oddsnark | Sports + The French = Le Parkour

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Sports + The French = Le Parkour

By Josh ⋅ December 1, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

Team oddsnark prides itself on having a broad sports horizon. Our diverse group loves mainstream sports, but some relatively obscure athletic endeavors also have fans among our snarky ranks (or rank snarks, as the case may be). For example, I feel safe in predicting excellent coverage of the upcoming Iditarod by our resident oddCanadian (Alaska, Canada, same thing).

Imagine my reaction, then, when I saw a local news promo hyping the “growing local scene” for a sport that I’d never even heard of: Le Parkour. I set a land speed record for Googling.

It didn’t take much reasearch to conclude that my definition of sport, however broad, is downright restrictive compared to that of my local news station, a certain segment of the French population, and various practitioners of le parkour.

Le parkour, also known as free running, involves fluidly running, climbing, and jumping over and around obstacles. Imagine capoeira without the fighting crossed with skateboarding without the skateboard.

As simple as it sounds, definitions of what parkour is — and is not — vary widely. Say what you want about them, but traceurs, as practitioners of parkour are known, have passion. (Trust me, ain’t no message board like a parkour message board, ‘cuz parkour message boards ne cesse pas.)

Not wanting to get bogged down in parkour politics, I sought out a nuts-and-bolts description of the mechanics of the sport. Luckily parkour co-founder S�bastien Foucan has an excellent site with video clips and explanations of the finer points of “moves” such as the tic-tac, monkey vault, and cat leap. Though detailed enough for the serious traceur, the descriptions can be easily understood by a layman:

LANDING FROM HEIGHT: This is a jump from height towards a lower area.

I get that.

Unfortunately I missed the news report on our growing local parkour scene, but judging by the enthusiasm expressed on the Web I fully expect this sport to sweep the country. Figure another year before Americans dominate, two before the French accuse our traceurs of doping.

Saut!