Parcour (Freerunning)? ... Nope, never heard of it.

Neither had I until I went to my girlfriend's friend's party one summer evening. Her brother was an artist and big into dance and this new art style out of France - Parcour. I said I had never heard of it before, so he shows me some video clips on his computer. Holy #@$%!!! This looks exactly like some stunt moves I had seen in this French action movie I just saw... Banlieu 13 (which was really fun to watch because of the action). "Yeah" says the artist dude. "The star's one of the originator's of the whole movement". Well that's super cool and I continue on with the party and the night in general. A few months pass and I'm living life as it were and Casino Royale, the new Bond flick comes out. I watch it and like it somewhat; but hey, that opening action sequence in Africa was #$%%ing incredible. Really edge of your seat type of stuff, blood pumping material. So that was fun and I'm in a book store the next week, just flipping through some.. books :-) And I see this photographer's inside guide (or whatever) to Casino Royale, and I start leafing through it and lo and behold, that opening sequence was using Parcour!!! The bad guy was also one of the sport's originators and takes Bond on a wild ride through a public cock fight, a skyscraper construction set, etc. Seriously one of the best action sequences I've seen in a long while. The new film Breaking and Entering also stars the sport as an actual character, not just an amazing acrobatic skill the hero has. Its main characters practise and use parcour as a sport in the film while, breaking and entering into a London architecture firm. And I have to say that the sport really ups the level of the film's excitement.

Parcour consists of someone jumping through, over, under, around buildings, cars, objects, or anything that around which gymnastics is possible. Parcour guys are usually jumping onto and around buildings, walls and other obstacles. It's very hard to describe, so you better just watch some of it yourself. And here's what gets me. Here's this exciting new sport that's just come out of the streets of France and there are already 3 major motion pictures using it to blow their audiences away - and it's working. That's wild man.

I think this is the original guy doing it.

Posted by Timothy Washington on 2007.04.02| Original post

#archive #frye #thebox