Parkour is a made up word, cousin to the French word parkour, meaning, literally, moving or leaping over whatever stands in your way, in this case, a path. When this sport was created, it was created to aid those sports enthusiasts who love the idea of doing a difficult man’s jobs, like construction, cutting down trees, demolishing buildings, etcetera, without damaging them at all. These jobs can take place in hazardous conditions, which makes it even more dangerous and difficult. So, what parkour does? It gives people a way to enjoy these challenging jobs, while staying within the safety of a very controlled environment, which requires physical strength, mental endurance, and the will to overcome everything that comes in front of you. It also provides a thrill that cannot be achieved in any other arena.
Parkour is a unique game. It was created as an answer to problems that were being faced by several daredevils in various domains of sports. In these sports, there are certain skills that need to be developed to overcome the challenges faced. One such skill is parkour. The French called it ‘avant garde’, which means an ingenious or daring way. The sky may not be the limit for this daring sport; however, when you see someone doing a jump or a roll from a hundred feet up, you can’t help but admire what they had to do.
Parkour has evolved into an important art form. The goal is simple: to conquer every obstacle in the safest possible way. In the process, you achieve a very high level of adrenaline rush, that leaves you exhilarated and shaken by the end. The entire sport has been controversial since its conception. For some people, it’s a ridiculous way of having fun; for others, it’s a lifesaving method for those who get injured in accidents.
Many people associate parkour with extreme sports like skydiving. While the two might have happened to share a similar precursor in the world of sports, skydiving was created as a result of another problem. Skydiving was often dangerous due to bad weather conditions. In the early times, people didn’t think twice about doing a dive from cliff to cliff – the risk wasn’t seen as great, and people continued to jump.
A similar situation emerged with skydiving. People started to feel more comfortable doing a dive from cliffs. They felt that skydiving wasn’t risky like it used to be in the old days. This is where does the term parkour comes from.
Parkour, as an extreme sport, evolved in the same way skydiving did. Many skydiving clubs started to spring up, especially in cities with high population densities. Some of these clubs offered lessons in parkour for people who wanted to learn more about it. Some of these instructors were from the military – they developed these moves in order to train their members for various military missions. This is where does the term parkour really comes from. It’s all about ‘defying gravity.’
Parkour is completely different from skydiving – both physically and technically. In skydiving, you are held aloft while you go parachute-jumping. When you land, you don’t just land on the ground. You roll rather quickly to minimize your chances of falling to the ground.
But when you do parkour, you’re moving at incredible speeds and braking very strong bones. So these instructors developed certain techniques for doing parkour which included getting into strange positions, breaking things (such as buildings), and jumping from incredibly high places. These instructors then began to take their skills and practices outside of the gyms and into public places, such as parks and zoos. So where does parkour come from and how did it end up in extreme sports?