When I moved to United States from Russia (which happened less than a year ago), one of the first cultural differences I’ve noticed was the fact that nobody knew what le parkour was. This extreme kind of sport appeared in France technically in the end of the 80’s, and became a very big deal all over Europe in early 2000.
The story of parkour (translates from Zairian as “a path of obstacles”) started in a small French city Liss right outside Paris, where David Belle, the future founder of the sport, was spending his childhood. His personality was greatly affected by his father, a person of great physical form. Raymond Belle, a professional firefighter, was serving in Vietnam during the war – it shaped his personality, gave him strength and wisdom. As for young David, he was obsessed with physical exercises and martial arts. It all started as innocent tree climbing, but over the years it evolved into a sport, which had its very own ideology.
The phrase “There are no limits, only obstacles” became David Belle’s motto. Such beautiful and uplifting way of thinking attracted a lot of followers, especially among younger generation. The idea of breaking your inner barriers by tracing new paths appealed to everyone. Instead of taking a usual road to school in the morning tracers (from French, exact meaning is “people who create new tracks”) would choose the most efficient, but definitely not the easiest path – jump a fence, climb a building, gallop across the street instead of walking calmly on the sidewalk. It probably doesn’t sound as fascinating as it really is, but as long as you can see the line between adrenaline and plain recklessness, everything should be fine.
The first turning point in the history of parkour was in year 2000, when Luc Besson, one of the biggest sharks of modern show-business, decided to film a blockbuster with collaboration of French oldest parkour team, which consisted of eight people: David himself and seven of his closest friends.
On 4th of April 2001 the movie Yamakasi comes out on big screens. L’art du déplacement, how the French people are calling it, became almost too popular after the premiere of the movie. Guylain N'Guba-Boyeke, Charles Perrière, Laurent Piemontesi and the other members of the team were hired as choreographers for a Broadway musical Notre Dame de Paris. David Belle, who at that time was radically against the commercialization of parkour, had refused to support the actions of his teammates and quit.
I guess, after a while Belle started to have second thoughts, or, perhaps, he simply got tired of laughable royalties for TV-commercials – his only source of income. In anyway, in November 2004 the world of extreme sports was turned upside-down again: the unstoppable Luc Besson had presented his new movie, Banlieue 13 (District 13). David Belle and his good friend, famous acrobat and stunt Cyrill Raffaelli have starred as main characters - Leito and Damien. Neither of them was blessed with the talent of acting, but, apparently, that small obstacle did not bother Besson. He stuffed the plot with unreasonable amount of special effects and battle scenes, which relatively made up for the absence of logic in the plot.
In January 2004 David Belle and his friend and co-founder of Parkour World Association Jocelyn Demoniere came to Moscow for the premiere of District 13. The whole event was set up by Russian pk-team The Tracers. At that time I was working as a correspondent/interpreter for a half-bankrupted magazine EXTREME. Instead of paying me salary, the editor Andrey “Dragon” Krasnov was giving me vip-tickets for various extreme sports events. Hopefully, the exploitation of sixteen year olds will not be left unpunished and his ridiculous little paper will get shut down sometime in the future. But that job still paid off in the end – I’ve resigned right after receiving the tickets for the premiere of Banlieue 13. The precious press badge allowed me to attend a closed press conference with David Belle, the premiere itself and the after party, which for unknown reason was held in an underground skydiving pub Parabar.
I’ve had a very fulfilling two minute conversation with the founder of parkour before the premiere. Unfortunately, foreign languages did not interest Belle as much as physical training and my French skills back then were pathetic. Belle seemed to be completely devoured by chaotic atmosphere; he was overwhelmed and rather irritated. The father of parkour in the flesh was so much less than I thought he would be! I would have certainly turned my back on this sport, if only some people did not make me change my mind. But that is a different story, which I will tell you later.
Stay tuned!
NN
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