This article is amazing, inspiring, and very useful. Anyone interested in learning about Parkour should read this.

Copyright Djordje Djordjevic 2006

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ESSENCE:
-The intrinsic or indispensable properties that serve to characterize or identify something.

SPIRIT:
- The essential nature of a person or group.
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The spirit and essence of Parkour as an athletic discipline and way of life can be best explored through answering the question “what does it mean to be a Traceur?”

Many people believe that the word “Traceur” simply refers to someone who practices Parkour. Ultimately this is correct once it is understood that Parkour is much more than a set of physical movements.
To be able to say that one practices Parkour and is therefore a traceur, one must apply a mental discipline, purpose and ethos to their training. The result of this will always be a change in one’s perspective of the world as obstacles and challenges, both physical and mental, become progressively less overwhelming.

To understand the perspective of a traceur, one must understand the history of Parkour’s development, from the childhood experiences of Raymond Belle in Vietnam, through his discovery of Georges Hébert’s ‘Méthode Naturelle’ (‘Natural Method’) -which Raymond became very accustomed with during his career as an elite sapeurs-pompiers militaries (military fire-fighter in France)-, and finally to the mental education and physical training of his son David Belle, who then communicated these ideals and techniques to the world through the discipline of Parkour.

Raymond Belle was a Vietnamese teen-soldier in the Vietnam War, fighting against the western invaders. The thick jungle terrain meant that local knowledge was a crucial advantage that the vastly outgunned local militia had to exploit for any chance of survival. Raymond Belle and his unit became extremely adept at using the local terrain to their own advantage, moving quickly and quietly through the thick jungle, surprising their enemies then quickly withdrawing to avoid being drawn into a pitched battle and losing their precious advantage. It was in these desperate guerrilla tactics that the idea of Parkour as an instinctive, practical and useful tool was first born.
The advantage that fast, efficient and controlled movement gave them was not fame or elegance or a spiritual awakening, it was the difference between life and death.
It would be used to help reach each other for aid, to escape when the need arose, and to survive through improvisation when chaos ensued. Their movement became their life.
Eventually Raymond Belle was taken in by French soldiers, and placed in a regiment where he was introduced to structured military training. “Although trained to kill, the young soldier would go on to save lives.” ¹After the war as Raymond settled in his new home, he joined the Parisian regiment of the sapeurs-pompiers militaries (military firefighters). It was here that he was properly emersed in Georges Hébert’s ‘Méthode Naturelle’, a structured physical and mental development programme that has become the standard and basis of international military training. Raymond’s experiences in Vietnam, and his personal understanding of effective and useful movement, now had a base for which they could be developed through disciplined refining of technique.

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Background on Georges Hébert:
At the age of 27, Georges Hébert coordinated the evacuation of 700 people from the town of St. Pierre during a catastrophic volcanic eruption. This experience had a profound effect on him, reinforcing his belief in the importance of physical strength and selflessness.
Hébert had travelled extensively throughout the world and was impressed by the physical development and movement skills of indigenous peoples in Africa and elsewhere:
"Their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skilful, enduring, resistant and yet they had no other tutor in Gymnastics but their lives in Nature."

Eventually he expressed his understanding through his personal motto:

“Etre fort pour être utile"
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"Be strong to be useful."

This phrase encapsulates the purpose behind the development of his natural method so completely, that its meaning can be regarded a crucial step in understanding the development of the traceur’s perspective. It also reinforces the notion of a constant purpose underpinning a traceur’s training, which runs through Raymond’s early history.

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And his Méthode Naturelle (Natural Method):
Georges Hébert wrote:
"The final goal of physical education is to make strong beings. In the purely physical sense, the Natural Method promotes the qualities of organic resistance, muscularity and speed, towards being able to walk, run, jump, move quadrupedally, to climb, to walk in balance, to throw, lift, defend yourself and to swim.
In the "virile" or energetic sense, the system consists in having sufficient energy, willpower, courage, coolness, and fermeté ("firmness").
In the moral sense, education, by elevating the emotions, directs or maintains the moral fibre in a useful and beneficial way.”
“The true Natural Method, in its broadest sense, must be considered as the result of these three particular forces; it is a physical, virile and moral synthesis. It resides not only in the muscles and the breath, but above all in the "energy" which is used, the will which directs it and the feeling which guides it."
“A training session consists, then, of exercises in an outdoor environment - "a course of greater or lesser distance (a few hundred meters to several kilometre), during which, one walks, one runs, one jumps, one progresses quadrupedally, one climbs, one walks in unstable balance, one raises and one carries, one throws, one fights and one swims".²

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Raymond’s ability was quickly recognised, and he ‘went on to join an elite team within his regiment, comprised of the unit's fittest and most agile firefighters. It’s peerless members were the ones called upon to take on only the most difficult and dangerous rescue missions.’ ¹ Over 17 years in the regiment Raymond performed acts of selflessness in countless rescues, and became the embodiment of the sapeurs-pompiers. However more importantly for Parkour, he passed on to his son David his ideals and values borne from his own experiences, with a disciplined platform on which they could be nurtured and taught from.

Growing up with such a great hero as a father figure caused David to continue Raymond’s legacy, and dedicate his life to progression through movement, but most importantly to the idea that all his training should be applicable to real life and help him solve problems or resolve desperate situations. After moving from the countryside to arguably one of the most boring Parisian suburbs in his pre-teens, David began to adopt his ability and understanding to his new urban surroundings. He would create scenarios in his mind where he would have to save someone from a burning building, or escape with his life from some assailant, and train the movements that resulted.
Efficiency, speed, effectiveness, longevity and control became focal points in his training, and eventually more scenarios became easier to solve. His training constantly took him farther and higher, increasing his potential usefulness, and a set of basic techniques for conquering a majority of obstacles evolved. As people began to recognise this boy and his purposeful movement, a group began to form from David’s family and friends. They all came to David to essentially learn how to move again, to discover something so natural that it had been lost from the modern world. Whenever someone new came, the group gladly accepted them and trained them, spreading the knowledge and ability they had all begun to share.
The athletic discipline named Parkour was the result.
In its natural simplicity, Parkour was about moving with a purpose, a REAL purpose. Not some superficial purpose like looking good or getting a brief rush, but something that might make a positive difference to the world, might help someone. A purpose that would last and continue.


The traceur is the person who aims to use the physical training from Parkour’s guidelines; efficiency; speed; effectiveness; control; longevity; to make a positive difference in the world, to help others as well as themselves, and to spread this message to others. Parkour’s message is one of unity and acceptance. Both sexes, all races, anyone can be a traceur, as long as they have the heart for it.

The phrase “Etre et durer” which translates to “To be and to last” synthesises the purpose and goal of a traceur [to be strong in all ways, and for that strength to last, through yourself and those you help], and has become a motto for traceurs worldwide.

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¹ www.parkour.net/modules/articles/item.php?itemid=3 ² www.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H%C3%A9bert