The institutionalization of parkour: blurring the boundaries of tight and loose spaces

ABSTRACT

During its twenty-year history as a globally popular lifestyle sport, parkour has undergone institutionalization, professionalization and commercialization. In this article, the analysis of these changes is based on interviews conducted with Finnish traceurs who have long experience in parkour as practitioners and coaches, with some of them having parkour as their main occupation. Earlier research with the same participants provides the background to the subject and offers an overview of the development of the Finnish parkour scene. Special attention is paid to the ways in which indoor facilities and parkour parks have changed traceurs’ relationships with urban public spaces. These changes are analysed by applying the concepts of tight and loose spaces. The study shows how some participants strongly connected parkour to its original roots, whereas others emphasized its physical elements and were not that concerned about the sportization of the discipline. Due to the increased popularity of indoor facilities and parkour parks, parkour’s visibility in public spaces had diminished, which had decreased encounters between traceurs and other users of the same space and thus decreased parkour’s potential to loosen urban spaces – to make them more tolerant towards different ways of being.

La institucionalización del parkour: desdibujando los límites de los espacios estrechos y sueltosRESUMEN

Durante sus veinte años de historia como deporte de estilo de vida mundialmente popular, el parkour ha pasado por una institucionalización, profesionalización y comercialización. En este artículo, el análisis de estos cambios se basa en entrevistas realizadas a especialistas finlandeses del deporte que tienen una larga experiencia en parkour como practicantes y entrenadores, y algunos de ellos tienen el parkour como ocupación principal. Investigaciones anteriores con los mismos participantes proporcionan los antecedentes del tema y ofrecen una visión general del desarrollo de la escena del parkour finlandés. Se presta especial atención a las formas en que las instalaciones interiores y los parques de parkour han cambiado las relaciones de los especialistas del deporte con los espacios públicos urbanos. Estos cambios se analizan aplicando los conceptos de espacios estrechos y sueltos. El estudio muestra cómo algunos participantes conectaron fuertemente el parkour con sus raíces originales, mientras que otros enfatizaron sus elementos físicos y no estaban tan preocupados por la deportividad de la disciplina. Debido a la creciente popularidad de las instalaciones cubiertas y los parques de parkour, la visibilidad del parkour en los espacios públicos había disminuido, lo que había disminuido los encuentros entre los rastreadores y otros usuarios del mismo espacio y, por lo tanto, disminuyó el potencial del parkour para aflojar los espacios urbanos, para hacerlos más tolerantes con diferentes formas de ser.

L’institutionnalisation du parkour : la suppression des limites entre les espaces étanches et les espaces relâchésRÉSUMÉ

Au cours de ses vingt années d’existence, le parkour, sport et mode de vie populaire dans le monde entier, a été l’objet d’institutionnalisation, de professionnalisation et de commercialization. Dans cet article, l’analyse de ces changements s’est fondée sur des entretiens menés avec des traceurs finlandais qui possèdent beaucoup d’expérience de parkour, en tant que pratiquants et en tant qu’encadrants, celui-ci étant même l’activité professionnelle principale de certains d’entre eux. Des recherches antérieures avec les mêmes participants ont fourni les fondements pour le thème et offrent un aperçu de l’évolution du domaine du parkour en Finlande. Nous avons accordé une attention particulière aux façons dont les salles de sport et les parcs de parkour ont modifié les relations des traceurs avec les espaces publics urbains. Nous analysons ces changements en appliquant les concepts d’espaces étanches et d’espaces relâchés. Notre étude montre comment certains participants ont étroitement lié le parkour à ses origines, alors que d’autres ont insisté sur son aspect physique et n’étaient pas trop préoccupés par la structuration vers une discipline sportive reconnue. Avec la popularité croissante des salles et des parcs de parkour, sa visibilité dans l’espace public a diminué, ce qui a réduit les rencontres entre les traceurs et d’autres usagers de ces espaces et par conséquent diminue le potentiel du parkour pour relâcher les espaces urbains afin de les rendre plus tolérants envers différentes manières d’être.

