The following is one of the most comprehensive and insightful interviews ever conducted with David Belle the founder of Parkour. In the interview David speaks extensively about a wide range of subjects including his transition from being a fireman into being an actor, training and learning Parkour from his father, and his future plans as they pertain to practicing Parkour and pursuing knowledge and activities in other facets of life.
This interview was conducted only a couple months ago after the release of B13 – Ultimatum, and was just recently made known to the public through the Australian Parkour Association. Special thanks to Raphael Koster for conducting the interview and Benjamin Mossé for translating it.
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Why have you decided to move from being a fireman to being an actor/stuntman?
Firstly, after being a fireman, I went into the army. I was in the Marine Infantry. It was a coincidence I found myself in movies. It was not a vocation. Not something I wanted to do since I was little. What I wanted was to make my sport known: that Parkour become recognized. My brother showed my small videos to the media and they got interested; which brought me to movies. But acting wasn’t something I originally wanted to do. Now that I am in that field; I enjoy it and I am not going to waste the opportunity. If there are opportunities for me in movies, I will take them. Otherwise I will move on to something else. However, for the moment I am not thinking of making a career in that area. I was more than happy with the first District B13. It was already enough for me to be able to tell that to my kids. When I finished working on B13, I told myself: “Even if there is only that one, I am happy enough that Parkour brought me to do that; to be able to show Parkour to the public and make myself known”. For the rest, let’s not make plans on what is and what is not going to happen.
You’re talking as if you haven’t made any decisions by yourself, as if it just all happened by accident…
But it did all happen just like that! I never had any kind of strategy. I never tried to sell myself to act in movies. I never asked for anything. It all started with the documentary that has been shown on TV. From there I took what people offered. Even the last thing, Prince of Persia, I did not ask for that job, it is them who contacted me while I was filming in B13 Ultimatum. They called me like four times, insisting for me to work with them. I was working on another movie at the time so we agreed that I would work for them on my free days. Parkour is being integrated everywhere in movies now, as soon as there is a little race or a jump they use Parkour. We clearly notice it now, the jumps are different.
What are the differences between preparing yourself for stunts in a movie and your own training?
I do it about the same. Parkour, I am finished with it now. People are starting to get interested in that art, but me I have already explored it a lot. I also have a lot of interests in other things. When someone talks to me about Parkour I am not going to say “It’s too late”; most of the time I answer “You should have come when I was 20 years old. I was really motivated at that time! I was into Parkour every second of my life.” Now I could learn to play music, like the guitar or whatever; what’s important is that I want to learn other things. Parkour is not the only thing in life. People tell me “Parkour kicks ass, I have to do it!” I have interests in other things too. Parkour is a training method men should train because it helps you displace yourself in urban or natural environments and learning to adapt yourself to it. However, for me, learning to do stuff like cooking is as important as doing Parkour. Knowing how to repair a car, how to help someone who’s having a cardiac arrest etc. For me those are the basics of life. I am not like an old martial artist at 80 years old who’s always practicing the same punches. It’s even likely that the guy has never fought for his life and I would like to tell him “Stop punching, relax yourself, live normally; enjoy your life,” because there is too much rigidity when people focus too much on something. And I don’t want to end up like that. When you’re getting your first aid diploma, you are not going to be saving people every day it’s more “if something happens, I will know what to do.” I’ve always trained Parkour with the same mentality. So fuck people who tell me “Hey do a demo! or something…”, I never trained Parkour to perform or show off. To me, Parkour is something personal. It just happened to get popular. I’m not the one who put it on the internet.
Is the reason for your disagreement with the Yamakasi about them moving Parkour into movies and shows?
No. But when I really think about it, there is no issue with the Yamakasi. I only practice what my dad taught me. When you listen to them, they’ll tell you they do something they created themselves. And we all live at the same place. The group Yamakasi does not even exist anymore, everyone went away; now it’s called “Majestic Force thingy”. When it was Yamakasi they were like “We are Yamakasi, it’s the sport”; now they are moving towards PG Tips because this project is working well. And I ask myself, why is that? We had a simple sport, why does everyone want to give it a new name? “It’s like Parkour but it’s called Free Running style thingy…”. But it is Parkour! When you go in any other country around the world you say “I play soccer or volleyball”. The name of the sport does not change. So why change the name of Parkour unless you want to do some kind of business and be able to say “I am the creator of this new sport, exactly like Parkour except that you only jump on one leg”? Change one thing to say that you are the creator of something and be able to make some money from it. The goal of Parkour is not to make money or create a business. There is no financial goal behind it. Parkour should be taught to people who want to learn. If they don’t have money it does not matter because you don’t need any to do it, just a pair of good shoes and that’s all. Now people are like “Beware! The Academy is gonna open!” or “There’s gonna be a Parkour center bla bla bla.” But me, I learned Parkour outside! The real Parkour training is to be done outside. You can do whatever with your centers, put some mats down, but people will always end up going outside.
