Freedom Is Movement

                  What does it mean to be free? To be free to move? Why “freerunning”? What is parkour?

                  All of these are questions I have been asked when I explain my hobbies. Parkour and freerunning is the way to move through an environment as quickly and efficiently as possible and was designed originally for military and rescue service. Though it started as some obstacle course run, three men changed it into something great: Raymond Belle, David Belle, and Sébastien Foucan. Even the name derives from these men. Raymond had a phrase that he always used when the father and son would practice: “Le parcours”, meaning “the course”. Raymond claimed that their course was the world, and they would conquer each boundary in France. They broke own personal boundaries, set new goals, and broke those too. The father-son duo teamed up with several others to develop the grueling way of life known as parkour. The name changed happened, of all places, on a film set. David showed a video of parkour to a friend of his, Hubert Koundé, and he suggested to change a few letters to make the word sound stronger. Thus, the word “parkour” was born.

                  In the mind of a traceur/traceuse, a male/female who does parkour, what we do is an art. The ability to climb buildings and scale walls with no equipment is an accomplishment not many others can have a claim to. We train hard, and play hard. Though many people just see parkour as “jumping and climbing things,” it is much more than that. To someone that has never done parkour, I could not explain the feeling more than you complete freedom. You feel like you can do anything and there is nothing stopping you to just keep going, striving for more, and reaching for the sky. The only judge or coach is yourself, and your only responsibility is to focus on what you are doing, and enjoy every second of it. You have the ability to make your own path. This is the true freedom of movement.

                  Now, there are millions of traceurs across the globe. We are always growing and expanding, as a group and on personal levels. The need to become better, faster, stronger, and more fluent fuels the blood in our veins to continue to push forward through our mistakes. We push forward through scraped bodies,
bruised egos, and broken bones for pure love of self-advancement and out of pride. We will not quit no matter the circumstances. We will continue to better ourselves and our abilities. Though we may not be some French firefighters working to rescue someone from a burning building, we have taken this art form and done something that David never could have dreamed of. We created a family. Go to any gym across the U.S. and say that you do parkour, and there is someone bound to let you in with open arms. The ability to create such a close-knit group by only sharing one major thing in common at the start. That is where the true freedom is. Our freedom.