KEYWORDS:

• Parkour
• lifestyle sport
• institutionalization
• professionalization
• tight space
• loose space

Palabras clave:

• parkour
• deporte de estilo de vida
• institucionalización
• profesionalización
• espacio reducido
• espacio suelto

Mots clefs:

• parkour
• sport mode de vie
• institutionnalisation
• professionnalisation
• espaces étanches
• espaces relâchés

Introduction

The origin of parkour is often described as a narrative that emphasizes the principle of moving from one place to the next as smoothly and efficiently as possible. David Belle, one of the pioneers of parkour, stressed this idea, while Sébastien Foucan, another well-known early parkour practitioner (traceur), added more acrobatic and aesthetic elements to his version, freerunning (l’art du déplacement). In the beginning, they both belonged to the Yamakasi group; however, they soon left because of some disagreements about the principles that they wanted to highlight in their own practice (for more on the history of parkour, see e.g. Atkinson, 2009; Mould, 2009). After its development in the French suburbs in the late 1980s, parkour spread worldwide at the start of the new millennium; since then, it has become one of the most popular lifestyle sports that has undergone a rapid diffusion at the global level (Sterchele & Camoletto, 2017).

With this background in mind, this article will offer a closer look at more recent changes in parkour. Parkour began to undergo institutionalization, professionalization and commercialization soon after its global spread. These processes have included contradictory aspects compared to the original ideas of parkour. Therefore, it will be relevant to analyse the possible tension that these changes may have caused. This will be done by exploring three research questions: (1) What is the role of institutionalization in parkour communities? (2) How has professionalization changed traceurs’ own practice? (3) How have the specially planned parkour parks and indoor facilities changed the relationship that parkour has with urban spaces? These questions will be explored in the Finnish context, where the institutionalization has occurred very quickly compared to other countries. The empirical material for this article was gathered at three stages, in 2006, 2009 and 2020 by conducting in-depth interviews among a selection of Finnish traceurs. The effects of institutionalization will be studied by applying the ideas of loose and tight spaces, concepts originally introduced in environmental psychology and later developed in urban studies and cultural geography. While parkour has great potential to loosen urban public spaces, its current mode as an increasingly institutionalized lifestyle sport can threaten its original idea of using physical spaces in creative ways. These contradictory views will be analysed in this paper.

Traceurs in the city: parkour in earlier studies

Parkour has attracted researchers from different academic disciplines, from sports science and dance studies to various aspects of leisure studies, sociology, geography, and urban research. There is neither the need nor the space to include an extensive literature review here, but to clarify the theoretical basis of this article, a short introduction to studies that have analysed traceurs’ relationships with the spaces where they practise is needed. These will be described under three themes: first, traceurs’ embodied and emotional relationship to their environment; second, their ways to use spaces creatively and playfully; and third, their ways to negotiate their right to use different spaces for their practice. These three viewpoints will then be further developed by introducing the concepts of tight and loose spaces. This pair of concepts will offer a methodological ‘toolkit’ for the analysis of parkour in its present stage where institutionalization and professionalization have challenged its original ideas.

Even when parkour can be practised in all kinds of spaces, it is most often connected to cities, where geometrical elements of built environments offer interesting spots for training. The first theme, studies that have explored the meanings of space in parkour, concentrates on traceurs’ personal bond with the environment where they practise. Their embodied relationship with urban spaces has been analysed from a phenomenological and an existential point of view by many researchers (e.g. Aggerholm & Højbjerre Larsen, 2017; Allen‐Collinson, 2009; Clegg & Butryn, 2012), or by applying theoretical and philosophical ideas of ‘smooth and striated spaces’, originally defined by Deleuze and Guattari, and ‘the event’, as defined by Badiou (see Mould, 2009). Multi-sensual and embodied spatial experiences and ways to interact with the environment, which are essential in parkour practice, resonate with the experiences that have also been studied in the context of walking (e.g. Bassett, 2004; Middleton, 2010), and in the study of young people’s ways of engaging with their urban environments (Pyyry & Tani, 2019).

