
PARKOUR
Parkour does not describe a homogeneous phenomenon, it is rather a collective term for different training practices, some of which differ greatly in the way and purpose of training, but all of which have a common denominator:
Movement that incorporates the environment.
A FREESTYLE SPORT
Common definitions of parkour tend to be stereotypical sayings that are simply repeated because they have been heard so often - and even if you can find them in Wikipedia and even encyclopaedias, they usually ignore reality. You will hardly find anyone who seriously pursues the goal of getting from A to B as quickly as possible in their training. If we base our definition on actual current training practice, we can safely say that parkour is mostly practiced as a freestyle sport these days. However, this does not mean that it is the only existing and legitimate form of parkour.


WHAT DOES FREESTYLE MEAN?
Freestyle sports are those that are not subject to a set of rules. This means that there is neither a common goal, nor standard, nor guidelines, no prescribed training plan and no fixed places to train. You can literally do anything anywhere - and that's quite a lot.
This freedom can be overwhelming at first for someone who comes from a traditional sport and expects a prescribed path with orderly guidance. It can might take some time to warm up to the “freestyle methodology”, but the benefits are enormous! Not only do you learn to teach yourself things, but you also learn the ability to feel what you want to learn and then explore that direction on your own.
“YOU ARE LITERALLY ALLOWED TO DO ALL THAT IS POSSIBLE”
SPORT OR ART?
Freestyle sport inevitably includes the athletic aspect of sport and has in common with art that it is theoretically completely free in form. This freedom gives the practitioner full creative decision-making control and empowers movement to become a means of expression, placing parkour alongside arts such as music, painting or dance. As is usual in any art, there is also an enormous variety of “genres” and individual styles in freestyle sports, some of which are as far apart as bouldering and dancing, for example. But even in parkour, trends have developed that commit themselves to a set of rules, i.e. a fixed format, and are therefore closer to traditional sports.


VIDEO CULTURE
Videos are an integral part of a large portion of the subculture. As training and filming often go hand in hand, outsiders sometimes mistake parkour for a crazy social media phenomenon that's all about proving yourself on the internet or something like that. And while this can of course play an undeniable role and poses a danger to each individual exerciser, it's not quite as simple as that. Just as measuring performance plays a fundamental role in sport, every art needs its own medium of expression in order to present its ideas - and since parkour is about movement, videos are the most adequate medium for this so far. It is fair to say that the relationship between a parkour athlete and his filmed “lines” is probably the same as that between a painter and his painting.
