Once featured on YouTube’s homepage here is another sweet little video from Parkour Generations. In this short documentary made by Julie Angel, Forrest and Dan Edwardes discuss Parkour and exhibit their skill in a dense undercover location in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkHPQPozDRs
Here is another great video from Julie Angel and Parkour Generations. Finding a different route through the city Stephane Vigroux, Forrest, Sébastien Goudot, and Chris Keighley utilize Parkour to reach their final destination; the bank. And most impressive of all they do this while wearing suits and Chris is even carrying a briefcase! In spite of this there is nothing too spectacular here, but it’s a superb and entertaining all around film nonetheless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVsa1SFgfU
We are starting to have so many videos on this site that we aren’t always sure which ones we have already posted and which ones we still need to post! Yesterday’s post from the Parkour Generation’s Rendezvous I workshop reminded us of a few videos we thought we already had on the site but upon further investigation we found out that we did not. A fair amount of these videos are from Julie Angel and Parkour Generations, and as such we have decided to continue for a time posting a series of their work.
Today we present a film called Parkour Generations: Vision which has already been view more than 200,000 times on YouTube alone! And there’s no question as to why it is so popular. Although it has no plot, the video features Stephane Vigroux, Forrest, Kazuma, and is nothing short of inspiring. Its description says this:
A rare insight into parkour vision by some of the originals of the discipline. When some of the best parkour practitioners in the world take their friends of equal skill and experience to a new spot, lines of opportunity appear. Not training, just fun, creative & chilled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-KQYi_ZI5Y
Here is a video from Rendezvous I put on by Parkour Generations. The workshop was conducted in London on the 13th and 14th of May, 2007, and prominent instruction was given by Forrest and Dan Edwardes. You may also recognize other famous Tracers who attended the event including Stephane Vigroux, Sébastien Goudot, Kazuma, Cicso, Thomas, and Yann Hanutra and Laurent Piemontesi from the Yamakasi. We posted three videos from Rendezvous II in our What is Parkour? series that we conducted almost a month ago. Unlike this video which highlights the physical training from Rendezvous I, those videos from Rendezvous II exclusively highlighted a questions and answer time with the Yamakasi. Divided into three parts, you can view the videos from that interview by going to our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th installments of that sequence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtJckTGvCcI
Starting today www.MisterParkour.com is beginning a five part series that is designed to answer the question, “What is Parkour?” Throughout this series we will be featuring videos with insightful explanations of Parkour from Stephane Vigroux, Forrest, the Yamakasi and of course David Belle. The fifth part of this series will showcase a rare video of David Belle where he speaks for almost four minutes about what Parkour is and what it means to him.
For the first video in this series we start with an excellent video featuring Stephane Vigroux. This video is currently being promoted on YouTube and it was prominently featured on the YouTube homepage a few days ago. In this video Stephane performs some incredible Parkour moves and directly answers the question, What is Parkour?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1FVnoLkfLA
A few weeks ago we posted a Parkour video featuring Forrest. It also does a great job of answering the question, “What is Parkour?” so we decided to include it in this post as well. The video is made in the same style as the video of Stephane above. In the feature Forrest performs some great Parkour moves and thoroughly describes what Parkour is and why he does it.
http://www.misterparkour.com/?p=45
We have recently added four new blogrolls to the site, and since only two of these directly represent Parkour I wanted to explain our reasoning for these additions.