Along with the embodied connection, affective and emotional attachment to everyday spaces has also awoken researchers’ interest. Positive emotions have been connected, for example, to individual trees or concrete-built blocks of flats, which are often regarded as boring or even ugly by other people, but which offer perfect training spots for traceurs. In our earlier research (Ameel & Tani, 2012a), we have shown how traceurs’ practice in concrete-built suburbs has made them understand the ‘aesthetics of ugliness’ of these spaces; traceurs attached positive emotions to these mundane spaces and formed an emotional and highly personal attachment to some details of the environment that they had learned to know through parkour. Emotions that parkour can arouse also include fear, as Saville (2008) has shown in his auto-ethnographic study. For him, the fear that was attached to parkour did not remain static or only negative; during his ‘immersive engagement with parkour’ he began to connect fear to ‘a kind of mobile playfulness’ (Saville, 2008, p. 910).

The second theme, spatial elements in parkour research, can be identified in studies where the focus has been on traceurs’ ways to use their environments creatively. Many studies have shown how traceurs develop so-called ‘parkour eyes’ or ‘parkour vision’, a certain way to observe and evaluate features of the environment and their possible potential for parkour (e.g. Aggerholm & Højbjerre Larsen, 2017; Ameel & Tani, 2012a; Atkinson, 2009; Bavinton, 2007; Kidder, 2012; Lamb, 2014). Parkour vision enables traceurs to treat their environment in an unconventional way: for example, when fences are constructed to separate different spaces and are thus designed to be bypassed, traceurs use them as stepping stones to move forward (see Bavinton, 2007). Traceurs’ acrobatic movements resemble children’s ways to explore spaces around them as they both use their environment creatively and playfully (see e.g. Ameel & Tani, 2012b; Geyh, 2006; Højbjerre Larsen, 2021; Saville, 2008).

The third group of studies on parkour and space deals with questions of the right to use urban spaces. In these studies, traceurs’ encounters with other people (residents, security personnel, and the police) have been explored (e.g. Ameel & Tani, 2012b; De Martini Ugolotti & Moyer, 2016). In many studies, traceurs have described how parkour has caused mixed reactions among passers-by: some have been genuinely interested in and impressed by their movements, while others have expressed concern about possible risks to traceurs’ health (Fernández Gavira et al., 2018) or potential damage to the space where they practise (Ameel & Tani, 2012b). Traceurs have challenged the usual ways to use urban public spaces, and when attempts have been made to restrain their practice, they have been ready to defend their right to the city but, after some negotiations and discussions with other users of the same space, they have often been ready to move on.

In this article, traceurs’ relationship with urban spaces will be explored in the present situation, where parkour in Finland has undergone institutionalization and professionalization. Next, the research context with the data and methods used will be described, after which the three research questions will be examined. The concepts of tight and loose spaces will be described and applied to explore the changes in the roles of public and specially planned spaces for the Finnish parkour community. These concepts will be further developed to analyse traceurs’ mixed relationships with ready-made and modifiable spaces. The question that will be asked is whether parkour can retain its fluidity and creativity in the present world with its formal associations, indoor facilities, specially planned parkour parks and parkour competitions organized by professional traceurs.

Research context and methodology

Empirical material for this article was drawn from research that was conducted in two Finnish cities, Helsinki and Jyväskylä. The first phase of the research began back in 2006 when the phenomenon was relatively new in Finland and international studies on parkour were still rare. The aim at that time was to review the representations of parkour in different cultural products such as commercials and television documentaries. In addition, we were also interested in parkour as a lifestyle sport and a mode of youth culture. For our first article (Ameel & Tani, 2007), we interviewed one of the Finnish pioneers of parkour.

The second phase of our research began in 2009 with eighteen interviewees in Helsinki and Jyväskylä, as these were the two most important cities in Finland in terms of parkour practitioners. Some of the participants had a long history of parkour while others had just started relatively recently. The age range of the interviewees was between 14 and 31. These interviews were planned around themes dealing with parkour, public space, and popular culture. We were interested in traceurs’ personal histories of parkour, their views on its commercial representations, and their thoughts on ideal environments in which to practise. In addition, we explored our interviewees’ opinions of the ways that different types of space could be used when parkour was practised in public. Traceurs’ experiences of encounters with other people were also discussed during the interviews (Ameel & Tani, 2012b).