What necessity made you create Parkour?
It was my dad who taught it to me. I had seen and heard a lot of things he did as a fireman – he was a true legend. And I wanted to know his history. Either my dad was gifted and in that case I would never be able to be like him, or either he had trained to get that good and in that case he probably has something to teach me. I then realized how much training he had done. He trained like I never have done in my life. Compared with him I am a little kid who’s playing. When I think about all the physical training he went through I tell myself “Is that the price to pay to get that good? Fuck it’s really hard!” Many people pay to get trained, but I reckon if any of them would have trained with him only one day, none of them would have ever come back. That’s how hard it is. So many people try to train easy “Come do Parkour! It’s really cool!” But if tomorrow I made you do real training, you would end up crying. That’s what you need to know: you are going to cry, you are going to bleed and you are going to sweat like never before. I can’t lie to you about that. Now if you come telling me “Hey I want to learn Parkour, but go easy on me, I don’t want to push too much,” well go do something else! It is for warriors. A training method for warriors. It is not like “I want to learn how to fight; but please don’t hit me too hard because I don’t like it.” If that’s the case, go do something else! If you want to be a real warrior you have to go through hard times.
What use has Parkour?
Easy, we have two hands: it’s to grab things. We can grab things to displace ourselves. We can lift ourselves up. We can jump and run with our legs. We can swim. Instinctively you know you can do these things. When you are swimming you know it is in you. It’s not for nothing. You are not obliged to specialize in them, like become a climbing expert. You can still experience everything and I think that’s what life is about. Don’t close yourself to anything and think you have found the truth and understood life. Many people open their mind through different things like music and painting, as well as Parkour. How is not important. What is important is to open your mind because you gain some freedom through it. I think that when you train Parkour, you realize a bit more about what freedom means especially concerning society. It really opened my mind. But it does not mean it will have the same effect on someone else. What’s good for one is not necessarily good for someone else.
What is the freedom of Parkour?
After a good training session, and good physical preparation, we know exactly what we are capable of, and that we can evolve without being disturbed by others. Still respecting others, but not being disturbed by them. Now I often have to justify myself; particularly with cops. But on the other hand I understand them, when they see me climbing stuff they can think that I’ve stolen something. There are many difficult moments like that so I am thinking of moving to another country like Thailand or even the UK, anywhere where cops are not such a pain.
Even the UK?
Yes! Even if there are too many cameras over there. Cops know what Parkour is. Whereas in France they are being such a pain even though the sport was developed here. It has been 10 or 15 years since Parkour was first given media coverage in France and no one knows about it. I am always being asked the same questions over and over. When we are in the street, it is exactly like 15 years ago when it all started. This frustrates me because public perception hasn’t been evolving as fast as Parkour itself has been. If only we had the resources to really create something good, but we haven’t. At the moment everyone is trying to make it his own way, we are all going in circles; but it could all have been done a long time ago! I wouldn’t be surprised if the things I would like to do are only going to happen when I am 60 years old and I won’t be able to move like I do today. What I would like to achieve is something better; something really close to the street. Maybe just a place where we can gather everyone outside. I would like to create a foundation and we get 500,000 euros or even 1,000,000; with that I’d say “OK, Let’s invest all that money to make this sort of place for Parkour”. I won’t be like “OK cool, but I’ll take a quarter of it because I am the founder of the discipline”. No! I’m not going to even take a cent. If we get that money it is because people want a place like that. So we use that money to create this place and that’s it. When I think about it, with the money I made from movies and other things, same with the Yamakasi… if we had all gotten together, it would already be done. But instead, everyone did his own way, arguing over and over about where it all started, some who never wanted to admit that it came from one place; well we got divided instead of being united.
We are now in a “divide and conquer” type of strategy.
Here is a fun edit from Parkour Generation’s 2nd annual Rendezvous event. The video was filmed by Julie Angle and features the Yamakasi founders Yann Hnautra, Châu Belle-Dinh, Williams Belle and Laurent Piemontesi along with Kazuma, the Vigroux Brothers, Forrest, Sébastien Goudot, Daniel Ilabaca and others. This video is an enjoyable watch as it shows the more playful side of Parkour training.
