Take Flight

In April of this year David had the opportunity to teach Parkour to firefighters in Paris. David has publicly spoken about the applicability of Parkour to dangerous professions before so it’s great to see him able to enact his vision. And this couldn’t be a better fit for Parkour. Being strong, being sure of oneself, being able to manage stress, and overcoming obstacles and continuing to advance are not only qualities necessary to be good at Parkour, these are also some of the required characteristics of any good firefighter. Check out the exclusive video at the David Belle’s official blog, and to hear more about David’s vision to teach Parkour to those in dangerous professions check out David Belle at the New Yorker Festival.

This video is an old TV report from March 2001 that has just about everyone! It features David Belle, Sébastien Foucan, Stephane Vigroux, Johann Vigroux, Kazuma, Sébastien Goudot, Rudy D., Jerome Ben Roues, and Michael Ramoani, and they are all doing Parkour in and around Lisses and Evry, France. Because this video is rare you are likely to see exclusive footage of David and the others that you have never seen before. With that said you may also recognize the first person perspective footage of David from the videos we posted in and David Belle x3 and David Belle “Live” – Take II.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KnfFG9WNxY

Today we were planning to embed a rare video of David Belle from 1998. Unfortunately when we were reading the webpage that features this video in its original context we saw this:

“Avertissement: Tout le contenu de ce blog est propriété réservée de DB Productions. Toute reproduction est formellement interdite.”

Translated this means:

“Warning: All the contents of this blog are reserved property of DB Productions. Any reproduction is formally prohibited.”

In our commitment to Parkour by David, we do everything we can to represent Parkour and David in the way he would want himself and the discipline represented. Although posting this video would not provide any misrepresentation of Parkour, we respect this request and have decided not to post the information.

Even though we will not be directly embedding this video on the site, we have provided a link that will take you to where you can view the video. Follow the links below to watch the video in its original context and/or to view the site translated into English. And make sure to check back in tomorrow with MisterParkour.com as we finish the countdown to our 50^th David Belle post with David’s most moving film.

http://www.sportmediaconcept.com/parkour/1998-le-parkour-en-demonstration-au-POPB_a34.html

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportmediaconcept.com%2Fparkour%2F1998-le-parkour-en-demonstration-au-POPB_a34.html&lp=fr_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

With our extensive collection of Parkour videos on MisterParkour.com we have decided to start increasing our text based content as well. We have already posted various news articles, training papers, and video with transcribed text, but we are going to improve our text content by consciously making an effort to do more of the this. One of our first steps towards our goal is this post which transcribes an interview with David Belle. This interview was conducted when David was in Portugal for an article written by Lina Manso for Mundo Universitário in February 26, 2007 (to see videos of David in Portugal please click here.) In the interview David spoke about the “main objective of Parkour” and how he learns best. He also commented on the lacking prevalence of female Tracers. We would like to thank Parkour.net for providing the English translation of this interview, and if you would like to view this article in its original context in Portuguese you can follow the link at the end of this post.

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Lina: What influence did you’re father and grandfather (both connected to the fire department and the military forces -where you also were)in the invention of Parkour?

DB: I began getting interested in what they were doing, until the point I asked myself: what is there beyond this? I turned what I learned into a kind of game, with a lot of silence, flexibility and agility.

Lina: That takes us to the second question. Is this a sport, a lifestyle, a hobby or a philosophy?

DB: It’s an art of life. It is as much urban as it is contemporary. (this part I think something got lost in translation from French to Portuguese by the journalist..)

Lina: Care to expand?

DB: Before anything else, is to learn how to be careful. And never underestimate physical training. And it takes harmony between the practitioner and the space where he practices.

Lina: And who can practice it?

DB: Everyone!

Lina: I don’t think I could jump off a 3 meter high wall…

DB: That comes with training! If you had a Lion chasing you, would you stand still?

Lina: I read some place that it can help you strengthen your self confidence and overcome you’re fears.

DB: The main objective is to know yourself and learn how to overcome your limits.

Lina: How do you see the way Madonna has been promoting the art (seen in the video “Jump”, from her last album, or in the choreographies of the “Confessions Tour” shows.

DB: I simply think she uses Parkour to sell her music not her music to promote Parkour.

Lina: The first time I heard about parkour was in the movie “Yamakasi”. Do you have anything to do with that group?

DB: Yes, they’re cousins of mine I initiated in the art.

Lina: So what have you done to promote the art (since you’ve been doing it professionally since you were 18)? (Again I think the translation during the interview was not that good…)

DB: I’ve been, for example, in the film Banlieu 13 from director Luc Besson. I am now shooting another movie in Prague (Czech Republic), and I think there may be another movie coming soon in Hollywood. Besides that I’ve been in several commercials for numerous brands like TMN (here in Portugal), Nissan and Nike.

We have some exciting new addition planned for MisterParkour.com, including a few new site features and three extensive posting series. One of these series has been in development for some time now and we plan for it to last almost two weeks by itself! Although these addition range in size, they will all further increase the extensive gallery of information on MisterParkour.com and augment the accessibility of our content. We anticipate that these addition will undoubtedly make MisterParkour.com one of the most comprehensive and concise catalogs of the most relevant and influential Parkour information on the web. But before we launch into these endeavors we have a few more posts we’d like to make including this one.

