9 minute read
Parkour Grows by Leaps & Bounds
By Jake Ten Pas
Photos by Brandon Davis
Georges Hebert, David and Raymond Belle, John Ciampa, and Sébastien Foucan aren’t exactly household names. James Bond, on the other hand, should ring bells. When it comes to the athletic artform of parkour, however, perhaps no trio is quite so well-known as Michael Scott, Dwight Schrute, and Andy Bernard. One might say that they scream, “Parkour!”
Such statements could induce conniption fits in self-serious practitioners of the actual sport.
MAC Parkour Instructor Nigel Morris lets them roll off his back like his students off a stack of mats in the Gymnastics Arena. He knows that parkour is simply the art, or sport, of going from point A to point B in the safest, smoothest, most efficient way possible. In other words, the exact opposite of the spastic flops and half-somersaults seen on The Office “That’s one of my favorite references!” he says, a smile breaking across his unflappable face. “They were just rolling around, doing the most horrible movement any human being could put their body through and yelling ‘Parkour!’ I think that’s when a lot of younger people started getting into it.”
Casino Royale, the Bond movie that put parkour squarely in the sights — and sites — of the movie-going public, had come out in 2006, three years before the 2009 The Office “cold open” set the web spinning all over again. “From around 2007 to 2013, there started to be a lot more forums on the internet. People were talking about themselves training, a lot of them inspired by this guy David Belle, who had been organizing meetups on the outskirts of Paris and posting videos of himself for years.”
As interest in the sport grew, so did opportunities to capitalize on the trend, with Foucan — the free-runner chased by Bond through construction sites in Madagascar — touring with Madonna, and David Belle going Hollywood in the American remake of his District 13 films, Brick Mansions. Despite some pushback against the monetization of the sport from those who’d been drawn to it by loose, community-minded jams, or athletic-feat-focused gatherings, many ultimately embraced the growing notoriety and the global interest it spawned.
Like so many sports, COVID put a dent in traceurs’ — or parkour practitioners — ability to congregate, but as the world reopened, it called to those looking to move through it in creative ways. With the backing of Gymnastics & Dance Supervisor Lynn McCaffrey and guidance of competitive traceur Morris, it’s bounced back at MAC in a big way, and the only limits appear to be the laws of gravity.
Off the Wall
Scratch that. There’s also the matter of MAC security dictating the limits of parkour. Morris, ever the consummate artist, found out that it’s not an appropriate way to access the Gymnastics Arena, for instance.
“I come from the MAX stop, and the parking garage’s face is right there. It’s easy, just go up, dyno, grab the next ledge, and pull yourself up. I quickly got told by security to cut that out, so now I take the stairs,” he says, that sly smile creeping back.
Like skateboarding and breakdancing — Morris also teaches the latter at MAC — there’s something inherently rebellious about parkour. Taking urban spaces and repurposing them to gymnastic pursuits is bound to make some people nervous. Morris embraces the edgy aspects of his athletic discipline but also emphasizes that it has to be grounded in safety and mastering of key fundamentals.
“Kids are interested, and they’re going to do it anyway. I may as well help them understand how to do it as safely as humanly possible, right?” Morris asks rhetorically. The club currently offers three levels of parkour, Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced.
Beginner, as he explains, is mostly younger children and is partially about teaching them how to activate certain muscles and bring intentionality to basic movements. They jump into the foam pit and largely focus on rolling. “That’s the most important thing ever, ever, ever!” Morris emphasizes. “With beginners, we don’t really get higher than a medium balance beam off the floor.”
The intermediate level takes the knowledge of rolling and refines it, adding in directional control and angular awareness. Getting under and over obstacles in a safe way combines with scaling taller objects and landing jumps. “In advanced, the focus will go from pure technique, how to protect yourself, and traversing your environment, to more artsy stuff.”
Within the parkour community, such decorative, superfluous movements often are assigned to a permutation of parkour known as “freerunning.” The term might originally have been coined to help the French-originating phenomenon break into the American market, but now if you ask enthusiasts, you might get a passionate dissertation on the difference between the two. Even if club members eventually want to recreate the Casino Royale chase scene, dramatic flourishes and all, mastering the movement essentials comes first. Morris says that’s good because it’s had the effect of destigmatizing parkour for those who might see it as inherently dangerous.