Here are two scenes from the 2001 film Yamakasi. Written by Luc Besson -the writer of District B13 and B13 – Ultimatum- and featuring Châu Belle-Dinh, Williams Belle, Yann Hnautra, Laurent Piemontesi and others, this movie is widely understood to be the film that caused the split of David Belle from the Yamakasi team. As such this film holds a notorious place in the history of Parkour which is why we have decided to include two of the film’s most action packed scenes in our video library.
Whether this film was an appropriate commercial use of Parkour or whether it was an “exploitation” of the discipline will continue to be debated for years to come. It may take many years as well before a consensus can be reached as to whether the commercial use of Parkour, such as this film, has helped promote or pervert the art. Regardless of the views in favor of either case, the athleticism displayed in this film is undeniably impressive, and the action itself holds a strong case as representing Parkour for the utility art that it is.
If you have ever wanted a premium username for your email account, but have never been able to get one on a popular email provider now is the time! At MisterParkour.com we recently became aware of a new email service that is brining the Parkour community together by providing premium emails to people in the community. Created specifically for Parkour practitioners, email username registration through ParkourMail.com has recently been opened to the Tracers worldwide with virtually no username restrictions.
Registering an address costs a one time fee of $4.95, and through your new email you will receive promotional offers and discounts on Parkour related merchandise that only ParkourMail.com email holders will receive. Other advantages to owning a ParkourMail.com email address include:
Sending and receiving email under your own premium Parkour specific email address.
Working with the worldwide Parkour community to unite practitioners under one. common email.
Supporting Parkour and the knowledge and exposure of the discipline around the world.
Sharing Parkour with friends, family, and contacts in every email you send.
Immediately promoting yourself and your professionalism as a Parkour athlete and/or consultant
Receiving virtually no SPAM.
Never having to change your email address again.
As mentioned before, by being one of the first to act on this new open registration you will also be privy to a slew of premium username availabilities. This is one of the reasons we at MisterParkour.com like the opportunity so much. Other email services (e.g. GoogleMail, YahooMail, Hotmail etc.) have millions of registered users so it is basically impossible to find a simple username with which you can send and receive email from. But Parkour mail is not only specific to the Parkour community (which makes it more open), it is also relatively new which makes the opportunity even better. The ParkourMail.com site currently keeps a running and updated list of available emails. Current emails that have not been registered yet include:
iParkour@parkourmail.com
JamSession@parkourmail.com
Ninja@parkourmail.com
ParkourCoach@parkourmail.com
PK4Life@parkourmail.com
Russia@parkourmail.com
And others!
With so many usernames still available now is the time to sign up. If there is an email you have always wanted but have never been able to own, there is no better opportunity to get it than right now. And with the discounts and promotional offers you’ll receive on Parkour merchandise from your new email account this isn’t something anyone should pass up. Below is the link with which you can purchase a ParkourMail.com email. You can also visit the website ParkourMail.com to read more about owning your own Parkour specific email.
The following is a fantastic article written by Thomas Arnaudies from France. Appropriately titled “Armor,” Thomas equates building the physical condition necessary for Parkour to putting on armor. Composed of both internal and external components, the physical and mental armor of a Tracer is essential to protect against injuries and to allow one to safely progress in his/her Parkour training and physical capabilities.
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Armor
The term ‘Armor’ in Parkour refers to your level of protection against the injuries and your physical capacity to bear the constraints and the forces that the discipline exerts on your body. The idea is to taken from thinking of yourself as a warrior; a good warrior needs a solid armor if it must survive in battle. Likewise, we need a solid and complete armor to protect us when we do Parkour.
Just like the knights of the past time, our armor is composed of many parts and it is important that we take the time to construct each of these parts so that our armor is strong and does not fail us when we need it. I like to think that there exists two different types of armor: the Internal Armor and the External Armor.
A Summary of What is the Internal Armor
The most important part of a warrior’s armor is the helmet that protects the head because it protects the most important part of the warrior; the head. Our spirit is the key of all we do in Parkour because if we do not construct ourselves a strong spirit, the remainder of our defenses never will be as strong as they could be. This includes all our organs (our heart, our respiratory system etc) as well as our bones, that need to be preserved and developed with a good system of progressive training.
A Summary of What is the External Armor
This covers most of the body; the neck, the shoulders, the biceps, triceps, the elbow joints, the wrists, the hands, the fingers, the trunk, the back, the abdomen, the hips, the quadriceps, the knee joints, the tibias, the ankles, the connective tissue etc… I also classify the skin as a part of the external armor. It is important that we condition our skin to become callous and resistant to scratches and abrasions. Creating strong skin on the hands is particularly important as they are fragile due to a lack of use when compared to our primate’s equivalents.
