"What is Parkour to me?

As most of you know, Parkour was mostly develloped by David Belle but influenced by his father. Raymond Belle had fought as a child during the vietnamese war against France. As you can hardly imagine, this extreme childhood experience had a tremendous effect on his personnality for the rest of his life. He understood perfectly the importance of being a stong man (thus having a strong body as well as a strong mind) and he was the best example as i discovered throughout many anecdotes that David shared with me. For example, aged only 8, he would train alone, jumping over and over and over, telling himself he needed to be stronger. During war he would risk his life, hidden in trees, spying on french troops walking directly under him.
As a firefighter, with boots on and with no warming up, he would front flip through the window of a two storey building just to show an intimidated firefighter student that fear is in his mind. etc.
Later on, he became interested in Hebert's Methode Naturelle, since it was so close to his own ideas. I have no information however about him training MN or not, although he had indirectly experienced it during his years at war.

David describes his father as someone who could easily do all he (David) does... and much more. David was very impressed by his father and admired him. He wanted to become just like him, a strong man. Although Raymond Belle didn't live with David, he would write letters to him and sometimes visit him. On these occasions, he would guide him with his experience. Not really training him, but making him give all he had. From what i know, i can tell Raymond was the kind of person that never shows he is satisfied with what you do. He always makes you give your best. And deep down, he was a very good man.
He knew that to be a strong man, you had to be capable of coping with any kind of difficulty. Being able to move with ease in any environnement was not enough. A man should be capable of dealing with anything! This is the spirit he passed on to David.... And this, to me, is what Parkour is all about. This is why i don't agree with my good friend "Hebertiste" when he says that "parkour is and has always been a specialisation in obstacle crossing and not a complete discipline.".

Nowadays, things have changed in the Parkour scene. Most traceurs want to be good at jumps, and that's it. I was lucky to visit Lisses at a time when I could still feel this initial spirit. A lot of things have happened since then. PAWA is one of them.
I start hearing about Parkour as a sport, and i don't like it. I start hearing about coaches and competitions, and i don't like it either.

...

I cannot tell the future of official Parkour, but as Hebertiste said, it is highly predictable if nothing changes. I speak about "official" Parkour since it doesn't belong to anyone. Some people just want to make it theirs (PAWA or others) but as long as there will be free men, there will be free Parkour.

What are my plans for the future ?
I believe i now have reached a basic level of Parkour. What I mean by that is that i can do a precision jump, a saut de bras, a saut de fond, etc... I'm still far from a good level, but in my research for strength (see above my definition of parkour), i want to learn other things than jumps. I must learn survival techniques, i must learn to take care of myself in different and sometimes hostile countries, I must learn to fight, i must learn many other things and this is what I intend to do in the following years... This is, I believe, real Parkour.

Imagin someone who wakes up in a cosy home, who eats a good and healthy meal, who goes out to do some jumping around until supper time and then watches tv in his couch for the rest of the evening, eating candy. This could describe most of us, even me, but this is not doing Parkour, this is not being strong. Being strong would be waking up after a short, cold night's sleep, with nothing to eat, in a remote area, with bruises all over your body, and having to do the biggest saut de bras in your life if you want to survive. This is quite an extreme example but that's the type of difficulties I would be looking for now.

To me, this is the true way of Parkour, and I don't know how far i'll have the courage to go on this path, but I know i'll meet some of you guys on my way." ~ Thomas-des-bois

"my idea is that Parkour is just a word on a concept. It is not a limited discipline. A little bit like the samurai concept. " ~ Thomas-des-bois