

Hébert set up a méthode naturelle session consisting of ten fundamental groups: walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, balancing, throwing, lifting, self-defense, swimming, which are part of three main forces:^[19]

• Energetic or virile sense: energy, willpower, courage, coolness and firmness
• Moral sense: benevolence, assistance, honor and honesty
• Physical sense: muscles and breath

During World War I and World War II, Hébert's teaching continued to expand, becoming the standard system of French military education and training. Thus, Hébert was one of the proponents of parcours — an obstacle course, developed by a Swiss architect,^[20] which is standard in the military training and led to the development of civilian fitness trails and confidence courses.^[18] Also, French soldiers and firefighters developed their obstacle courses known as parcours du combattant and parcours SP.^[21]

sources taken from Wikipedia