We are not gymnastics.
And then?
I am not gymnastics and I am not Parkour. Not the one of its founders, for some serious ethical issue, and not just that. I am not even the Parkour whose name was taken for convenience and opportunism. I could never consciously give my strength to something as dirty as the history of Parkour. Yeah, right, my friend list would exponentially grow they say…
I could not care less.
I am not the Parkour of those who play politics and use Parkour as a tool for self-promotion under the noble coat of the group. One for all, all for me.
I am not the Parkour of one day and one night, of a jump and a breath. The one of the joint mid-training and the taurine to mask the exhaustion giving a blast to the energy. I am not the Parkour of books, of teachers who make statistics and give speeches about each small move of the body.
I am not the Parkour of the warriors or the wise men in love with prose and commas.
However, I am one with the community of Parkour, the one in the street. The brave one, not sold to the highest bidder. The one who gets pissed when its dear values which are so much spoken about are stepped on. I am with the Parkour that stands against the mercenaries. I am with the Parkour of those who fail, fall, but get back up.
That being said, I don’t recall hearing somebody talking seriously about it: David invented the word “Parkour” and decided to do whatever he wanted with it without asking anything to the ones who experienced parkour and craved for it. Did he have to do it?
Of course not. He is the father of Parkour.
The sense of belonging alone, in absence of education, should have naturally forced the founders of Parkour to consult their own people. Starting a conversation with them. But they didn’t. Maybe, their initiative was a way to screw the ones making bank without asking permission. Maybe, they don’t recognize themselves in a discipline swarming with stunts and acrobatics, where mattress flourish while concrete, wood and rails perish.
It could be, even if less coherent.
Maybe, the uncertain prospects of old age are frightening, and the hectic search for certainty deprive them of any hypothetical gram of intellectual honesty.
So, if someone really hates what’s going on, why don’t they take distance from the word “Parkour”? Why don’t they let the cannibal from FIG only the bones and no meat to starve at?
Because there’s someone who is trapped and has been communicating for a life in name of Parkour. There’s someone who, after so much effort and troubles, feels the rightful owner of something.
Maybe, the best thing to do is telling the attenders of the courses what is their Parkour made out of. Being an example through words and action. Stressing the origins of the discipline without stupidly repeating what lousy journalists tell us, empowered by the might of the internet.
Not for a day, but for life.
P.S.: I offered my help to the project of an international federation, Parkour Earth, in order to reunite all three disciplines as long as it would use a neutral name. It was not possible.
thanks to Amaru Alarcon for the translation