If I didn’t do the movement right, my body would tell me right away. If you miss your jump, you hurt yourself; otherwise, you don’t feel anything. The most important thing to him was to repeat: "By doing the movements a dozen, a hundred times, trust comes and by doing the same movements over and over again, it becomes automatic."
I started with jumps that were likely to help me make progress, but without taking too much risks at first because I was aware of my mother waiting at home for her son who was training. That prevented me from doing crazy things and having an uncaring rebel teenage attitude like, "Well, if I hurt myself, I just don’t care!"
Some guys are really proud to break a bone and they like to brag about it. But truth is, it only shows a total lack of respect towards oneself and one’s body. What’s the point in being ready to destroy yourself just to show that you don’t care? Once you’re hurt, you can’t move forward anymore.
Those who don’t want to get a bit hurt, who don’t want to have scratched hands, shouldn’t come to Parkour.
When you add acrobatics, your attention is focused on the salto and you get rid of all the rest; everything Parkour is about, which is jumping, climbing, moving from point A to point B. Practicing Parkour isn’t about fun, with piercings everywhere, green or purple hair or nice shoes. It’s unnecessary. In Parkour, if the guy understands why he’s here, why he’s doing these movements, that’s great. If he learns to cross obstacles without hurting himself, that’s what really matters. Then, if he puts style into it, putting his little finger in the air like that, who cares? If a guy feels good when he jumps, if his landing is good, then he got it.
After watching some participants, I realized after a while that they didn’t do the things I was looking for in Parkour anymore, they didn’t have the same mindset anymore. During some trainings, public shows or movies, it was going downhill, it was baloney. Some brought a fun side to it, a freestyle spirit. Sure, it looks good and spectators love it but with saltos and other nice figures, the movements are not the same anymore. It turns into a show and that’s not what Parkour is about. I’m not saying I didn’t do acrobatics myself – I did – but it was after training, after the Parkour, just for fun, to relax and unwind. It was a way to chill out, like a soccer player who is going to do a somersault after scoring. When I was training with some friends, they sometimes put all their energy working on something freestyle - everything the young liked at the time – but I personally thought it was useless. I didn’t want to waste my time working on a salto like this or that because I knew in a real life situation, I wouldn’t have time to do it. When I did acrobatics, I was actually training in depth. It looked like I was having fun doing it but truth was I did it for a specific reason: I was working on the basics, I was improving my perception of space and distances.
We should be motivated by the love of sports, not challenge or competition. I have to admit that it was also a mistake to put some acrobatics in my first videos but when I did those demos, it was to ignite a spark and have the young start thinking, "Hey, I don’t know why he’s doing it but he makes me want to put my sneakers on, go outside and move!"
The first thing is to figure out why the kid came to see me, why he wants to learn Parkour. I try to find his real motivation, what made him want to move. If he only wants to do saltos and spins, then I tell him to do gymnastics or freerun – everything but Parkour. If he wants to do videos or movies, I send him straight back home. When I teach Parkour to a young, I don’t want to know what he’s going to do with it. He can become an actor, an acrobat, any artistic job, or become a fire fighter or a rescuer, never mind. I don’t want to know.
The principle of Parkour is to know what you are capable of, to gain self-confidence and not to compete with others. To me, in this sport, there are only people who start from scratch, who fight and learn so much along the way, who will be able to understand every step, every link in the chain of Parkour.
If you get into filming or photography, you already alter the spirit of Parkour. It means you jump to show off and brag; it’s more about yourself. At first, I didn’t want any photos or video. I just wanted to train for the sake of training and not jump because someone was watching or asking me. I may have triggered the whole thing by showing what I was doing at first but I didn’t want that. I made videos for producers and advertising agencies to give them ideas and have them want to work with me. But those videos ended up on the net; and it wasn’t my idea. There was a time when you typed David Belle on a search engine and nothing showed up. Nowadays, everything is out there. It doesn’t interest me. Parkour is not on the net; it takes place outdoors. Once again, you have to be real, not bluffing.
With Parkour, one shouldn’t feel invincible either…
