Parkour, The Art of Movement: Why Just Walk from Place to Place?

On a few occassions in my life, I have had bouts of walking around on top of buildings. The first time I was three. My mother couldn’t find me until she looked up. There I was on top of our apartment house. There was a ladder or something. When I was 12, I figured out how to get on top of the school where I attended 6th grade and had a blast figuring out how to get from one place to another. Once in high school, I climbed out a second floor window to the roof just for a bit of air. I didn’t know that I was ahead of the trend called parkour.

Started in France by David Belle 10 years ago, the aim of parkour is to use your body and movement to travel from point to point in creative and interesting ways as quickly as possible. The trend has even hit Columbus at Ohio State University and is sanctioned by the school (see article). Here’s a video of David Belle demonstrating his methods. There’s no way my son is seeing this though. I have a hard enough time keeping him on the ground. I think he must come by this naturally.