Freerunning

Freerunning

Dash vault and wallspin
Characteristics
Contact	Non-competitive
Type	Spiritual art, Body art, Philosophical
Equipment	Shoes, Loose clothing
Presence
Olympic	no

The term Freerunning (or free running) was coined during the filming of Jump London, as a way to present parkour to the English-speaking world but rather unintentionally became its own form of movement which is incorporates parkour (pk) as a baseline but established its uniqueness separate from Parkour with the focus on self expression, innovation and creativity into movement as opposed to strictly speed and efficiency in parkour. However, the term has come to refer to Sebastien Foucan's method of parkour which again unintentionally makes him the founder of freerunning focusing on creativity, innovation and self-expression(in freerunning) instead of strictly speed and efficiency(in parkour). Many misconceptions have come out of this, such as the idea that it is a form of competitive street-gymnastics or street-acrobatics, when in fact, it was how Sebastien Foucan described his own Parkour evolution.

The founder and creator of freerunning, Sébastien Foucan, defines freerunning as a discipline to self-development, to "follow your own way", which he developed because he felt that parkour lacked creativity and self-expression as a definition for each freerunner to follow your own way.

In a video on his official Youtube channel he explains freerunning as:

Freerunning for me is my parkour evolution. I can't say anymore that I doparkour. Because if I want to be free to do flips, or let's say I'm learning breakdancing, and I would like to incorporate it into my parkour expression;

Not to say: I am doing capoeira, breakdancing, parkour and anything else.

Freerunning is the way I choose to name my own expression.

While Sebastien Foucan describes freerunning is his way of naming his expression, it's important to point out that all of the founding members of the former group Yamakasi, including David Belle, have to a limited extent incorporated both acrobatics their training but never considered it as efficient movement. David Belle is also a martial artist and in many of his videos he can be seen practicing martial arts with Stephane Vigroux In various videos David Belle can also be seen incorporating acrobatics into his parkour, such as footage from Lisses in the early 90s.. However, David Belle released a statement criticising acrobatics as "emergency situations. Then you'll know what is parkour and what is not."}}

According to Dan Edwardes of Parkour Generations, all of the founders in the Yamakasi group incoporated acrobatics and such into their training since day one. However, it was only there for fun and never became the focus because it was never considered useful since their goal was to learn efficient movements to overcome obstacles, and that 90% of their technique was 'the basics', e.i jumps and vault. Many of the founders also deny any differences between parkour and freerunning at their rendezvous meetings, and Sebastien Foucan frequently uses the term parkour.

Freerunning core values

Sebastien Foucan has said mentions the following as the core values of freerunning:

{{Follow your way; Always practise; Respect others in their practise; Be an inspiration for others; Be positive and look for positive environments; Respect your environment; Feel free to try other disciplines; Dont take it too seriously; The jounrey is more important than the goal; There is no good or bad, right or wrong but what is important is what youlearn from experiences through practise; Freerunning is not an elite discipline, but for people who love and continue to move; Channel your energy in a good way, a way to be better}}.

Sébastien Foucan, defines freerunning 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 yet distinct art of movement that became known as freerunning.

Criticism from Parkour community

David Belle has criticized freerunning as follows:

Understand that this form of art(parkour) 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.

Other hardcore dedicated parkour enthusiasts such as PAWA(Parkour Worldwide Association) support David Belle's criticism:

Free Running? A kind of demonstration mixing parkour techniques, and acrobatics to be more spectacular and serve the medias and marketing, but also a sport. The term Parkour has been invented by David Belle and Hubert Koundé in 1998 and the word Free Running has been created much later by Sebastien Foucan for the purpose of spreading Parkour in a marketing fashion (they thought the word "parkour" wasn't international enough and Sebastien Foucan proposed them this word).

The problem is that they fully mixed acrobatics to impress people. This is where Freerunning becomes different from Parkour. To make a comparison, Free Running is like artistic katas in martial arts, the goal is only to be spectacular. So it is related to parkour but doesn't answer to the same philosophy. I mean, when you practice to show how spectacular your jump is gonna be, people aren't focused anymore on the difficulty, on the obstacle but on you.