In 2020, I decided to return to research on parkour as I was interested in investigating the changes in the parkour scene in Finland after its early years. To this end, I contacted some of the parkour pioneers who had participated in our study in 2009 and who were still active in the parkour community. Four of the eight interviewees (24 to 42 years of age) in 2020 had participated in our earlier study (two of them were based in Jyväskylä, two in Helsinki). It is rare in parkour studies to have this kind of opportunity to return to the original interviewees who have had a sustained engagement with the practice during this rapid phase of evolution and take-off, and who could comment authoritatively on developments in Finland. Hence, these four interviewees will have a special role in this longitudinal study. They also helped me find the other four participants. All eight participants had a long history in parkour, ranging from 7 to 17 years. Most interviews lasted just under two hours. All interviews were conducted in Finnish, and the excerpts in this article were then translated into English. In the text and excerpts, participants are marked as P1–P8. Some details concerning their background are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Information on the participants.

Participant	Years of practice	Role in the parkour community	Participant in the 2009 research
P1	15	part-time coaching (13–14 years); parkour as a way of life, as a philosophy	x
P2	16	parkour as a full-time job (30 hours/week)	x
P3	16	parkour as a full-time job (coaching 9–15 hours/week)
P4	11	part-time coaching (7 hours/week)
P5	17	parkour as a full-time job (5 days/week); parkour as a way of life	x
P6	7	part-time coaching (1.5 years; one evening/week)
P7	16	coaching (10 years, now part-time, 6 hours/week)
P8	13	parkour as a full-time job (40 hours/week)	x

The aim of this article is to explore traceurs’ views on the observed changes in parkour, and the possible tensions between the original ideas of parkour and its contemporary interpretations. First, the role of institutionalization in parkour communities will be explored. Second, changes in seasoned traceurs’ own practice will be interpreted. Third, as examples of commercial aspects of parkour, the role of indoor facilities and parkour parks in the development of the discipline will be analysed. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which these places have changed the relationship that parkour has with urban spaces. These changes will be analysed by applying the concepts of tight and loose spaces, leading to a discussion on the contradictions between the original ideas of parkour and the traceurs’ growing interest in ready-made and modifiable spaces. Lastly, opportunities to preserve parkour’s creative elements will be considered. Before interpreting participants’ views on recent changes, the concepts of tight and loose spaces will be explained, and some examples of their earlier applications in urban studies will be described.

Parkour in tight and loose spaces

In this article, I will analyse the changes that have taken place in traceurs’ relationship with urban spaces during the years of professionalization. Concepts of tight and loose spaces will provide a theoretical and methodological ‘toolkit’ for the analysis.

The original idea of tight and loose spaces can be traced to Robert Sommer’s (1974, as cited in Franck & Stevens, 2007) writings on hard and soft architecture. The former refers to strictly regulated interior design, for example in churches or traditional classrooms where furniture is fixed in place, whereas the latter, soft architecture, refers to design that enables adjustments. Franck and Stevens (2007) have applied the concepts of tight and loose spaces in urban studies and identified four types of attitude that can be seen in the ways that people can use urban public spaces: ‘appropriation’ refers to spaces where different types of use are accepted; ‘tension’ can be seen in spaces where different people have different ideas concerning the appropriate use of space, and constantly have to negotiate their rights to use the space as a result (for example, in the context of young people hanging out in shopping malls, see Tani, 2015; on parkour, see Tani & Ameel, 2015). ‘Resistance’ happens in tightly regulated spaces where divergent use is not tolerated. The fourth attitude defined by Franck and Stevens (2007), ‘discovery’, can be identified in spaces that have no specially planned use, and hence are open for exploring and imaginative use.