Constructing Your Armor
The Internal armor
The Spirit
A strong spirit is essential in Parkour and furnishes the foundation of the remainder of the armor. Our capacity to move us is dependent on the capacity of our spirit to will our bodies to move. Most of the people do not have any problem moving, we do it every day and we do not even have to think about it – we have only have to wish that our body budges and for that the spirit launches a reaction chain that realizes it. The strength, however, is something that we must learn by ourselves. Only with time and experience will the spirit be able to learn what the body is able to do and with practice it will allow the body to do it without interfering with doubts or apprehensions. We begin, essentially, practicing Parkour as a dog with a leash – with the time, the owner (our brain) learns to have confidence in the dog (our body), and gives more and more liberty on the leash. My opinion is that our ultimate goal is to liberate our body and to leave it to roam freely where it wishes without unnecessary interferences of our spirit
The Organs and the Respiratory System
Without capable and completely functional internal defenses our external defenses will always be weak. Preserving our hearts and a strong and healthy internal system is necessitated by a healthy food intake without excess. The decisions that you make at the dinner table will directly affect the longevity of the systems that you need to function.The better Tracers treat their bodies as athletes, and the more respect they have in nourishing it properly with the necessary fuel, the better the systems to function in the optimum way.
The Bones
Once more, the bones need a solid and healthy food intake to remain in good health.Calcium is well known to be an excellent vitamin source to help your bones remain solid.One can find this in milk and many other daily products. Try to drink milk has low fat content every day to help maintain your bones strong and in good health. The other important manner to preserve solid bones and to increase their densities is to increase gradually what one asks for them. Start with small easy jumps and very gently, after a time period, increase the level of impact so that your bones become accustomed to managing the jumps and stress.Solid bones are important for the Tracers; it is necessary to understand that the difference between breaking a bone and only to hurting it is dependent on its solidity.
The External armor
The Muscles
Our muscles allow us to move us with grace, speed and power. Their maintenance and development is vital to increase our level in Parkour. Being given the nature of our activity, we use all the muscles of our body therefore we must reinforce each of them so that they become strong. Fortunately, the simple practice of Parkour through passing different obstacles constructs the necessary muscles to do that action. But for the Tracer wanting to push their limits and progress towards their full potential, time and effort must be used on the muscular development. Daily reinforcement of this is an integral part of the life of a Tracer. While developing your physical condition, your technical abilities will develop a lot more quickly. It is necessary to pay attention to not overtraining the muscles; a sufficient rest (of more than 48H) is required for a muscle repairs itself after intensive training. Learn this balance between training harshly and rest. It is something that takes time and practice but to find this balance is essential.
The Joints
Our joints link up the different parties of our armor; this is the reason why they are as much as important as the remainder. The principal joints on which one will have to work on; your elbows, shoulders, hips, knees and ankles. You solicit a lot from them when practice which is the reason why they must be solid. The secret to have solid joints is once again to have a good diet, to increase gradually the intensity and the past time to improve them.Supplements such as of cod liver oil, glucosamine and vitamins should also be considered to preserve your joints in good form, especially as you get older.
The Skin
The simple truth is that the Parkour is a discipline of lasting, especially for your hands.During the first months of your training it is almost sure that you will have cuts, scratches and that you will lose blood at the level of your hands. That is normal and you can criticize your ancestors for it. Because of the change of method of life of the humans during the last few thousand years, the average man no longer has need to climb to the trees, to launch lances and to construct his shelter; this is the reason why our hands became fragile with time. The Parkour is as an awakening for your hands; it dives them in what they were formerly used to doing. If you look at the primate hands, you will see that they are as leather, completely conditioned to move itself in the trees and ready for the hard thing that monkeys have to do. By comparison our hands are weak and soft because this is all that is physically required of working people today. As such, if you want to practice the Parkour, you must demand more of your body then is demanded in traditional desk work. The best manner to reinforce your hands is to climb in the trees and to move you in the branches, training yourself to pass obstacles while using your hands, and to crawl on the ground on your hands and feet. That will take time but finally your hands will reinforce themselves and become accustom to be used in this manner. You will know when they are ready when you rarely cut yourself and after moving in trees for hours will not leave you more exhausted and callous hands.
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This article was written in French and was originally posted on Parkour.net. We have done our best to accurately translate the paper into English. If you would like to read the original French version of this article please click here.
