the.com/parkour
the art of treating a city like it owes you a shortcut
means The discipline of moving rapidly through an environment, especially an urban one, by running, jumping, climbing, and vaulting over obstacles instead of going around them.
from From French, coined in the 1980s–90s by David Belle and his crew, who took it from 'parcours du combattant,' the French military obstacle-course training. 'Parcours' simply means 'a route' or 'a course,' from Latin 'percurrere,' to run through. The spelling was deliberately reworked — 'c' to 'k,' the silent 's' dropped — to make the word itself faster and stripped-down, much like the movement it names.
- origin
- Born in French suburbs, inspired by military obstacle training
- name root
- From 'parcours du combattant,' the combatant's course
- core rule
- Efficiency first; flips are flair, not the point
- founder
- David Belle built it from his firefighter father's drills
- the goal
- Never stop, never backtrack, the obstacle bends
david belle — french founder of parkour in the 1990s, created the discipline in lisses, seine-et-marne
storror — british parkour collective founded in 2010, has 2m+ youtube subscribers
world chase tag — international parkour competition series started in 2016, held annually across multiple cities