Trick Pics

Drop

Turn Vault

Cat Leap

Speed Vault

Climb Up

Tic-Tac

Gap Jump

Dash Vault

Wall Hop/Pop Vault

Monkey/Vault

Precision Jump

Reverse Vault

Roll

Lazy Vault

Parkour

Parkour (sometimes abbreviated PK) is a method of movement focused on moving around obstacles with speed and efficiency. Originally developed in France, the main purpose of the discipline is to teach participants how to move through their environment by vaulting, rolling, running, climbing and jumping. Traceurs (parkour practitioners) train to be able to identify and utilize alternate or the more efficient paths. Parkour can be practiced anywhere, but areas dense with obstacles offer many different training opportunities.

Free running

Free running is a form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as free runners, use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its structures. The term free running was coined during the filming of Jump London, as a way to present parkour to the English-speaking world. Parkour's emphasis on efficiency distinguishes it from the similar practice of free running, which places more emphasis on freedom of movement and creativity.
The man who coined the phrase, Sébastien Foucan, defines free running as a discipline for self development, of following your own way. His dissatisfaction with the limited creativity and self-expression in Parkour was the motivation for Sebastian Foucan to develop a similar but also very different art of movement that became known as free running. He notes "Understand that this form of art has been created by few soldiers in Vietnam to escape or reach: and this is the spirit we'd like parkour to keep. You have to make the difference between what is useful and what is not in emergency situations. Then you'll know what is parkour and what is not. So if you do acrobatics things on the street with no other goal than showing off, please don't say it's parkour. Acrobatics existed a long time ago before parkour."
When questions are raised between the differences of parkour and free running, the Yamakasi group deny the differences and say: "parkour, l'art du deplacement, free running, the art of movement... they are all the same thing. They are all movement and they all came from the same place, the same nine guys originally. The only thing that differs is each individual's way of moving".

Parkour is a Non-rivalry

A campaign was started on 1 May 2007 by Parkour.NET portal to preserve parkour's philosophy against sport competition and rivalry.In the words of Erwan LeCorre: "Competition pushes people to fight against others for the satisfaction of a crowd and/or the benefits of a few business people by changing its mindset. Parkour is unique and cannot be a competitive sport unless it ignores its altruistic core of self development. If parkour becomes a sport, it will be hard to seriously teach and spread parkour as a non-competitive activity. And a new sport will be spread that may be called parkour, but that won't hold its philosophical essence anymore."According to LeCorre, those who truly practice Parkour have the same mind aspect of each other, therefore it brings people to work together rather than compete, it allows them to be united internationally and forget the social and economical problems which separated them globally, ultimately leading one giant community working and growing together.

FreeRun or Parkour Tricks

1. Landing: Bending the knees when toes make contact with ground (never land flat footed; always land on toes and ball of your foot, or whole footed).
2. Balance: Walking along the crest of an obstacle; literally "balance."
3. Cat Crawl: Quadrupedal movement along the crest of an obstacle.
4. Underbar: Jumping or swinging through a gap between obstacles; literally "to cross" or "to break through." 
5. Lache/swing: Hanging drop; lâcher literally meaning "to let go." To hang or swing (on a bar, on a wall, on a branch) and let go, dropping to the ground or to hang from another object. This can refer to almost all hanging/swinging type movements.
6. Pop vault, wall hop, Wallpass, wallrun: Overcoming a tall structure, usually by use of a step off the wall to transform forward momentum into upward momentum, then using the arms to climb onto and over the object.
7. Vault: To move over an object with one's hand(s) on an object to ease the movement.
8. Turn vault: A vault or dropping movement involving a 180° turn; literally "half turn." This move is often used to place yourself hanging from an object in order to shorten a drop or prepare for a jump.
9. Speed vault: To overcome an obstacle by jumping side-ways first, then placing one hand on the obstacle to self-right your body and continue running.
10. Lazy vault: To overcome an obstacle by using a one-handed vault, then using the other hand at the end of the vault to push oneself forwards in order to finish the move.
11. Cat pass/jump, (king) kong vault, monkey vault: The saut de chat involves diving forward over an obstacle so that the body becomes horizontal, pushing off with the hands and tucking the legs, such that the body is brought back to a vertical position, ready to land.  
12.  Dash vault: This vault involves using the hands to move oneself forwards at the end of the vault. One uses both hands to overcome an obstacle by jumping feet first over the obstacle and pushing off with the hands at the end. Visually, this might seem similar to the saut de chat, but reversed. Allegedly David Belle has questioned the effectiveness of this movement.
13. Reverse vault: A vault involving a 180° rotation such that the traceur's back faces forward as they pass the obstacle. The purpose of the rotation is ease of technique in the case of otherwise awkward body position or loss of momentum prior to the vault.
14. Kash vault: This vault is a combination of two vaults; the kong vault and the dash vault. After pushing off with the hands in a kong vault, the body continues past vertical over the object until the feet are leading the body. The kash vault is then finished by pushing off the object at the end, as in a dash vault.
15. Roll: A forward roll where the hands, arms and diagonal of the back contact the ground, often called breakfall. Used primarily to transfer the momentum/energy from jumps and to minimize impact, preventing a painful landing. It is similar to the basic kaiten or ukemi and it was taken from martial arts such as judo, ninjutsu, jujutsu, hapkido and aikido.
16. Cat leap: To land on the side of an obstacle in a hanging/crouched position, the hands gripping the top edge, holding the body, ready to perform a muscle up.
17. Precision: Static or moving jump from one object to a precise spot on another object. This term can refer to any form of jumping however.
18. Tic-Tac: To step off a wall in order to overcome another obstacle or gain height to grab something.
19. Rotary vault: Similar to a kong vault, the person dives and then rotates their lower body around the obstacle. Used for shorter to medium obstacles. For people that have trouble with kong vaults.
20. Side vault: A vault where the person is parallel to the obstacle and places one hand on the obstacle. When preforming the vault, the person's back should be facing down.

