Topic: French terms for individual movements

[Rafe]

Lately I have moved more and more to useing the French terminology, both out of respect for the roots of the art and because of preference for the terms. As I don't speak french at all, some of the terms may not be completely accurate, this is simply the best I have been able to gather. Feel free too critique or add to the list.

Passement: Any single or two hand Vault

Passe Du Barriere: Synonomous with Passement

Saut Du Chat: Monkey Kong or Kash abbreviated s2c. Its pronounced Sow Du Sha and means jump of the cat

Demitour: Turn Vaults

Passe Muraille: Wall runs (the vertical kind)

Saut Du Bras: Cat Jumps, Pronounced Sow Do Bra it means jump to the arms.

Saut de précision: Perciscion jump

Reverse: Reverse Vault

Roulade: PK roll

Saut Du Fond: Is a jump from height

Equilibre: Any sort of balance

Lâché: A move were one swings from an object release and grabs another. Imagine a tree branch or scaffolding

On thing I notice about the list is the lack of specific terms for various vaults aside from the Saut Du Chat which its self covers three different english vaults. Personally I like this I think people get way to caught up in look at parkour as a list of tricks they have to accomplish. Some one says they learned a monkey and people say now you have to get a kong, they get a kong people say now you have get a Kash. I really dislike that additude, the vaults are just means to the end.

[Tsumaru]

What I find almost contradictory are the people who say "You shouldn't be defining every movement" and then go out and start using the french terms. Not saying you're one of these people, but I've seen it done. So not only are they being hypocritical by using terms for the moves when they say not to, but then they go and use the terms in another language. And for what purpose? To make themselves seem more 'purist' and 'traditional'? I suppose you could liken it to using chinese or japanese words in martial arts, but if you've ever heard the English names for those, I don't think you could possibly support English. =P

Anyway, I dunno what I'm ranting about. Personally, I don't see the point in using the French terms. But to each their own. If it's what works for you, then go for it. =)

[Rafe]

Actually I learned jujitsu in school that used american terminology never learned the japanese terminology kinda of associated that with overal traditionalist mystical schools , so I guess I can see both sides of the respect argument  .

[Parkourdan]

Tsamaru... it's not being hypocrital take a second to see...  I cant say I saw everytime someone did this and how they used these terms (so Im sure in some cases they could probably be) ... French names are just broader terms ... So it's not naming everything. Like, who cares if you steped 2 times or 5times.. did you make it over the obstacle? Good. Thats all that matters. Voila le movement francais!

People created names like thief/lazy which were the same thing... and wallclimb/doubletap/popvault/wallclimb+vault .. which are all the same thing...  Kong/Monkey... same thing... it was weird.. I saw EZ recently spit out a couple other names for things that I didn't even know people had given variations...

The french never looked at it this way really... They named stuff based on the type of movement, not the actual move being performed. Faelcind.. I use "passement chat" in conversations reffering to any vault with speed.

Also..

I dont think anyone really expects people to use the french terms... Maybe some people because they're pushy... But to me (being a french speaker) I would rather people not say them if they can't learn them properly... Sorry but I just can't picture, nor do I want to, people with american accents attempting to speak french. Scary to me. 

So ya, don't worry about ever trying to learn these.. totally unnessisary from an english persons standpoint. Concentrate more just on movement, and not limiting yourself by a generated movelist. There are tens of thousands of different variations possible in parkour. Lets please not name them all.. ha ha.

[Tsumaru]

Good point. I'm not too familiar with the French terms, but I have heard they're a lot more general then English terms.

However, there ARE people who frequently use the French terms and don't touch English at all. I believe a large number of the PAWA supporters do, and I think TCT does too now. Don't quote me on that though. I don't tend to touch the area those guys live in with a 10ft pole. Much too much aggression, even for me (ignore that if you don't know me too well) =P

[Parkourdan]

What if I told you I was Pawa as well... I sound different though huh.