In our earlier study, we applied the ideas of tight and loose spaces in the context of parkour (Ameel & Tani, 2012b). In our analysis, parkour was seen as an opportunity to loosen urban spaces when traceurs negotiated their right to use the space in an unconventional and creative way. The analysis showed how traceurs were aware of different regulations and invisible borders between different spaces. In most cases, they were ready to argue for their right but often, after some negotiations, they moved on to avoid conflicts with other people. Traceurs’ flexible attitude and parkour’s potential to loosen some tightly regulated urban spaces were thus highlighted in our study.

For this article, looseness and tightness will be analysed in the present situation in which professionalization has changed seasoned traceurs’ relationship with their own practice, but also modified beginners’ experiences of parkour in public spaces. Attention will be paid to whether the role of open public spaces has diminished in the Finnish parkour community since indoor facilities have become an integral part of the discipline. Simultaneously, specially planned parkour parks have been built, which can be thought of as tight spaces designed for a certain type of use. Indoor spaces and parkour parks will thus be interpreted in the context of their looseness and tightness. Before that, the role of institutionalization in parkour communities, both in Finland and elsewhere, will be interpreted.

The role of institutionalization in parkour communities

The exact time when the first representations of parkour were broadcast on Finnish television differs according to different sources. Pihlaja and Junttila (2012) mention that the first instance was the French documentary ‘Sports in the City’, which presented some new lifestyle sports; this programme was shown on television in Finland in September 2002. The Finnish Parkour Association (Suomen Parkour ry SPY, 2020) and our first interviewee date the start to the spring of 2003 and refer to a short parkour excerpt in a documentary film (Ameel & Tani, 2007). Whatever the case, some boys and young men began to copy the moves they had seen. In September 2003, the Finnish Parkour Association (SPY) was founded (Pihlaja & Junttila, 2012). The aim of SPY was to connect people interested in parkour, to publicize it and offer information on the discipline, its history and its foundational principles.

Compared internationally, the institutionalization of parkour happened faster in Finland than anywhere else. By way of comparison, the French Parkour Inter-Associations (PKIA) was founded as a re-grouping of different associations only in 2009, and in 2011, Féderation de Parkour was formed based on PKIA (La Fédération de Parkour, n.d..); the Australian Parkour Association (APA, n.d..) was registered in 2006, Parkour UK in 2009 (Parkour UK, n.d.), and Parkour NZ in 2011 (Parkour NZ, n.d.). In many countries, several local and regional groups and parkour associations started to operate to begin with, after which national organizations were established. Some of these national bodies then started to collaborate with each other, which provided an impetus for some global organizations. In Finland, institutionalization began at the national level, after which several local parkour associations were established.

One of the objectives of parkour associations has been to highlight the essence of the principles of parkour for new practitioners and hence to pass on the history of the discipline. While the origins of parkour are explained on the SPY website, the principles are touched upon only briefly: it is said to be an urban mode of physical exercise in which the practitioner tries to move in the environment without interruptions and without any equipment. Parkour is also described as a way to express oneself, not just a physical exercise. While during the early years of parkour associations, it was common to describe general guidelines and so-called parkour etiquette on the websites, this type of text no longer appears on the SPY website.

One of the interviewees mentioned that SPY as a national organization is one of a kind compared to other countries; all the Finnish parkour associations are members. SPY organizes special courses for parkour coaches, offers specific occasions to try parkour in schools and in after-school clubs and, together with its approximately 30 member associations, arranges parkour camps and other special events. However, most of the parkour activities are organized by its member associations, with the Parkour Academy and the Parkour Centre (Parkourkeskus) being the largest actors. The interviewees mentioned these two associations and their differences as well as the role of SPY.

Among the interviewees were representatives from both the Parkour Academy and the Parkour Centre. They had observed some differences in style and values that were emphasized in coaching in different associations:

There are cool differences in coaching styles and philosophies between our actions [Parkour Academy] and what is going on at the Parkour Centre: they are representing some sort of original gangsta style, old-school style there. (P2)

I think there are differences. What we [at the Parkour Centre] have tried to do is remain faithful to the things that we once did. An experiential attitude and spiritual elements have a strong presence in our coaching. I think that at the Parkour Academy, based on what I have seen and discussed there, the physical side is the thing. (P3)

One element connected to institutionalization is the sportization of parkour. Parkour can be classified as one of the many lifestyle sports that have evolved outside of the regulated, rule-bound, and often competitive sport cultures (Gilchrist & Wheaton, 2011, p. 112). In the process of sportization, subcultural forms of sport are incorporated into mainstream sports cultures that are often ‘organized and operated on the basis of intense competition, social exclusion, and domination of others’ (Atkinson, 2009, p. 173). Compared to traditional sports, the institutionalization of which has taken centuries, the sportization of parkour has occurred significantly faster, in approximately ten years in such countries as Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States (Puddle et al., 2019, 1726).

