What is Parkour?

As a traceur I constantly hear people ask: "What is Parkour?" It's not uncommon that one of their friends will try and beat me to the punch and explain. Often they use terms such as: Sport, Martial Art, or street gymnastics. Even experienced parkour practitioners will use the term Free Runner in a desperate attempt to get the questioner to understand without having to go into a in depth lecture on what parkour is. So what exactly is parkour?

 

Is it a sport? I have heard people call it a sport, but lets look a little closer. When some asks what is parkour I generally have to go into a in depth explanation about how its the ability to move through the environment blah blah you all know how it goes. When asked what is Base Ball I don't say: "Its the ability to load three basses and hit a home run to score a bunch of points." I say its a sport. A sport with rules and regulations. Rules and regulations just like every other sport. Now look at this... rules and regulations? The whole point of parkour is to have no regulations. To be able to over come every obstacle. We don't like to be have barriers that's why we learn to get over them. So no I don't thing Parkour by definition fits the role of a sport.

Martial art? This is close at best. Martial arts require discipline and a healthy life style much like parkour. Many people enter both to be a savage in the end and both learn that its not a tool to look or be bad ass with. But parkour is not violent by any nature. It has no self defense moves. It simply depends on the fact that you can move through your environment better than the other guy. It also has no ranking system as one of our principles is that there is no peak to self improvement. So while parkour does share many traits with Martial Arts I wouldn't say it is one.

 

How about Street Gymnastics? NO! Moving on...

 

What is the difference between Free running and Parkour? Parkour: The ability to move through ones environment in the fastest and most efficient manner possible using only the human body. Free Running: some would say a westernized version of parkour taking the moves used in parkour and mixing them with acrobatics and some gymnastics. performed when ever for what ever reason.

 

Well I know I am an amateur writer but I think I can sum it all up when I say that in my opinion (I know there are people that will disagree with a lot of this) parkour isn't anything but... Parkour, Just like sky diving is just sky diving and rock climbing is just rock climbing. I hope that makes sense and i don't get to much criticism for this!