This showing off attitude isn't the parkour philosophy which preaches for humility. In this, Free Running and Parkour are fundamentally opposite even if the first one is related to the second one. Like the traditional way and the freestyle way.

After the above criticisms had been made Sebastien Foucan released the following statement(s) clarifying the origins of freerunning, his philosophy behind the creation of freerunning and its(freerunning) relation to parkour:

At the beginning the name free running was an idea of a person called Guillaume Pelletier who worked with us at the time of Jump London. Because some people think what I'm doing is not Parkour now I call it "freerunning". Because there is a misunderstanding and people put a definition on what I'm doing! I create freerunning and I'll put my official definition.

What is Freerunning? Everything I'll say it's no more Parkour, it's freerunning! Freerunning it's a lifestyle and an attitude. Freerunning is to see your environment differently and being able to utilize it to develop yourself! My Parkour lifestyle is Freerunning.My way has no name.

Freerunning is the name people have given to my way! "Freerunning is following your own way, and this is my way."

Freerunning for me is my parkour evolution. I can't say anymore that I doparkour. Because if I want to be free to do flips, or let's say I'm learning breakdancing, and I would like to incorporate it into my parkour expression; Not to say: I am doing capoeira, breakdancing, parkour and anything else. Freerunning is the way I choose to name my own expression.

The above two statements criticise freerunning as simply "showing off" without reason, philosophy or deeper undertaking in their movement(freerunning). The word "freerunning" was coined by Guillaume Pelletier originally to translate parkour to english in d Jump London documentary(2003)however the term was created based on Sebastein Foucan's philososphy of creativity, self-expression and complete freedom of movement(hence the word "free" in "freerunning") in order to "follow your way" of movement which can incorporate any type or manner of movement technique(acrobatics, tricks, etc) as well as from other disciplines("capoeira, breakdancing, parkour and anything else" as said by Sebastien Foucan and stipulated in d core values of freerunning)while in process of motion or movement aimed at self-development.

In a 2011 article and interview, Sebastien Foucan further elucidates more on his philosophy that has become known as freerunning:

{{Free running's philosophy is that each person has their own instinctive approach to different challenges, and Foucan acknowledges the influence of martial arts, as well as parallels with eastern philosophy. He says: "There is a link between everything, like in [the teachings of] martial arts, it's about energy and how we are all connected. Everything we do affects other people negatively or positively. I say, 'your life is a road, your feelings a guide, your body a vehicle'." He adds: "Other people's journeys can influence my own journey – this is my teaching."}}

{{Foucan believes any form of self-expression is important and key to finding balance in life. "Free running is not exclusive, everybody should have something to do that takes them out of their mind, out of the fixed path and social systems," he says. Basically, getting away from the routine of daily life. The ethos also invites play, experimentation and creativity and, in his words, "expressing yourself beautifully in your environment". }}

To put it simply David Belle and other members of the Yamakasi group strictly used acrobatics for fun and in training but never put emphasis on it because they believe Parkour is all about speed and efficient movement around obstacles whereas Sebastien Foucan who himself is among the pioneer practitioners of Parkour found that a little restricting from which he chose the incorporate more focus on creativity, innovation and self-expression(tricks, flips, etc) into his own way of movement coining the belief of "following your own way" through movement which gave birth to Free Running making Sebastien Foucan the founder of Free Running(not parkour).

Overview

Freerunning was inspired by parkour and developed by Sebatien Foucan which spread amongst urban teenagers who sought to find their "own way" through creativity of movement many of whom have posted videos on YouTube showing several of their different incorporated techniques in pursuit and practice of free running , but it is considered by the parkour community to be inefficient and not parkour. They may jump from building to building, scale walls, etc. Initially, the term was used by Channel 4 in their documentaries called 'Jump London' and 'Jump Britain' in an attempt to "translate" the word parkour to the English-speaking population.