At the international level, several organizations represent parkour: Parkour Earth, the International Parkour Federation (IPF) and the World Freerunning Parkour Federation (WFPF). Parkour Earth, founded in 2017, has defined its goal as supporting ‘the sovereignty and autonomy of Parkour/Freerunning/Art du Déplacement internationally’ and as working as a connecting link for a group of national parkour associations (Parkour Earth, n.d..). While it defines parkour as primarily a non-competitive discipline, it still mentions that some parkour practitioners and communities include competitive elements in their training practices. Unlike Parkour Earth, which started as an initiative taken by several national federations, the IPF started top-down in 2014, with its aim ‘to facilitate the formation of national parkour federations and to empower local leaders to grow their communities’ (IPF, n.d..). The World Freerunning Parkour Federation, launched in 2007 (WFPF, n.d..), despite having ‘federation’ in its name, is in fact a commercial entity that has worked closely with some commercial companies and media channels, and has sanctioned the world parkour championships together with the IPF. It has also launched coach-training certificates for parkour instructors.

Attitudes towards competitive aspects in parkour have divided the parkour community. P4 pointed out how some traceurs could earn extra income from competitions, while others were strictly against such practices. She felt that most practitioners did not have strong opinions on the issue. She was not interested in competitions herself and saw a possible risk in them for the future of the discipline. However, she thought that if some traceurs wanted to compete in parkour, they could do so, whereas P5 highlighted the non-competitive aspects of parkour:

The idea is not to compete or to be better but there is that deeper holistic idea … there has been a fine side to parkour in that there was never any competitive aspect to it … . The competitive aspect divided the Finnish parkour community’s opinions … there is no competition in Yamakasi parkour. (P5)

At the international level, the increased popularity of lifestyle sports has been recognized by the International Olympic Committee, which has included some of these sports in the Olympic Games programme. Freestyle skiing was recognized as an official sport in the Olympics as early as 1992, followed by snowboarding in 1998. Skateboarding, surfing and sport climbing were introduced as new Olympic sports in 2021 (Gilchrist & Wheaton, 2017). There has also been an initiative to include parkour in future Olympic Games. The international gymnastics federation (Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique, FIG) began to organize parkour events in 2017; there was also a discussion among traceurs that FIG would plan to get parkour included in the Olympic Games as a discipline, without negotiating with the international parkour federation Parkour Earth (Mather, 2020; Puddle, 2019). P6 reflected on this discussion in the interview:

If I have understood it right, there’s an international initiative to make parkour an Olympic sport. However, the Finnish Gymnastics Federation is not trying to take possession of parkour. The initiative is not a good thing: it’s weird that parkour is going to be included in another discipline [gymnastics]. If parkour is included in the Olympics, the suggestion should come from the parkour community. (P6)

Despite some earlier plans, parkour will not be included as a new sport in the 2024 Olympic Games. As the interviewees pointed out, the idea of including competitive aspects in parkour has provoked controversial opinions among traceurs. Some of them have been concerned about the possible loss of parkour’s original ideas of creativity, while others have been interested in developing parkour as a sport. The line between lifestyle sports and traditional sports has been blurred as the above-described changes have shown. The inclusion of lifestyle sports in the Olympic Games can be ‘regarded as the symbol of mainstream sport’ (van Bottenburg & Salome, 2010, p. 152) and the discussion of parkour as a possible Olympic sport in the future can be seen as a sign of this development. It will be interesting to see how sportization will change the relationships that traceurs have with the spaces where they practise, and how the creative and playful attitude in parkour could be retained if competitions become more popular.