“The reception has been great here. Parents see the class and are like, ‘Oh, this isn’t quite what I thought it was!’ The kids are having fun learning how not to smash their face into the floor when they fall,” he explains. “Some of the parents want to get an adult class going, which is awesome. I just want more people to do it overall, to want to dig deeper into the sport.”
Jam On It
Like any modern sport, the history of parkour is full of twists and turns, individual and group efforts, liberal borrowing from predecessor activities, and volcanic eruptions of inspiration. In the case of parkour, quite literally.
“There are only so many ways you can move your arms. Everybody is going to figure out universal concepts like, ‘I should probably bend my knees this way when I land. I should probably do pushups to develop my strength.’ For parkour, a lot of the knowledge we try to share with students is based on Georges Hebert’s adventures back in 1902,” Morris says.
It was just after the turn of the century when the French Naval officer found himself in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, helping to rescue and evacuate citizens during the eruption of Mount Pelée. Observing the more fluid, natural movements of indigenous people, as well as the heroism of everyone working to help others, he began developing his méthode naturelle, or natural method, for training to be fit for the purpose of being useful. His dual fascination with physical and moral improvement led to the development of military obstacle courses — parcours du combatant in the original French — changing the trajectory of military training and leading to the development of civilian fitness courses around the world.
It’s no coincidence that the words “parcours” and “parkour” look similar. Military educator Raymond Belle passed along to his son, David, his enthusiasm for natural training methods and obstacle courses, and today the younger Belle is often cited as the founder of parkour. Of course, it’s way more complicated than that. Everyone from Ciampa, an acrobat known as the Human Fly, who was active in the 1920s, to Jackie Chan and other high-profile martial artists who trained using the method qinggong, contributed to the development of contemporary parkour and freerunning.
It’s a fascinating history and one Morris is happy to wax poetic about if given the opportunity. He also might tell you of his own journey to the sport, which began with breakdancing in New York City and Atlanta, moved on to experiments in parkour, and worked its way west. “The first big jam I went to at Duke University, there were thousands of people, and I thought, ‘All these people came here just to run up this wall? This is crazy! This is amazing!’”
Despite losing seven times in time trials, he ended up taking five straight freestyle heats, winning his first competition, and arguably altering the direction of his life. Now, he’s focused on bringing the combination of athletic ambition and competitive camaraderie that so bewitched him to MAC members looking for a new challenge.
“Parkour is basically gymnastics applied to the outside world,” Morris says. “But it’s also more than that. The idea of fitness for the sake of being useful is what we should always have in our hearts. Learning how to move your body in the best possible way is inherently valuable, but it’s also helpful because a volcano might try to kill you.”
During winter term, parkour classes are set to be held at 12:15 (Advanced), 1:15 (Intermediate), and 2:15 p.m. (Beginner) on Saturdays.
Glossary of Terms
Parkour is generally defined as an athletic training discipline or sport in which practitioners move from point A to point B in the fastest and most efficient way possible without using equipment. As a sport, it continues to evolve, and any attempt to list all of its relevant terms would be futile. However, here are a few basics.
Cat Leap
To land on the side of an obstacle in a hanging/crouched position, the hands gripping the top edge, holding the body, ready to perform a muscle-up.
Dyno
An advanced technique used in climbing, in which the practitioner leaps from a hanging position and grabs a higher ledge.
Gainer
A backflip or aerial somersault performed while moving forward and possibly launching off of an object.
Kong
Diving forward over an obstacle so that the body becomes horizontal, pushing off with the hands, tucking the legs, and bringing the body back to a vertical position in order to land.
Muscle-Up
Move from a hanging position on a wall, rail, other perch, into a position where your upper body is above the obstacle, supported by the arms. This then allows for you to climb up onto the obstacle and continue.
Speed Vault
To overcome an obstacle by jumping sideways first, then placing one hand on the obstacle to self-right your body and continue running.
Tic-Tac
To step or jump off a wall in order to overcome another obstacle or gain height to grab something.
