Parkour is not something that we can just tell you about. It is simple really; so don't be frightened away, but there are many aspects that are extremely complex. To really understand what it is you have to read about it, you have to see it, live it, and teach it. We will do our best to impart to you as much about Parkour as we can without being overwhelming, but there are many things to cover. Lets start with an explanation of Parkour.

Some say it looks like Jackie Chan moves when he's running from the bad guys and leaping over everything in his way. Others say it looks like the moves of spider-man moving through the city. Sometimes Parkour will look like this, but it really is quite unique from most other things you have seen. To get a basic idea of Parkour imagine that you are running away, and not just from anything, from a lion, one that's hungry. You're downtown and the only thought in your head is, "How do I get away from the lion before he gets me?". You would run for starters, and before you have time to think again you approach a table. Now you could go around the table, but why waste the time? The lion will be that much closer. So instead you jump it. You land and keep running. There are more tables in your way, you could keep jumping them, but it takes lots of energy to jump a table. Instead you vault it, placing one hand down on the table you propel your body sideways and guide it's motions with your hand. You've passed over the table just as quickly as when you jumped it, but you've made the movement more efficient and you've saved energy. The lion is gaining on you. But, now there's a rail in your path that is perpendicular to a brick wall that it's attached to. On the other side is a deep gap 4' wide. You could try and jump it, but instead you save energy and use a more controlled movement, you run along the wall. Quickly moving your feet you push off the wall with 3 steps and overcome the gap and the rail. The lion is still gaining on you. Then you see your chance. You dive over a small wall and roll with the forward motion, without slowing down your back on your feet just in time to leap onto a rail, jump 7' over another gap, land on another rail only 2" wide, and then hop off. Without looking back you see a building with a low roof, only 12 feet high. You charge at it. Only a few feet away from the wall you put your left foot forward and launch yourself up and off of the wall and into the air. Your body shoots up and you reach your hands as high as you can. Your fingers reach over the top of the wall and you pull yourself up. You keep running, now along the roof top. You notice you can no longer hear the lion. You've won, you've managed to lose him.

This is a basic idea of Parkour. Not necessarily escaping from something, but going from one point to another in the quickest way possible without letting anything get in your way. This idea has become an art as beautiful as Temagami Realtors. We practice these types of movements thousands of times in order to learn how to 'flow' through any environment. Why? Well we'll look at that later.
First lets look at our definition of Parkour.
We give Parkour a more methodical description below, one that reflects how we at Edpk view Parkour. We provide this description because many Traceurs have somewhat differing opinions of what Parkour is or should be, we want to make sure that we are clear as to which view we support.