Parkour - History

History

Though Sébastien Foucan states in Jump London that "le parkour has always existed, freerunning has always been there, the thing is that no one gave it a name, we didn't put it in the box," the roots of the modern discipline can be traced.

In Western Europe, a forerunner of parkour was French naval officer Georges Hébert, who before World War I promoted athletic skill based on the models of indigenous tribes he had met in Africa. He noted, "their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring, and resistant but yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature." His rescue efforts during the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on Saint-Pierre, Martinique, reinforced his belief that athletic skill must be combined with courage and altruism. Hébert became a physical education tutor at the college of Reims in France. Hébert set up a "méthode naturelle" (natural method) 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: 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, which is now standard in the military training and led to the development of civilian fitness trails and confidence courses.

Born in what is now Vietnam in 1939, Raymond Belle was the son of a French doctor and Vietnamese mother. He was cut off from his parents by the struggle for independence and sent to a military orphanage at the age of 7. Isolated there, he had to become stronger in order to survive. He took it upon himself to train harder and longer than everyone else in order to never be a victim. He would do extra training at night when everyone else was asleep, go for runs, climb trees. He would use the military obstacle courses in secret, but he also created courses of his own that tested his endurance, his strength, his flexibility. Doing this enabled him not only to survive the hardships he experienced during his childhood, but also eventually to thrive. In 1954 he returned to France and remained in military education until 1958, when someone who was impressed by his abilities suggested that he join the Paris fire-fighters.

In the fire fighters he made a name for himself as someone who would always go first, always volunteer for the dangerous assignments. When others were still hesitating, he would act. He was involved in many rescues, some dangerous and daring, and received both citations and medals. He also involved himself in athletic pursuits throughout his career and was French military champion several times in more than one event. After leaving the fire-fighters in 1975 he worked in the private sector, and continued to impress people with his efficiency.

David Belle was born in 1973. He was raised by his grandfather, but remained in contact with his father. As a young boy David was not gifted either physically or academically. He experimented with gymnastics and athletics but became increasingly disaffected with both school and the sports clubs. As he got older though he started to read the newspaper clippings that told of his father's exploits and got more and more curious about what had enabled his father to accomplish these feats. Through conversations with his father he realised that what he really wanted was a means to become truly useful, developing skills that would be useful to him in life, rather than just training to kick a ball or perform moves in a padded, indoor environment.

Eventually, through conversations with his father, he learned about this way of training that his father called 'parcours'. He learned of the hours spent on obstacle courses, and of moving from branch to branch in the forest. He heard his father talk of the hundreds and thousands of repetitions he had done in order to find the best way of doing things. What he learned too was that for his father, training was not a game but something vital, something that enabled him to survive and to protect the people he cared about. David realised that this was what he had been searching for and so he began training in that way too. After a time he realised it was far more important to him than schooling and he gave up his other commitments to focus all his time on his training.

Initially David trained on his own, however later he found other people (including his cousins) who had similar desires and they began to train together. Gradually, the training ideas were passed on to others who came to learn and the number of practitioners expanded slowly, but as the practising became more like a discipline than a pastime, many people would leave the group. The core group that would develop what we today know as parcours, parkour, L'art du déplacement and freerunning were: Châu Belle Dinh, David Belle, Williams Belle, Yann Hnautra, Sébastien Foucan, Laurent Pietmontesi, Guylain N'Guba Boyeke, Malik Diouf, and Charles Perriére. In the late 1990s, after David's brother sent some pictures and video to a French TV programme, parkour's recognition and popularity began to increase. A series of television programmes in various countries subsequently featured video footage of the group, and as the popularity increased they began to get more and more offers. Eventually, the original group split apart to pursue different goals, some staying with the discipline and others leaving. The number of practitioners in total though kept on increasing and parkour's popularity began to spread around the globe through television, feature film and increasing use of online video-sharing methods.