Changes in seasoned traceurs’ own practice

Next, I will explore the ways in which professionalization has changed traceurs’ own practice. Even when lifestyle sports differ from traditional sports on the grounds of their different values and distinctive subcultures, the clear divide between these two has begun to blur during the undergoing processes of institutionalization and sportization, as I have already shown. The quick global expansion of parkour has enhanced its institutionalization in different countries. Sterchele and Camoletto (2017), in their study on the institutionalization of parkour in Italy, explored controversial ideas of authenticity in the process whereby coaching qualifications for parkour have been introduced. At the same time as some Italian parkour pioneers were fighting against the commodification of parkour, they contributed to the formalization of its coaching standards and thus enhanced the professionalization of the discipline; some began to work as professional parkour instructors, and hence they participated in the commercialization process themselves (Sterchele & Camoletto, 2017, p. 96).

I was interested in exploring traceurs’ thoughts about the role of parkour in their lives. The question of authenticity was one of the issues that was considered in the interviews. Some of the participants saw a clear difference between the ‘original’ parkour and the one that was now taught on special courses:

There is only a small percentage of traceurs who practise like the older generation did … parkour is now more ‘in the box’; it is not such a philosophical art of movement anymore; now people are training for other reasons, not just for themselves … for competition, money, reputation, attention, social media exposure. (P5)

When we began to practise parkour, it was always present [in our lives]. Therefore, it was more like a way of living for many, more than just a hobby. I think that this kind of idea has not been transferred to the new generations … The focus has shifted more to a hobby attitude. (P3)

All the participants had a long history of parkour; hence, they were ready to describe the changes that they could identify in their own relationship with the discipline. They also compared the role of parkour in beginners’ lives to their own generation’s experience. The way parkour training is started has undergone a remarkable change during the last two decades. When the pioneering traceurs began to imitate moves that they had seen in the first documentaries and thus got into the foundational ideas of parkour through their own practice, there were no organized courses available. Now, many of the new practitioners have seen tutorials and amazing tricks in various parkour videos on YouTube before their first real connection with the discipline; this may give them a distorted image, as P3 explained:

When I started, there was no YouTube, it was like a friend told me that he had heard about a move, which could look something like this … Then you had to think about it by yourself … Now when you go to YouTube and type in ‘parkour’, you get all the tutorials. In a way, the threshold to get into the discipline has become lower … Earlier, when you had to find out these things by yourself, it created a sort of respect towards it. (P3)

Participants were ready to reflect on their own relationship with parkour and its role as a way of life or a profession. For them, parkour had been more than a hobby from the beginning, but for some, its meaning had changed over the years:

It’s still very important, in both everyday movements, and always when I take a walk … And at the philosophical level, too. (P1)

Quite a few people, like me, found some original feelings in it; it was very much like a lifestyle sport: all thoughts and life revolved around it so much … Parkour is still a hobby, but it has also become a profession for me. (P7)

In the interview, P5 expressed his concern about the possible loss of authenticity. Newcomers gained their first impressions of parkour via mediated images and then began their familiarization with the discipline on organized courses, normally indoors. This differed sharply from the earlier version of parkour in which practice began from imitation, repeated trialling, and interaction with the physical environment. As Camoletto et al. (2015) have mentioned, parkour has previously been understood as ‘an unstructured and culturally innovative practice’. Due to the increase in its global popularity, the need to explain its essence has increased and, as Stapleton and Terrio (2010) have noted, some efforts to standardize its terminology and techniques have been observed. Several handbooks (see e.g. Edwardes, 2009; Fury, 2014; Pihlaja & Junttila, 2012) and a countless number of parkour tutorials on YouTube have been published.

For many of the participants, parkour has become a profession over the years. For example, P8 began to work at the Parkour Academy in 2009 and now works full-time, 40 hours per week, as a professional. In addition to these working hours, he spends 10 to 15 hours per week on his own physical training. He said that despite the large amount of time that parkour takes up in his ‘middle-aged life’, he is still motivated to do it: ‘Adventures feel like luxuries nowadays.’ He explained how he had recently explored a new residential area and really enjoyed it.

