It was invented by some French dude. Or some French Canadian dude if you ask my sister, who wouldn't know.
It has some hoaky philosophy about finding the most direct route through an urban landscape. I guess it could be like finding a clean line in snowboarding, though. With the added thrill of trespassing.
We took a back way to the park, running up a culvert and vaulting a fence. Tyler showed me some jumps and I pulled a few of them off, even! The secret is going for it.
Tyler really went for it. He did this headfirst dive roll over about five feet of hedge which I failed to capture on film. It was rad but he hurt his neck so we stopped doing that.
My brother-in-law, a former skater, thought parkours sounded lame. He's 41 so F that. I'm inclined to believe the guy who's 17.
We jumped a different fence on the way out of the park and ran down an animal track to the cul-de-sac below. We hopped the front fence of a for-sale house and sprinted down the side yard. One more fence and we were on the golf course, home free.