PLAY
WHAT IS PARKOUR? Parkour is a training discipline based on moving over terrain with your body. It involves running, jumping and climb- ing. The aim is to get from one point to another safely, efficiently and gracefully. It’s about physical completeness, about being strong, fit, fast and dynamic, and being able to go anywhere you want. With that comes the accompanying
philosophy of being free – both physi- cally and mentally – because Parkour requires a lot of mental strength in order to overcome fear and inhibitions.
Participants develop a kind of free-
dom of mind. They start realising that things they saw as obstacles become stepping stones that can be used to get to where they want to go. It gives prac- tioners a liberating view of the world.
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE DISCIPLINE IN THE UK? Parkour started in France about 20 years ago by a group of young men who called themselves the Yamakasi. The sport be- came known outside of France through a 2001 Luc Besson movie about the group. In 2002, the BBC ran a trailer featuring
David Belle, one of the sport’s found- ers. The Channel Four documentaries Jump London and Jump Britain in 2003 and 2005 launched the sport outside of France on a big scale. The first practitioners in the UK were
people who’d found out about Park- our through other means – there were literally a handful of us. We started com- municating with some of the French
Parkour participants can develop a freedom of mind
70 Read Sports Management online
sportsmanagement.co.uk/digital
Dan Edwardes, director,
Parkour UK
founders. People started setting up internet forums to meet up and practice together, and the Parkour community began to grow. After Jump London and Jump Britain,
these forums were suddenly inundated with people wanting to practice the sport. It was pretty chaotic until about 2005, when the first organised classes were launched in London by Parkour Generations, an organisation dedicated to teaching the sport worldwide. Some of the French founders came over to the UK to teach Parkour the original way, and that’s how the discipline’s popularity started to grow. The first classes took place outdoors,
then Westminster Council and a couple of other councils got wind of the idea and thought it could be a good way to engage young people in exercise. They asked Parkour instructors to teach the sport in leisure centres and in schools. Once the councils had got behind it, it re- ally started to gain momentum.
Issue 2 2011 © cybertrek 2011
In light of Westminster Council’s launch of its flagship parkour facility last summer, the founder and director of Parkour UK, Dan Edwardes, talks to Magali Robathan about the urban sport
RUNNING FREE
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