How to Get Started in Parkour

Parkour is the art of displacement, a combination of gymnastics and raw athleticism that makes a graceful spectacle of moving from one point to another. It was begun by David Belle in France and has since blossomed into an international phenomenon, featured in commercials, YouTube videos and big-time Hollywood movies such as "District 13" and "Live Free or Die Hard." Parkour takes dedication, but you can get started in it fairly easily.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Adopt a playful attitude. Parkour emphasizes a sense of fluidity, freedom and fun, unlike the hyper-competitiveness of many other sports. Before you can get started in it, you should take on a friendly and communal mindset, mixed with a liberal amount of child-like wonder.
2. Work on basic calisthenics: push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups and squats. This are the basic building blocks for practicing parkour. Experts say you should be capable of performing 25 push-ups, 5 pull-ups and 50 full squats before you formally get started in parkour.
3. Practice landing moves and rolling moves. Parkour entails a lot of vertical movement and high jumps can be painful if you don't know how to land properly. Walk before you run, which in the case of parkour means know how to end a move safely.
4. Move on to vaulting, jumping and climbing maneuvers. With rolling moves under your belt, you can advance your training to more difficult maneuvers designed to get you up and around obstacles in the urban landscape. There are quite a few maneuvers--as you go along, you will learn which ones you prefer and develop your own unique style for practicing them.
5. Maintain your level of practice. Like all sports, parkour requires training to be effective and if you don't keep working at it, then your skills will drop off. Practice two or three times a week at least, and make sure to maintain your basic skills while moving on to more difficult maneuvers.
6. Find parkour clubs and organizations in your area. Not only can they introduce you to other traceurs (practitioners of parkour), but they also likely know local sites where you can work on your moves and provide safety tips for those just getting started in the sport. Visit Parkourmeetup.com to find enthusiasts in your area (see Resources below).

Tips & Warnings

• Note that parkour differs slightly from "free running," which uses similar styles, but is less obstacle oriented and more concerned with expression than efficiency. (The movie "Casino Royale," often erroneously cited as an example of parkour use, actually uses free running performed by the movement's founder Sebastien Foucan.)