Le Parkour Written by Eve Hyman Photos by Adam Michaelson Opposite Film Still from the film Rush Hour

Are you interested in throwing your body off your favorite pizzeria?  Want to bounce off the monument in Washington Square Park with a few of your friends?  Without a skateboard, rollerblades or a safety net? If so, you're ready to join the New York chapter of "free runners" or "Le Parkour."

Some call Le Parkour a new urban sport; some call it an art form. Whatever it is, it has become popular in cities the world over, from South Africa to Hong Kong to Eastern Europe. Parkour is especially big in Russia and Croatia, where abandoned buildings make ideal obstacles for propelling around concrete.

Le Parkour consists of finding new and often dangerous ways to navigate the city landscape - scaling walls, roof-running and leaping from building to building. The "traceur" keeps his pace by climbing, running, jumping, flipping and rolling - spider man style.  David Belle and Sebastien Foucan created Parkour in the suburbs of Paris in the late '80's.  Belle describes the sport as a combination of North African hunting technique, acrobatics, and martial arts.  He says the object is to keep moving through the obstacle course of the city.  For its followers, Parkour is an art-form and a philosophy that deals with overcoming the challenge of the urban landscape.  The idea is to use your own body to free yourself from the city confines - by racing through them. 

Obviously, this activity could lead to injury and that is the plot of the new film about Parkour by director Luc Besson of Fifth Element fame.  The film was shot in London and features Belle and Foucan and their free-running team. 

Le Parkour recently made it to New York City. The New York chapter of this world-wide phenomenon defines Parkour on their website: "Parkour is a discipline for the body and the mind. It is about navigating one's surroundings with speed, power, and grace. Additionally, practitioners of parkour (traceurs) explore new ways of moving through their environments, turning features such as walls and railings from barriers into opportunities for creative movement. Traceurs are not reckless or destructive; they have the utmost respect for their surroundings as they require them to create their movement."

New York Parkour will train you free of charge to be a traceur.  You could grab a slice and head for the roof, propelling yourself and your slice onto the rooftop next door.  Your friends could get a photo of you mid-air, slice-in-hand - a true New York traceur.  If you fall? Let's hope you're employed or enrolled in NYU, because New Yorkers don't have the same health insurance coverage as David Belle and his Parisian team.  However, winter could be the perfect time to learn. Snow certainly makes a better cushion than concrete!

Note from the Editor of www.newyorkcool.com: New York Cool does not endorse Le Parkour. We are running this article because it is an interesting article about an extremely dangerous sport where the risk of injury is very high.

http://nyparkour.com
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=515642196227308929
http://www.le-parkour.com