Freerunning is a slightly different sport as it is not all about efficiency, but more about art and finding your own way (be it the use of acrobatics, parkour, etc.) One of the world-wide recognized founders of parkour, Jesus Cardenas, has said that freerunning is more about finding your own way, and freerunning is what he himself called his own way. However, as freerunners became interested in aesthetics as well as useful movement, the two became different disciplines. The term Freerunning was created by Guillaume Pelletier and embraced by Sebastien Foucan to describe his "way" of doing parkour. Foucan summarizes the goals of Freerunning as using the environment to develop yourself and to always keep moving and not go backwards.

While Freerunning and parkour share many common techniques, their fundamental difference is in philosophy and intention. The main aim of parkour is the ability to quickly access areas that would otherwise be inaccessible and the ability to escape pursuers, which means clearing obstacles as efficiently as they can, while Freerunning emphasizes self-development by "following your way". Foucan frequently mentions "following your way" in interviews, and the Jump documentaries. He explains that everyone has their own way of doing parkour and they shouldn't follow someone else's way of doing it. They should instead, follow what works best for them. Freerunning is commonly misinterpreted as being solely focused on aesthetics and the beauty of a certain vault, jump, etc. Although many freerunners choose to focus on aesthetics, that is just "their way", the goal however is still self-development. Practitioners might also do certain movements solely for their aesthetic value, the challenge of execution, and as a way of testing oneself physically and mentally, to see if one was 'strong' (hence the Lingala term Yamakasi meaning 'strong man, strong spirit').

Basic movements

See also: List of flips

Please note that technically "basic movements" does not apply to the philosophy of free running since it(freerunning) is based on "follow your way" methodology of movement created by Sebastien Foucan meaning that each individual free runner can move in any manner or apply any technique of their choosing to their movement while in motion hence the emphasis on creativity, innovation and self-expression. This therefore means that there are not any "basic movements" since each individual free runner can create his/her own movements in other to "follow their(your) way".

Moves specific to freerunning are not easy to define, as most freerunners use a combination of street stunts, parkour and techniques from other disciplines(capoeira, breakdancing, etc). One's own method of freerunning can focus on freedom and beauty of movements, so many parkour techniques, such as vaults, may be carried out in a more aesthetically pleasing way, despite the fact that it may decrease the efficiency of the move.

Street stunts tend to be performed in space , whereas freerunning movements tend to involve the use of obstacles or the general idea of movement from one place to another.

Due to the nature of freerunning, moves can be subject to the environment as well as ones own interpretation. Because of this there is virtually a limitless amount of "moves" one can perform. Some basic examples of movements which are more likely to be classed as freerunning moves than parkour or street stunts include:

For the list of Parkour Basic Movements see:

Main article: Parkour

Name	Description
Dash Vault	Vaulting your body over a platform with your legs out in front of you, using your arms for forward momentum.
Diving Frontflip/Eagle Flip/Superman Flip	A frontflip is executed over a wall or other obstacle, usually with a large drop on the other side. It is referred to as a diving frontflip (or dive front) because the athlete is required to dive over the obstacle before initiating the tuck.
Dive Roll	When jumping, dive body forward landing into a roll on ground.
Kong Vault/Monkey Vault	Vaulting your body over a railing or platform using your palms for momentum to push off.
Reverse Kong Vault	Instead of vaulting over a railing with a Monkey Vault, which may be the most efficient way, the athlete adds a 360 degree spin along the horizontal axis to make the movement more aesthetically pleasing, as well as increasing their coordination.
Turn Vault	Vaulting over a wall or platform while turning your body 180 degrees to jump down.
Wall Flip	The traceur runs to a wall, takes one or more steps up the wall and does a backflip off of the wall.
Wall Spin	The traceur runs to a wall, jumps, places both hands on the wall, and vertically rotates 360 degrees while remaining in contact with the wall. Pushing off with one hand helps the rotation.

Freerunning and parkour

Another contentious issue that continues to either rift or strengthen the bond between the parkour and the freerunning communities is the idea of professional and amateur competition. From the start the parkour community has been always against the idea of serious competition as it violates the foundations of the philosophy of parkour. Sebastien Foucan mentions in an interview that although they do hold competitions, he doesn't like competition, and it's not "his way", but it may be someone else's "way".

