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hello youtube
next photo video is the foundation of
parkour's success but the rise of viral
videos allowed social media to change
parkour forever literally blew my mind
as a kid there are people doing this
video is the backbone of possible these
guys freaked me the out these
parkour guys
really so many things to do
they're basically defying reality
what was the video that kicked it all
off oh it's definitely david barr's jump
at manpower
it went viral before viral video was a
thing and it was all over french tv
to the average person this was just
another stairwell in the suburbs of
paris but for athletes all around the
world that's not how they see it
it's such a powerful mecca you go there
and these spots that you're seeing
actually exist in real life like you've
just seen them on videos for years the
very first videos
and it just feels like you're in this
parkour dreamland
that video was the spark and since then
athletes share videos and continue to
push the support to incredible level
every year
[Music]
parkour is by far the newest sport that
we have covered on this show by a long
shot and i have this theory that is the
first sport that grew alongside the
internet
what do you think about that hazard yeah
that's true this is how i get into
parkour did social media
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parkour's inspirations are vast going
from martial arts films starring jackie
chan
all the way back to old films and by
buster keaton or charlie chapman
[Music]
[Applause]
it started all there watching charlie
chaplin turtles
i'm inspired by like animation
characters you know
but the sport actually originated in
paris in the late 90s david bell and the
group yamakaze were trying to find more
efficient ways from getting from point a
to point b
then in 2003 sebastian frikan traveled
to uk and introduced parkour as free
running in a documentary called jump
london where he showcased parker all
over london that film changed the
presence of parkour in the uk almost
overnight i ended up watching those
documentaries like 50 times over i just
thought they were superheroes at the
time
and then after that i was just
completely
hooked yeah i was mesmerized about the
sport a really impactful documentary
[Music]
i remember that documentary and the
follow-up in 2005 jump britain those
films put the uk on the parkour map
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it's one of those amazing places that
has a lot of variety kind of classic uk
bricks and you know lots of different
estates and i feel like one of the good
parts about parkour in general is just
that exploration culture being able to
find new places to keep it fresh
and in the mid-2000s parkour went global
and around this time in 2005 youtube
launched and parkour really started to
grow online
people now had a place to come for
visual references of how you tackle
spots like
it just seemed like it was the right
thing to do when you go out training you
film it look at what you did and analyze
techniques and sort of develop it
further it was all of these things kind
of like coming together at the right
time because there was not a lot of
media about parkour it seemed like we
were there at the beginning contributing
to the very limited resources of parkour
on the internet it's so intertwined with
internet culture the community has
always been around the internet like
even in the early days it was forums
then the 2010s was like a pivotal time
for like parkour cinematography it
looked like a blockbuster film geez
don't force it
take time
then in 2013 instagram changed paco
forever
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and over the next three years smartphone
cameras were progressing 4g was becoming
more widely available and in march of
2016 instagram now allowed users to
upload videos up to 60 seconds everybody
started uploading their clips from
training
and they changed the algorithm to show
you suggested content over chronological
content and then parkour really exploded
on instagram
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high produced parkour videos that would
take months to make just didn't seem
worth the hassle anymore to put on
youtube for such low viewership compared
to the views that people were getting on
60-second instagram videos instagram
became a better platform for
powergraphics and this is how i started
and how i connected with all parkour
community this video got 60 000 views
because first of all in the park
community this jump is really iconic and
obviously it's high and also average
people who don't do parkour can
understand it's scary and there's a big
consequences
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video continued to be a solid foundation
of the sport
and now instagram was having a direct
effect on how parkour athletes made
videos it's short dramatic and has a
shock factor i guess the downside of
these videos is there's no depth
backstory or context to the training
that you do they promoted the most
extreme aspects of parkour untrained
people would risk their lives for
instagram views it also pushed the
perception to the general public that
parkour was life-threatening and just
anti-social rooftop stunts which is not
why in fact the majority of the sport is
at ground level
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parkour's first peak in the mid 2000s
and early 2010s was fueled by the
community aspect of the sport and the
average person being able to see
themselves within these athletes at
ground level making the sport more
accessible for people
this is my first parkour training
session since maybe like 2002.
[Laughter]
as content becomes more consistent
platforms like instagram and tick tock
remain a solid focus for these athletes
the parkour films of the early 2010s
held less anticipation because people
were posting on instagram every day for
example dom tomato coming here and doing
the kong front pre for the first time
ever making parkour history a couple of
months ago
i don't think i can do it justice on
video apart from tell you how sick to my
stomach i feel looking at that that's
why it's a first that's why he made
history
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he was doing stuff that was just as
impressive as the stuff that was taken a
year to release
but there are still a lot of people
doing youtube videos and in youtube
videos you can actually see your
personality and you can actually see how
you prep for a jump if you watch like a
sora video there's like a feeling of you
could imagine yourself there and they're
real people chat in and it's it's
lifestyle banjo cycle i'm really mad i'm
not good at cycling this is our first
spot
i actually like this spot and this is
what really makes youtube content right
it's inspiring educational and it's a
great entry point for new people to take
up the sport
there's no set rules in parkour and
that's the beauty of parkour because
everybody can move differently and
everybody can show their own unique
style this is what makes the sport fresh
what has changed in the last few years
there are more females doing the sport
which is really cool i believe it's
coming from social media and more girls
seeing it you don't get to see a lot of
females doing parkour and now i can
train with three or four female at the
same time which is so so so good
[Music]
so free runners using their creativity
to
do new challenges and push the sport
forward but they're also using their
creativity in how they capture those
runs
if you're using social media it means
you're showcasing your work your
movement and i think you need to know
how to film it because if you can't
film it nicely it means that you can't
really promote it nicely
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seeing how far the sport has come in the
last five years due to social media i
think it's just a positive thing for
parkour last call for mr paul was the
biggest rebel video ever the sport
wouldn't be rated without the internet
without social media we also need to
make people aware that we are trained
professionals and we don't risk our
lives for views we do because we love it
and we love sharing
our videos on social media because this
is how the sport inspires next
generation
[Music]
you