You may recognize the background music used in the beginning and at the end of the feature as that used in the David Belle in Madagascar video. You may also recognize the venue of the Parkour event/workshop because this is the same Parkour event covered by Focus TV in a German news feature we posted more than a month ago. In comparison the Focus TV news feature was much better because it included a lot more Parkour footage in general including more footage of David. Focus TV’s interview with David was more insightful as well. To view that news report please click here. Although we have not been able to translate this entire broadcast, we have obtained a translation of David’s interview, courtesy of Parkour.net, which we have transcribed below.

We are so pumped about this next video from Airmout! This is a special edit that includes footage from David’s Speed Air Man video, Et Vous?, and his BBC commercial roll which we will be posting soon. No new footage of David, just a cool new version of it all. The following two quotes from the No Obstacles article -written by Alec Wilkinson in April 2007- may help explain some of the motivation behind creating this edit.

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David’s grandfather told him stories about Raymond that revolved around his exploits—“Spider-Man stories and Tarzan stories,” David says—and left him wishing to emulate him. He wanted to be Spider-Man when he grew up.

Last fall, David said, he had discussions with Sam Raimi, the director of “Spider-Man,” about playing the role of Spider-Man’s double, but he decided he wasn’t interested. “That was a childhood dream, to be in a Spider-Man costume,” he said. “Now I’d rather appear on a poster with my own name, not as a character, saying, ‘This is me performing.’ ”

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http://www.dailymotion.com/airmout/video/x4dp0m_ba-speed-air-man_extreme

Here is the official copy of David Bell’s famous Speed Air Man video. Although this video edition is longer than the Speed Air Man copy we previously cataloged, for all practical purposes the two are exactly the same. None of the video footage is different, and the extra 11 seconds is due to additional frames at the beginning and end of the video.  To view our original Speed Air Man post and to learn how this video is single handedly responsible for Stephane Vigroux’s introduction to Parkour please click here.

http://www.dailymotion.com/airmout/video/x4dt4q_speedairman_extreme

We are so excited about this next David Belle video! In all of our searching we only found it posted on the internet in two locations. And by combining the viewing totals from those sites we estimate that as of today this video has been viewed less than 6,300 times! With some videos of David boasting 1,000,000+ views this is a phenomenal find!

David has arrived at the port late. And not only does he only have one minute to reach his final destination, he doesn’t even know exactly where he is supposed to go. Leaping, climbing, jumping, and rolling his way over, past, and through the impending obstacles, David puts on another great performance in this relaxing and yet highly entertaining race against the clock.

http://www.dailymotion.com/airmout/video/x4djzw_portonbfinale_extreme

Here is the official and original copy of the interview with David Belle which we posted a couple weeks ago. This video is exactly the same as our previous post except it does not have the Portuguese subtitles or the English translation which we included before. To see that original post with these alternative language options please click here.

In addition to posting this exclusive interview, we have also decided to include the caption below which is currently featured in the video’s original context on DailyMotion.com. We have posted this text in French and in a roughly translated English version, which may actually make you laugh once or twice because our translation is poor. If anyone can provide us with a quality translation it would be much appreciated.

This entire length of Parkour de David Belle is 4:08, but the interview ceases at 2:54. At that point the video transitions into a unique edit of David doing Parkour. This short video includes many classic clips of David in and around Lisses, but it also includes a few clips that you won’t see anywhere else. This video is called Ba Parkour and you can view it without the preceding interview by clicking here.

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J’ai découvert David Belle a travers B13, et j’ai eu la chance de le rencontrer et travailler avec lui dans Babylon A.D. J’ai découvert un homme qui a elevé son art à un niveau international malgré lui. Cette situation le dépasse et le motive. Le Parkour est pour moi l’enfant naturel du Break dance, et cache une véritable pensée et un mode de vie proche des arts martiaux. David est discret et réservé, il n’aime pas avoir à s’expliquer sur ce qu’il fait et ce qu’il recherche, c’est un travail intérieur qu’il s’impose au quotidien, tout comme son père lui a appris. Des jeunes du monde entier découvrent ce nouveau moyen d’expression urbain et découvrent leur propre capacités et limites. On a tous voulu voler, bondir, et redevenir animal. David l’a fait. Je pense que dans quelques années, on se souviendra de lui comme on se souvient aujourd’hui encore des fondateurs d’art martiaux tel que le Karaté et le Judo.. Après l’ITW, je vous invite pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas encore à apprécier en image ce qu’est le Parkour de David Belle. Retenez votre souffle.

I discovered David Belle from B13, and I had the luck to meet him and work with him in Babylon A.D. I discovered a man that has elevated his art to an international level despite him.  This position surpasses him and motivates him. For me Parkour is the natural child of the station wagon dance, and harbors a mentality and a method that closely mirrors the martial arts.  David is discreet and reserved, he does not like to explain what he does to the newspapers and what, for him, is an internal work, just as he learned from his father.  Youth all over the world are discovering this new means of urban expression and discovering their own capacities and limits.  Everyone wants to fly, jump, and move like the animals. David did it. I think that in a few years one will remember David as one now remembers the founders of martial arts such as Karate and Judo.  After the ITW, I hope that you appreciate the picture which is the Parkour of David Belle. Hold your breath.

-M. Kassovitz

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http://www.dailymotion.com/airmout/video/x4djgt_parkour-de-david-belle_extreme

This is a short video of David Belle that closely resembles the Forêt video we posted about a week ago. Although this video has many of the same clips as Forêt it deviates substantially and includes not only different music but also new and extended clips that you won’t see anywhere else. David sports a Fils tank top for a the majority and he performs on a castle, on rocks and -as the title suggests- in the woods. You may also recognize various clips from his Et Vous? video.

http://www.dailymotion.com/airmout/video/x4ds5z_foret-booba_extreme