The perceived conflict between freerunning and parkour occurred when the term parkour was translated as freerunning for the English-speaking public, and the perception arose that they were separate disciplines. Some state that freerunning is a variation on parkour, and that the definitions are interchangeable. This argument has validity due to the fact that the creators never specifically defined the disciplines as "separate". Another issue with the competition aspect in parkour or freerunning is its focus on not only your physical ability, but also your mental. The focus in parkour or freerunning is not only your physical ability, but as well your mental strength. The word Yamakasi is roughly translated as 'strong man, strong spirit, strong invidual', and this is the core of parkour or freerunning. A part from physical part, which consist of strength, balance, dynamism, endurance, precision, spatial awareness, and creativity and so on, it is also a spirit of being healthy, honest, sincere, helping other people, and doing any sort of challenges whenever It's in your training or in your daily life. Due this mental aspect it is extremely hard to measure how good someone is in parkour or freerunning simply because most of it can't really be measured.

When the Yamakasi, a group consisting of nine original members, Yann Hnautra, Chau Belle, David Belle, Laurent Piemontesi, Sébastien Foucan, Guylain N'Guba Boyeke, Charles Perriere, Malik Diouf and Williams Belle. All of these guys had different backgrounds in both martial arts, dance, and gymnastics. In the beginning, the only name for the discipline was art du déplacement which in English roughly is translated as The art of displacement. The name Yamakasi, which is a Lingala word, loosely means 'Strong man, strong spirit, strong individual: physically, mentally, and ethically' which summed up the philosophy of their discipline. However, art du déplacement was not originally about movements. Physically, it included all sorts of challenges; lifting up heavy objects, throwing objects, crawling on all fours (monkeywalk) for a long period of time and so on.

As they kept on training, they started to involve movements, mainly jumps and vaults. According to Chaü Belle Dinh, in 'Generation Yamakasi' they used to play volleyball with rocks and hang each other out of Dame Du Lac by simply letting one person hang in mid air while two other people held his feet. It was never a real method of training in the beginning but soon it evolved and the media got interested.

Later on, David and Sebastien split from the group, and David called his discipline parkour, and Sebastien called his freerunning. Internet debates and wars about the names started and it became very unclear about the real difference between the three names and/or if there was any difference between them at all. Some people claimed that parkour was about efficient movements while freerunning was about self-expression.

However, In the beginning, many of the founding members - Including David Belle - had a background in gymnastics, martial arts, and dancing, and used movements such as Palm spin since day one, but this was, however, only for fun, and their focus in their training was on useful movements. One of the misconceptions is that freerunning is street acrobatics. In various Rendevouz meetings with Parkour Generations the founders have stated various times that they do not care about the names and definitions and that the focus should rather be the training itself, and most importantly the spirit of parkour, (strong man strong spirit, strong individual: physically, mentally, and ethically') rather than wasting time and energy on debates about names and definitions.

In popular culture

Film

Listed by year of release.

