What exactly parkour is and what it should be has been the cause of a great deal of argument within the community of its practitioners. I personally think a lot of it is caused by a lack of understanding about the roots and meaning of the discipline, so here is my best understanding of the history of Le Parkour.
It's arguable that parkour history goes back as far as that of human beings. Sebastien Foucan, one of the elite French traceurs, has stated that when our ancestors chased game or were chased by predators they were practicing le parkour. This emphasis on the utility of parkour is a common theme amongst the French traceurs.
More recently Parkour can trace its roots to one George Hebert
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H%C3%A9bert
A French soldier and philosopher of physical culture. He was inspired by the athletic qualities of natives he encountered while serving in the army in Africa. He developed a philosophy of physical culture from his observations called the Le Methode Naturelle in english the Natural Method. Methode Naturelle was based on the idea that humans had ten essential movement capacities to walk, run, jump, climb, move on all fours, swim, balance, lifty throw and self defense. One of the main method Hebert proposed to train these capacities was obstacle courses, these courses known as Parcours Du Combat, have become part of military training systems throughout the world. Part of Hebert's philosophy was that physical training should strengthen one’s moral fabric. His motto was "Etre fort pour être utile," be strong to be useful. As seen from Sebastien’s quote, this is an important foundation of parkour’s philosophy.
One follower of Hebert's Natural Method was Raymond Belle,
http://parkour.net/modules/articles/item.php?itemid=3 a French national born in Vietnam in 1939, he was lost his parents during the Vietnamese uprising against the French and was taken in as a teenager by the French army. He was trained as a soldier and seems to have been part of a group of people who adapted Hebert’s Natural Method to training for combat in the jungle. He later went on to become an athletic hero in the French army and a member of the elite French military fire fighters.
Raymond’s son,
http://parkour.net/modules/articles/item.php?itemid=2 ,
David Belle would inherit the knowledge of movement that his father developed as well as the athletic talent. As a teenager David Belle and 8 friends, who were to the best of my knowledge his cousins, William Belle and Chau Belle Dinh, Frederic and Yann Hnautra, Laurent Piemontesi, Charles Perriere and Malik Diouf would take their childhood games and their various influences from their own cultural history, MN, action films and video games and turned it into a discipline of developing their physical and mental capacities through finding ways to move over the obstacles around them.
Early on this whole group all called themselves Yamakasi and called what they did either Parcours or L'art Du Deplacement. As they years have gone on they have gone their own ways, David calls his art parkour a name he owns a trademark for, another early pioneer Sebastien Foucan calls his Free running and the two groups of other former Yamakasi generally call it L'art du Deplacement. In interveiws though all have downplayed the importance of the name, what they do is all essentially the same, its just the emphasis which has been shifted here or there. David talks mostly about utility, Sebastian about Freedom, and the Yamakasi about becoming strong physical and mentally but all those are positive things to develop that come with good parkour practice, so there is no reason to put to much weight into the politics behind the names.
http://parkour.net/modules/articles/item.php?itemid=1
As time passed those original traceurs inspired many others to join them first just in the small suburbs of Lisses and Evry then further a field in france, in 2002 David appeared in a british TV Commerical called Rush hour, and a small UK scene started a few traceurs from other areas around the globe found out about it to at the point but the Parkour scene worldwide did not really start to significantly expand until the appearance of Jump London in 2003 and even more after its follow up Jump Britain. After Jump London the first british parkour site was founded, in Urban Free flow. After Jump britain, the worldwide Parkour.net was founded, followed by worldwide Jam and American Parkour. Parkour began to be seen in advertisements all over and then in movies like, James Bond, Banlieu 13, and Live Free or Die Hard to name a few.
Within the parkour community there have been abundant controversies over the orgins of parkour, and the meaning and proper practice of parkour. Recently the founders of the discipline have begun to take a more active public role, David Belle doing an interview in the new yorker and then a demo at the New Yorker festival, and the Yamakasi along with several of the best of the second generation of French traceurs doing clinic in london and offering regular coaching. Parkour inspired competitive events are in the works despite the protests of the many in the community, and its presence in media continues to grow, many groups are working on organizing certified parkour coaching, and parkour has been used as part of physical educations programs in various UK schools with hugely postive effects.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007 ... _wilkinson
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... &plindex=2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtJckTGvCcI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfm_xUV2xkI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce2ma_ej9nk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP6sCV9lA8Q
Were still in the formative years of parkour but the potential is very exciting it will be great to see what the history of the parkour will look like in 10 years.