The Phliosophy of Parkour

When you begin doing Parkour you begin to see things from a different point of view. Parkour is da search for freedom. Parkour is a feeling trapped in each of us. Parkour wants to jump high and higher. Parkour means wishing to be better everyday, day by day, little by little. Parkour means taking control of your mind, your body and your soul. Parkour is about washing off fear from our Soul. Parkour means nurturing the mind. Finding balance. Parkour means finding joy. Parkour is fun. Parkour is great. Parkour is cool. Parkour is a life style.

History of Parkour & FreeRun

In the Jump London documentary Sebastien Foucan says, "Free running has always existed, free running has always been there, the thing is that no one gave it a name, we didn't put it in a box." He makes a comparison with prehistoric man, "to hunt, or to chase, or to move around, they had to practice the free run."

Inspiration for parkour came from many sources, one of which is the 'Natural Method of Physical Culture' developed by George H�bert in the early twentieth century. David Belle was introduced to this method by his father, Raymond Belle, a French soldier who practiced it. The word parkour derives from "parcours du combattant", the obstacle courses of H�bert's method and a classic of military training. The younger Belle had participated in activities such as martial arts and gymnastics, and sought to apply his athletic prowess in a manner that would have practical use in life.

 

After moving to Lisses Belle continued his journey with others. "From then on we developed," says Foucan in Jump London, "And really the whole town was there for us; there for free running. You just have to look, you just have to think, like children." This, as he describes, is "the vision of Parkour."

According to Foucan, the start of the "big jumps" was around the age of fifteen. Over the years as dedicated practitioners improved their skills, their moves continued to grow in magnitude, so that building-to-building jumps and drops of over a storey became common in media portrayals, often leaving people with a slanted view on the nature of parkour. In fact, ground-based movement is much more common than anything involving rooftops.

The journey of parkour from the Parisian suburbs to its current status as a widely practised activity outside of France created splits among the originators. The founders of parkour started out in a group named the Yamakasi, but later separated due to disagreements over what David Belle referred to as "prostitution of the art," the production of a feature film starring the Yamakasi in 2001. Sebastian Foucan, David Belle, and Stephane Vigoroux were amongst those who split at this point. The name 'Yamakasi' is taken from Lingala, a language spoken in the Congo, and means strong spirit, strong body, strong man.

Parkour and FreeRun

Free running, also known as parkour, is a combination of jogging and gymnastics. Free runners view a city as one big playground. Every day city objects like stairs, rails and walls are used in a series of vaults, leaps and climbs. A free runner might leap on to a park bench, backflip over a newspaper box, then walk across a stair rail, before climbing over a wall. The idea behind free running is to link moves over and around obstacles into one fluid run - kind of like the way skateborders move through a street course. The sport requires great strength, flexibility, creativity and discipline.

A safety tip for beginers, it is a cheap, fun, healthy sport, but KNOW YOUR LIMITS, don't do a jump that is way far from your limits, it will end in a pretty bad wipe-out, and always bring a friend, they could offer suggestions for moves, and can help you if you fall...