Parkour: Cringe-Worthy Fails Since the 1980s

Parkour is an unofficial sport in which people, usually teenagers or people in their 20s, navigate obstacles in a fluid motion. When done correctly, parkour can appear effortless, but performing the movements is anything but easy. Typical parkour moves, such as jumping from building to building or running up vertical walls, can look impossible. It's not uncommon to see young people practicing their parkour moves in parks or campgrounds, but the activity is most popular in urban settings. Click here to see some examples of sports fails, some of which include parkour fails.

History of Parkour

Parkour was originally developed in France during the 1980s. The practice began as an extension of military obstacle course training exercises. The aim is to navigate from obstacle to obstacle as efficiently and smoothly as possible. Those who practice parkour are called traceurs. An experienced traceur can look like a combination of a gymnast, dancer and military expert. There is a strong ethical foundation in professional parkour groups in order to foster trust, safety and camaraderie. Today, many English speakers call parkour "free-running."

Parkour Basics

Those who are proficient in parkour are able to use fixed objects around them, such as walls, benches, stairways and more, in an obstacle course exercise that looks impressive. Many basic moves include leaping across building tops or scaling walls in a series of quick jumps. Some traceurs will appear to flip or even slide smoothly down rough stairways, or use their momentum to navigate a dangerous path that would result in serious injury or death for someone less experienced. Expert parkour can be amazing to watch.

Recipe for Disaster (and a Viral Video)

However, there are nearly as many wannabes as there are experts. It’s perfectly acceptable to make mistakes when learning a new skill. In fact, even seasoned traceurs make mistakes now and then and end up getting injured. This is a normal part of the sport. However, when people let their egos run away with them and try actions that they clearly aren’t ready for, massive sports fails can result. Fortunately for the health and well-being of the person involved, most of these fails have not been life-threatening and have only resulted in some bumps, bruises, road rash, maybe a few broken bones and, of course, humiliation.

Viral fail videos are popular both as entertainment and to serve as a warning to others. For some, nothing is more amusing than seeing someone else take a hardcore fall. This is all too common with sports like parkour, when falling is part of the learning process. Those who are serious about parkour take great effort in training properly so the worst types of fails can be avoided. However, there are many others who look at the casual nature and urban setting of parkour and wrongly assume that the sport is easy to master. This is where we see videos of kids attempting a difficult move and tripping over a bench instead of fluidly moving up and over it; slamming into a wall rather than scaling it; and getting painfully hit between the legs when attempting to foot-surf down a stairway rail.

Parkour sports fails can be amusing, but they drive home the timeless adage: Don’t try this at home, at least not without professional training.

John Trinh has been writing for 10+ years. He first delved into the world of writing when he wrote his first article for his university's paper.