Parkour and Free Running
Parkour is the art of moving through your environment as swiftly and effectively as possible using only the human body. More broadly it might be defined as the discipline of developing the physical and mental capacity of the human being while through training to overcome obstacles.
Free running is a form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as free runners, use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its structures. It incorporates efficient movements from parkour, adds aesthetic vaults and other acrobatics, such as tricking and street stunts, creating an athletic and aesthetically pleasing way of moving. It is commonly practiced at gymnasiums and in urban areas that are cluttered with obstacles.
The term free running was coined during the filming of Jump London, as a way to present parkour to the English-speaking world. However, free running and parkour are separate, distinct concepts a distinction which is often missed due to the aesthetic similarities. Parkour as a discipline emphasizes efficiency, whilst free running embodies complete freedom of movement and includes many acrobatic maneuvers. Although the two are often physically similar, the mindsets of each are vastly different. The founder Sébastien Foucan defines free running as a discipline to self development, following your own way.
While Freerunning and parkour share many common techniques, they have a fundamental difference in philosophy and intention. The main aim of parkour is the ability to quickly access areas that would otherwise be inaccessible and the ability to escape pursuers, which means the main intention is to clear their objects as efficiently as they can, while Freerunning emphasizes self development by "following your way".
