Topic: So We Wanna Know...What Made You Start Doing Parkour/Freerunning?

[Roberto]

I've decided to do parkour because it facinates me and it gives you a good work out! I discovered parkour on YouTube. I was at a friends house watching videos on youtube when they showed me a video on Crazy Jumping. Which then later I realized was called parkour and that that was David Belle in that video!

[Luke Welvaert]

3 things...Mirror's Edge, the Office, and Casino Royale.

[pam]

I started because of all these youtube vids and  that got me pumped

[Mack Hartley]

Wondered to myself 2.5 months ago...
Wouldn't it be cool to jump off tall things safely? So i learned how to roll, then lazy vault, two handed vault, etc.
Glad i watched that you tube video! looking at it now it was actually really bad technique XD

[Josh C.]

My life-long best friend and I were hanging out one day, playing Assassin's Creed, and I was like "dude, that would be crazy awsome in real life. He the told me the name of the sport that would captivate my imagination for years... Parkour. he said he had looked it up on youtube and it seemed easy enough to learn (not quite, as i am just now learning). I got on the internet and checked it out. for two years now ive been back and forth about trying it. I finally decided to go for it. Today was my first day of training and i love it. I love the excitment, the freedom, the physical push, and the philosophy surrounding the sport.

[James Bell]

(This post has been a long time coming from me...)
I remember fanatically loving the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movies as a child (4+) and would watch all three at least once a week (sometimes all three daily, for a week), and I would imitate flips, wall-runs, and other stunts in the films. As I got older I became more interested in Jackie Chan and his style/movies and would imitate him (I still do ), until I started to hear about others such as Bruce Lee and Jet Lee, and got more interested in martial arts, which never really panned out for me...
However I believe what made me start doing/wanting to do actual Parkour & Free-running was in late 2003-2004 when I began hearing about David Belle online and then seeing more and more videos of him and others. Until I finally said "Yep, I am going to be like them, and do that."
So far it has been a long journey with ups and downs, fully quitting and then re-starting. But it has been over the past several months (re-re-re...started in August) that I have begun to take it really seriously with proper diet, excercise, stretching, training, martial arts and such.

[jordan wallace]

i was watching #Invalid YouTube Link# videos on parkour so i started like that but im really looking for people in las veagas nevada to come work with me dont know lots of moves but if any one lives in 3900 east sunset road las veagas nevada come to my apt one day and with me if u are a pro

[Alex 'Mercury' Garner]

I was the playing Mirror's Edge...  that's how I found out about it.
Well, actually, Dad walked in on me playing the game and said, "Is she doing Parkour?" I asked what that was. Turns out, he used to do this kind of stuff all the time through high school in big cities before David Belle came along. He taught me a few tic-tac and roll moves and I went from there (it's been too long, Dad's too out of shape to train for a while )

Later I met my buddy Cer, who was just getting started, too. From there, he perfected my roll, taught me how to climb dumpsters/walls, and so I taught him combat/sparring drills and a few weapon dissarms, and how to bust open doors. I've actually found basing your drills and moves off of Mirror's Edge gives it a sense of familiarity (we both play the game together a lot) and a sense of what needs practice.

[Derek]

Mirror's Edge, man. Mirror's Edge.

[Travis Compton]

Me and friends were bored started doing some crazy shit on my trampoline and we found out about parkour and started training and now we r a group and we r pretty good.

[Paul Fiedler]

Simple... My friend asked me to come to a local park which is kinda a hot spot for Parkour... Been doing it ever since.

[Caleb Lewis]

Season two of American Ninja Warrior caused me to improv obstacles on the show in my backyard in training for it, then I found out about parkour from a friend and I was like "hey, I have the strength to start!" so I started, never looked back!

[Sam Dutton]

About 2.5 years ago I was trying to climb a tree with a branch I couldn't reach. This guy comes up and shows me a wall run up the trunk. I try it, get to the branch(it was only 7.5ft high),and the guy tells me to look up parkour and then walks away. So I go home and do that and BAM! Here I am now.

[Justice Rivera]

I actually found out about parkour from friends and video game. They both inspired me to learn park our and to also live life in a free-like way!

[Jason C. Astor]

Like most of you here, I grew up loving Ninja Turtles, Kung-Fu, Power Rangers, Jackey Chan and running around outside doing things Mom said stop doing. I throughout life kept jumping around and "Playing" it was very sparatic though. It all changed when I stopped and looked at my life.

I was drinking, smoking ALOT (Tobacco and Herb) and my only real concerns were women and money. I was good at it but not really happy. After a bunch of failed relationships and jobs I knew that my life was lacking something. So, I stopped concerning myself with the same old drunken party sh*t and I re-found my love of working out, then I discovered a love of distance running, then I discovered Mud Runs and Obstical cources

I was practicing for a Mud Run obstical course. Started tryin stuff a little different then I already did them. Started doing more jumping stuff and climbing. Me and a buddy were practicing wall runs so I googled Wall runs and Jumps. 100's of Parkour videos and tuts later I found myself here. Stopped calling myself a dude that acts foolish and started calling myself a traceur, Started drilling moves instead of just doing stuff when I felt like it. That is how I started doing Parkour.

[Danny Hall]

Just like many people, I was first exposed to parkour on Youtube. I was just searching for cool videos, and I saw this video of people leaping from roof to roof and running without any borders. I had no idea what it was called, but I wanted to do what they were doing. I finally learned about parkour from a sports book, and then I realized that this was what I had seen in the Youtube videos. I immediately decided to start doing this amazing sport. Now I realize that it is more than just a sport, it is a lifestyle and a philosophy.

[max]

I first started when my friend told me about it abour 2 years ago. i wasn't sure what it was so i typed in on youtube a couple hours later and found the video called "freerunning" which probably inspired so many of us. right after is saw this i ran around the house doing tic tacs (kicking the wall) and tripping over the couch. Next day i spent about an hour setting up chairs and tables for my "parkour course". Months  later my friend and i had been kouring at a local church and got better every day. ^{about a year after i watched my first video i had slowly stopped with parkour.} At the beginning of the school year i found a new friend in the same situation and we both inspired each other to restart parkour. Now we are training at least once a day and getting better fast.

 first video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8uOBjnQajg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8uOBjnQajg</a>
Second video after restarting (we sucked because on the rain) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS2zVdwEcG4" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS2zVdwEcG4</a>
3d video before making our new channel(we still kinda sucked but it ll get better )<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQlHwmqRM-U" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQlHwmqRM-U</a>
second <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKljPLAI2L4" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKljPLAI2L4</a>
sorry my post is so long

[Robert "McMuffin" Teets]

I first started parkour and the begining of 2011, when I had actually just heard about it from a friend. I didn't really start until I found one of my friends on this website. Ever since, I have been training almost daily, and having fun doing so. It just sucks that I havent been able to train for a few weeks.

[anthony]

i started because i saw a guy Damien Walters doing these awesome tricks and thought i would try this i have been practicing almost every day

[Liam H]

I was on the internet one day and I saw this guy do a vault and thought that i could probably do that so I tried it and I almost got it the first try but my foot caught on the wall I was vaulting on so I stopped for a while. Then one year I went to a church camp and this was on a college campus so there were a few low walls and once I saw them I remembered trying that vault and tried I a couple times and after two or three tries i was starting to get it. So once I got home I was interested in what it was called so I looked up parkour and saw some videos and thought it would be to hard. Then in the past year i started looking it up again and thought I might be able to do it but I didn't have anywhere to do it. Then one day at school a friend of mine was trying to run up a column and dared me to try and I did and I was able to get one and a half steps up so now I've started to get back into parkour and decided not to quit this time.