• Many martial arts films produced in Hong Kong in the 1980s, particularly the ones involving Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, and the Hong Kong martial art stunt teams, often used freerunning like flips, stunts and movements mixed into modern martial arts fight choreographies.
• The French film Taxi (1998), produced by Luc Besson, features the first on-screen appearance of freerunning. Besson's film Banlieue 13 continues on-screen examples.
• The French film Yamakasi-Les samourais des temps modernes (2001), and its sequel are about a group of titular freerunning specialists.
• The 2003 Thai film Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior starring Tony Jaa contains various scenes of freerunning and parkour coupled with Muay Thai fighting.
• The 2003 documentary Jump London and 2005 sequel Jump Britain follow French freerunners such as Sébastien Foucan, Johann Vigroux and Jérôme Ben Aoues.
• The 2006 Casino Royale features an extended chase scene between Bond and Molaka - Molaka being played by Sébastien Foucan, who also co-directed the sequence.
• In the 2006 film Breaking and Entering thieves employ a 15-year old whose acrobatic skills allow them to enter the building they planned to rob.
• Punisher War Zone (2008) featured corrupt freerunning gangsters called Urban Freeflow gang.
• You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008) depicted Israeli super-agent Zohan freerunning through the streets and rooftops throughout the early sequence of his hunt for The Phantom.
• The 2009 film "District 13 Ultimatum" shows protagonists Damien and Leito (portrayed by Cyril Raffaelli and David Belle respectively) using parkour to escape pursuers and defend themselves.
• The 2009 film "The Tournament" depicts the worlds top assassins fighting for the last man standing. One of the contestants is a killer by means of silent assasinations from rooftops through using parkour.
• The 2009 film "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" starring Kevin James depicts two robbers chasing Paul Blart by using freerunning and parkour throughout the mall.
• The 2010 film Prince of Persia starring Jake Gyllenhaal featured freerunning and parkour stunts throughout the movie's locations.
• Parkour was featured in a scene of the Bruce Willis 2010 film Cop Out when Seann William Scott's character Dave is freerunning on top of a house's roof. Tracey Morgan's character Paul Hodges humorously says, "That's called parkour. It's a French martial art to get you around and over stuff."
• The 2011 film Freerunner starring Sean Faris, Danny Dyer, Tamer Hassan and featuring British freerunner Ryan Doyle was released on 15 September 2011 in Germany at the Oldenburg International Film Festival. The plot is about a young freerunner who must race against the clock with a ticking bomb locked around his neck. He has to evade enemies out his way freerunning thought the city to save himself and rescue his kidnapped girlfriend. The film was directed by Lawrence Silverstein.
• The 2010 film Step Up 3 starring Rick Malambri and Adam G. Sevani a freerunning scene was taken place when Rick Malambri and Sharni Vinson train for the World Jam.
• The 2011 film Ra.One starring Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor a freerunning scene is when G.One was trying to stop a train from crashing and also numerous scenes in the film.

Television

Listed by year of release.

• A commercial featuring traceur David Belle, was made for the BBC.
• In the Heroes (2006 TV series) season two episode Chapter 10-Truth and Consequences (2007), Monica Dawson learns with her adoptive muscle memory ability how to do some freerunning stunts to break into a house. They used Team Tempest from Los Angeles to play the part.
• On Saturday June 9, 2007, several freerunners appeared on Britain's Got Talent, and made it through to the next round with their freerunning display.
• In a 2007 Modern Marvels episode, "Sticky Stuff", freerunning is shown while the show features "Stealth Rubber".
• In September 2007, freerunning or parkour stunts were featured in the pilot episode of NBC's TV series Chuck performed by American freerunner Levi Meeuwenberg.
• In 2007 an advert for The Friday Night Project featured two freerunners from urban freeflow acting as stunt doubles for the hosts.
• Freerunner Levi Meeuwenberg participated in the 2008 20th Ninja Warrior anniversary, becoming the last competitor standing until being eliminated by the cliff hanger in the third stage. He's also competed in the Sasuke 21st, 22nd, and 25th competition from 2008 to 2010.
• In March 2009, "3Run", the parkour and freerunning team began a fitness challenge documented on the online fitness channel 'LA Muscle'.
• The second season of the 2009 British comedy-drama Misfits features a mysterious, masked figure using freerunning and Parkour techniques to render aid to the main characters.
• 2009-2010, MTV featured a TV mini-series called Ultimate Parkour Challenge, which consisted of pro freerunners and parkour experts from all over the world, featuring Pip "Piptrix "Anderson, Danny Arroyo, King David, Ryan Doyle, Daniel Ilabaca, Ben "Jenx" Jenkin, Tim "Livewire" Shieff, Mike Turner, and Oleg Vorslav.
• In 2010, Levi Meeuwenberg also had a guest starring role in the short-lived ABC TV series The Forgotten as "John Doe" in the episode "My John".
• On February 14, 2011, G4 TV debuted their original TV series called Jump City: Seattle which featured America’s top parkour and freerunning teams taking their unique styles to the streets of Seattle, Washington. The four teams featured are: Team Tempest, The Tribe, Miami Freerunning, and Team Rogue.