 

Some people do, use these only.. yes. And like I said, I hold nothing against people that don't. Only the people who feel the need to name each and every move and fight about what makes kong and monkey different and nonsense like that. =P

[twitchkidd]

I like using specialized names. If I'm telling someone how I fell doing a dive kong, I'm not going to call it a monkey. I might say that I fell trying to vault over something, but if I'm going to bother with giving the technique a name, I'm going to give it the name I think it should be given. I admit there are some problems with my system though, as there are too many ways to do things to name all of them and it's a problem when people don't agree on where the line should be drawn between an individual technique and a variation. One of the situations the language of parkour frustrates me in is when I'm talking about theif vaults. When I run directly at an obstacle, lets say a four foot high and half foot wide wall, I will sometimes throw my right leg up and to the left and then as I get above the wall I'll power my legs through and forward while placing my hands on the wall next to my hips and at the apex of the vault my torso will be upright and forwards. I call this a theif vault. I differentiate it because of the direction I approach the obstacle from and slight differences in the movement of my legs at the beggining of the vault. But someone can say to me, "That was a lazy vault! You threw the inside leg up and your weight went back!" The speed vault is another one that frustrates me. One way of doing is almost what I call a theif, another way is like a jump that takes the person to horizontal and then they push back to vertical at the end, almost like a one armed sideways kong. Then there's all sorts of other ways to do it, and it's all really a speed vault. They all do the same job.

Hmm ... after writing that I'm realizing that I really don't know how I want to deal with the names ... eep! I know that I don't like using the french names though. I'm an anglophone. I use English to describe things. The fact that I CAN pronounce the french words, be it with an uber-Parisien accent (thank you french class  ), does not mean I'm going to. Cross culturally, a wall is a wall, and I don't know if muraille even means wall. I have more respect for the language and more faith that French walls are like American walls than to mess with the names.

OMG it's philosophy class all over again! Objectivism baby! Bruhah!!

[Tsumaru]

I find it far too difficult to use different names to other people. So I generally just go with the UF-style vaults, while trying to get some clarity out of them. Ie - through some time of analysis I found a more specific definition for the difference between lazy and thiefs. While it's essentially not of much value, as it is pretty much the same difference as a monkey and kong; I keep it in my mind anyway. Personally I'd prefer to annihilate kong, and annihilate thief, but that's rather difficult. So I don't tend to use thief personally, but still use kong, because people who use the word kong are going to be confused if I say monkey for the same thing. *shrugs*

[Rafe]

Its funny cause in the local scene nobody uses monkey any Saut Du chat style vault is kong around here. I personally dislike the UF the sound like something little kids would come up with.

[Tsumaru]

Yeah, they are a little bit kiddy. But, here's the thing. You can either use the French terms and only have some people understand you, the UF terms and have most people understand you, or make your own and have nobody understand you. The choice is yours, really. =P

[willgrind747]

I don't think that what you call a move is really that important, but i do think that naming the differant variations of techniques has its part, and that is separating the technique, and making us aware of its variations. look at it this way: Passement may be every  2 or 1 handed vault, but not every 2 or 1 handed vault is not ALL of Passement. If you turn it into speedvault, dash, thief, lazy reverse, ect. ect.  the names don't give the move any more value, but it makes us think of them as separate things, and so you will work on each on individually.

P.S. yo danno!

[Asa]

Its funny cause in the local scene nobody uses monkey any Saut Du chat style vault is kong around here. I personally dislike the UF the sound like something little kids would come up with.

If you don't want to use the French term saut de chat, or the English term kong, you can always just translate the the French INTO English and call it a cat jump. Although you'll probably confuse the crap out of anyone you jam with, which defeats the purpose of having a name for the movement in the first place.

[Rafe]

If you less ridiculous sounding english names for parkour moves many moves are borrowed from gymnastics. A monkey plant is squat on, a monkey is squat over, and a Kash is squat through. Two and One hand vaults are flank vaults. Most of this terminology isn't used anymore cause nobody teaches these vaults anymore(except me) but I know there more terms for common vaults we use out there. Then theres stuff I have never seen traceurs try like the stoop vault(imagine a saut du chat with your legs piked) or a hec(body completed extended.

[Tsumaru]

No offence, but the 'squat' ones sound almost as bad as monkey and kong. =P Flank vault sounds aight though.

[Rafe]

Its not the prettiest combination of words  . I have used flank vault actually most people seem to understand it. If you perfer it would be logical to name the Saut Du chat a Tuck vault in english too. 

[Tsumaru]

Ya, tuck vault makes sense and doesn't sound too lame. *shrugs* But as I said, most people aren't going to follow if you just pull these outta nowhere. You'd have to have a whole group of people use them, and people spread around different places too, if you want to make any serious change. But hell, if you just wanna talk to a few people with better terms, then that's fine too.

[Ryan Ford]

fael, can you please post these french terms in the lexicon forum. thanks.

[Rafe]

Demon I talked to PKDan and he offered to do it. I think considered I don't speak french at all and he is native speaker of it thats probably better  .

[Ryan Ford]

thats cool, thanks.

[Parkourdan]

Someone give me a brief outline of what should be done and Ill get to it. Im not sure how much detail you guys want.