The two blogrolls that directly represent Parkour are www.ParkourGenerations.com and David Belle’s personal website kyzr.free.fr/davidbelle/ The Parkour Generations blogroll was included because Parkour Generations is the most prestigious Parkour academy in the world. Located in
The other two blogrolls are www.Foucan.com and www.MajesticForce.com. Although these two sites do not perfectly represent Parkour, the founders of these sites, Sébastien Foucan and the Yamaksi, are inexorably linked to Parkour through their childhood relationships with David and their influence on the development of Parkour. David Belle started the Yamakasi, but when disagreements arose regarding the true meaning of Parkour, the group split up and since then three disciplines have emerged: Parkour, Freerunning, and the Art du Déplacement. Sébastien is the founder of Freerunning and the Yamakasi are the leaders of the Art du Déplacement.*
In the near future we will be posting more information and videos that explain the differences between these arts -even though some contend that they are the same-. However, for the sake of highlighting the similarities and connections of Parkour, Freerunning, and the Art du Deplacement, we will point out that the movements in all three disciplines are rooted in dynamic movement of the human body and encompass interacting with and/or overcoming obstacles in your environment. As such, many of the movements in all three disciplines are very much the same if not identical. In many cases the training methods and principles, including both the mental and physical aspects, for these three arts are the same as well. Regardless of which art you study/adhere to, the founders/leaders of Parkour, Free Running, and the Art du Déplacement are all incredible athletes that have uncovered ways of movement that were previously unimagined in modern society, and they have reached levels of athleticism that supersede any previous beliefs of man’s capabilities and/or limitations to move.
You will learn a great deal from every one of these sites, and although the primary focus of www.MisterParkour.com is the philosophy of Parkour, from time to time we will include videos and information from www.Foucan.com and www.MajesticForce.com to supplement your training methods, enjoyment, and imagination.
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*“The founders of the Yamakasi group haven’t invented anything! However, with what they have agreed to call the << Art du Déplacement>>, they affirm that they have reached a very high level of research and performance with the aim of bringing to a life a simple form of expression that is capable of reaching out to everyone’s imagination.
Having succeeded it making their Art known and achieving a certain popular recognition, within a few years they became real ambassadors for the << Art du Déplacement>>, their own discipline…”
-Quote taken from www.MajesticForce.com.
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This is one of the best and most concise videos we have ever seen that describes what Parkour is. The Tracer speaking is named Forrest. He is a Parkour instructor in London for Parkour Generations, and he is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the sport. Since some of his speech is hard to understand we have transcribe the clip below.
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“My name is Forrest. I come from France and sport is my passion. I went to university for four years and graduated as a physical coach. Now I live in London and I teach Parkour.
Parkour is an art of movement, a physical discipline but utilize this on your body and your mind
Parkour is not just a physical challenges, it allows you to discover yourself very deeply. I live to enjoy myself and to understand myself
Young people they told me, “But why you do this,” because it’s my passion. I like that.
I first began to learn about Parkour from Stepahen Vigroux, one of the best in the world. He taught me how to move, and how I could push my body farther than I had ever imagined.
Parkour is demanding and very complex sport where you work all the parts of your body. You have to control your abilities, the key is your mind. But most importantly you have to control your fear.
It’s necessary for you to be relaxed, relaxed.
I watched the other guys and they told me, “Oh, but it is very unusual, it’s very amazing”…
But I believe that I couldn’t do it. But just with practice, practice, practice. Now I love it.
There are no secrets to improving your skill in Parkour, other than hard training. Setting yourself goals and working towards them.
When I come in the new area, in new environment, I can visualize myself doing oh I can do this this this this this this this this. Because of that a few minutes later I be able to do physically. I think the creativity is coming with the level. I train up to 4 hours a day five days a week varying the type of work from physical conditioning to specific Parkour techniques. You can always improve
Parkour is competitive, but not against someone else. The first and most important competition in Parkour is with yourself.
For me the city is a playground. You have to see it through the eyes of a child.
Everybody can do Parkour, everybody if women, man, kids, old people. Everybody can do Parkour. You have to find your own way of doing Parkour. But you know for example, doing just walking on the rails, everybody can do it. It’s not necessary to be strong. It’s necessary to have a good balance. Just balance. And everybody can do it. So after that it just depends, what are you looking for, what do you want to do with Parkour or what do you goals do you want to reach that try to find your own way and be in joy and that’s it.
I hope people will see Parkour as a positive activity and more people will start practicing it in a safe and responsible way.”
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