Parkour

Traceur using his parkour.

Parkour is an activity in which the goal is to move from one place to another as quickly and efficiently as possible, using the abilities of the human body.[1][2] Parkour helps to overcome barriers, and is practiced in rural and urban areas. Parkour practitioners are called traceurs, or traceuses for females.[3]

Founded by David Belle in France, practitioners only use efficient movements to develop their bodies and minds, and to be able to overcome barriers in an emergency. It may also be a form of entertainment or a hobby.

Acrobatics (such as flips and wall flips) are not part of parkour,[1] because of inefficiency in a difficult situation (emergency). Freerunning is the branch of parkour, when such flips are used rather than efficient movement.


In 1988, David Belle was 15 years old. His father Raymond Belle was a great fireman. David was influenced by his father. He left school at the age of 16 and his father helped him to make him stronger. David and his classmates began to create new actions to train themselves. They named it parkour.

The basic motion of parkour 1. Landing 2. Roll 3. Rolling 4. Swan dive 5. Balance 6. Cat balance 7. Precision one foot take off 8. Precision 2 footed take off 9. Dismount 10. Turn vault 11. Wall run 12. Tic tac 13. Tic tac to precision 14. Crane 15. Moonstep 16. Catleap 17. 180% cat   18. Running cat   19. Tic tac to cat 20. Monkey vault 21. Kingkong vault   22. Double kingkong 23. Diving kingkong 24. Kong precision 25. Kingkong cat   26. Dash vault 27. Kingkong dash 28. Lazy vault 29. Speed vault 30. Underbar 31. Lache 32. Hand stand 33. Flag 34.Palmspin   35. Wall spin 36. Aerial。 37. Sideflip 38. Backflip 39. Frontflip 40. Star Jumping

Parkour does involve risks but usually the public tends to overestimate those. Football, as well as quite a lot of other sports as well, has a higher injury rate.

Parkour Media

Reference

Wikibooks has more about this subject:
  1. 1.0 1.1 David Belle or PAWA Team, or both. "English welcome - Parkour Worldwide Association". Archived from the original on 2005-05-08. Retrieved 2007-05-12.
  2. Severine Souard. "Press - "The Tree" - L'Art en mouvement" (JPG) (in English and français). Retrieved 2007-07-02. Tracez sur un plan de votre ville une ligne droite, partez du point A et rendez-vous au point B.
  3. Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English. "parkour". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2007-08-07.

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