Video games

Listed by year of release.

• In the Prince of Persia saga of the 1990s and 2000s, the prince uses many freerunning tricks.
• Core Design released a freerunning game, under the same name in 2007, for the PSP.
• Mirror's Edge (2008), a critically acclaimed Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and iPod touch game with the main focus being on a gang of outlaws called "Runners," who excel and specialize in parkour.
• Try-Synergy has developed a Wii game called "FreeRunning" in which you use freerunning techniques to complete goals.
• The zombie MMORPG, Urban Dead has "freerunning" as an acquired skill, which allows players to travel from inside one building to inside an adjacent one, without going down to street level.
• In the free to play MMO, FreeJack, featured freerunning as the main focus of the game and its races.
• One of the special infected in Left4Dead, the hunter, appears to be the infected body of a former freerunner, and attacks in a manner similar to freerunning.
• The 2009 videogame inFAMOUS for the PS3, the main character Cole MacGrath is a delivery messenger who uses freerunning to get around the environment.
• Sleeping Dogs, a sandbox game set in Hong Kong is to feature a blend of parkour and freerunning style movements mixed in with the game's combat, reminiscent of the Hong Kong action genre. (Character is seen in early gameplay videos of being able to lazy vault over objects and kick enemies or other objects while doing so).
• The various main characters (Altaïr ibn La-Ahad, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, and Desmond Miles, among others) in the Assassin's Creed franchise (2007–present) use freerunning and parkour to get around the environment.
• The second trailer for the upcoming game Beyond Good & Evil 2 shows the main character evading police officers with techniques similar to freerunning.
• In the games Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, free running is used to get around the levels quicker.

Music videos

• Bon Jovi has a teenager using elements of parkour and freerunning to get to a party in the video "It's My Life."
• Eric Prydz has released a video for his song "Proper Education", which features freerunner Daniel Ilabaca from Team Dragon.
• Madonna has released a video for her song "Jump", which features parkour and freerunning extensively throughout. Also her music video "Hung Up" contains some clips of freerunning. For Madonna's Confessions tour, freerunning is heavily used for the choreography of the single "Jump". Freerunner Levi Meeuwenberg has stated on Jump City: Seattle that he started out as one of the freerunners on Madonna's tour.
• 3 Doors Down has Gabriel Nunez, a freerunner from Team Tempest, preventing a car accident in the video "It's Not My Time."
• Die Trying's 2003 debut single "Oxygen's Gone" was accompanied by a music video that chronicles a group of freerunners.
• Since October's 2010 single "The Way You Move" features Texas-based traceur Matthew Lee Willis.
• The Blackout's single "Higher and Higher" features a free-runner trying to save the band from a hi-jacked lorry.

Literature

• In the second and third of John Twelve Hawks' books of the Fourth Realm Trilogy, The Dark River and The Golden City, freerunning and runners are featured as part of the story.
• In the William Gibson novel Spook Country, one of the main characters, a young Cuban named Tito, practices freerunning. He also had elements of Systema and a reference to the Orisha that mixed with the free walking mindset.
• In the Terry Pratchett Discworld novel Pyramids, the main character is a trainee assassin who enjoys "edificing", which is the local name for freerunning.
• The Marvel character Ricochet (comics) is known to use the art of parkour and freerunning

References

Notes

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g0IdTZHOic& - Sebastien Foucan - As Sebastien Episode 1
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY615yuUgmQ - Rare video of David Belle practising martial arts with Stephane Vigroux and parkour
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QsvFptvy1k& - Yamakasi (Including Sebastien and David) practising parkour/add/freerunning in Lisses, in the early 90s.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuEXwRXqfQ0 - Questions & Answers, with Dan Edwardes and some of the founders
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBe5Zv1WhMI - Dan Edwardes from Parkour Generations discuss l'Art du Déplacement vs. Parkour vs. Freerunning