Parkour Fail: Dad Falls Hard Trying To Copy Boys' Stunt

We would call what the men in this video are doing, parkour-lite. For the most part all they are doing is jumping over or on top of a stack of boxes. That said, they are using parkour techniques to accomplish the task. One of the boys, the first one, manages to leap entirely over the stack of boxes with one hand pushing him forward off the top box. The second boy just jumps up to the top box. Of course, the dad absolutely fails in his jump.Show more

While parkour is considered founded by the French athlete David Belle, it has it’s origins in another French man, Georges Hebert. He created a series of exercises involving 10 fundamental groups: walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, balance, throwing, lifting, self-defense and swimming. A Swiss architect created military obstacle courses based on Hebert’s training. Today, most modern militaries use versions of these original courses in their training. The man considered the founder of parkour, David Belle, was inspired after hearing about the exploits of his father Raymond Belle who secretly trained on military courses in Vietnam as a means of survival.

Belle used the idea of military courses and tried to translate those movements and ideas to the real world. He and his traceurs that he started training view parkour as a kind of nonviolent martial art. With that thinking comes the attendant philosophies that surround many martial arts. Americans might recognize parkour under the English name of Freerunning. Though freerunning adds acrobatic moves that are more for aesthetics that is also known as tricking. Arguably, freerunning and parkour became most popular in the late 90s and the early 2000s. Jackie Chan is somewhat considered a practitioner, especially in his 80s films.