P2 was also one of the parkour professionals, working 30 hours a week at the Parkour Academy. In addition, he spent 1.5 to 2 hours practising parkour outdoors, two to three times a week. Despite the status of parkour as work, he mentioned that it was still possible to find new excitement in the discipline:

I wouldn’t say something has been lost; it can sometimes just be hidden. For example, now that I haven’t had any groups to coach [because of the COVID-19 pandemic], my own parkour training has felt really inspiring. (P2)

Participants revealed diverse opinions on the observed changes: some longed for the earlier days of parkour with its free and non-institutionalized forms. For them, the popularity and institutionalization of parkour had begun to threaten its authenticity. However, some had more positive attitudes towards its recent developments: P4, for example, argued that ‘You should understand that sports are developing, changing, being exposed to different influences; it does not have to stay as it was in France in the 1980s’.

Traceurs’ relationships with urban spaces have changed during the process of the professionalization of their discipline. Many seasoned traceurs have become parkour professionals working as part-time or full-time coaches, with some of them also owning their organizations. Traceurs’ own practice in their free time has duly diminished: when parkour has turned out to be a job, urban exploration has become a luxury for them, as P8 described. There were differences in the ways that traceurs highlighted philosophical and experiential attitudes towards their discipline: for some (P1 and P5), parkour was still a way of life, while others regarded it more as their profession. For newcomers to the discipline, organized indoor courses have made parkour a hobby that has a certain structure, practised at a certain time of the day in controlled spaces. This element will be explored in the next section.

Indoor facilities and parkour parks blurring the boundaries of tight and loose spaces

Van Bottenburg and Salome (2010) have written about the ‘indoorisation of outdoor sports’, referring to many lifestyle and extreme sports that were originally practised in outdoor settings, but which can now be practised in safe and controlled indoor spaces. They highlight some differences in outdoor and indoor versions of the same sports; while the outdoor sports are often characterized by adventure and creative use of the environment, the indoor versions are practised in commercial spaces at certain times, obeying the guidelines and rules defined by the proprietors, not the wishes of the practitioners themselves. Practising lifestyle sports in indoor settings can thus be marketed as being both exciting and safe (van Bottenburg & Salome, 2010, p. 151). These two sides – excitement and safety – can also be seen in parkour when it is practised outdoors or in specially organized indoor facilities.

The question of the authenticity of lifestyle sports that are practised indoors has previously been explored from the perspective of commercial initiatives (see Salome, 2010), but it can also be studied from the practitioners’ perspective. Some traceurs favour indoor facilities, while others are willing to emphasize the original ideas of their sport practised in outdoor settings. In the interviews for this study, differences between seasoned traceurs and newcomers were easily identified:

Of course, there’s a difference between the so-called hard-core or old generation parkour population and those who attend some organised courses. Somehow, it [parkour] is adaptable so that it can be practised in many ways and places. (P7)

Originally, parkour was developed in outdoor surroundings without any manipulation of the locations in which it was practised; traceurs adapted their movements to the requirements of physical spaces during their practice, duly using the space creatively. When their action was accepted, parkour could loosen the urban space in question. I was interested in determining whether the indoorisation process had changed experienced traceurs’ attitude towards different spaces.

Different opinions were expressed in the interviews. For example, P1 said that he seldom trained or taught parkour indoors; for him, outdoor locations offered more opportunities and fed his imagination. However, other traceurs had more positive views on indoor practice: for instance, P6 had coached on courses indoors where it was possible to try more demanding tricks that people would not be brave enough to try outdoors. P3 explained these differences in more detail:

When there are 15 to 20 children in a group, the indoor space is better … Outdoor locations are a bit challenging for that kind of group … The bad side is the fear that there may be a generation growing up in parkour – the same kind of generation as there is in climbing when there are indoor places for bouldering and such – a whole generation that has never been climbing outdoors where the sport originated. I went to train outdoors with a couple of people from my coaching course, and it was easy to see that they were not used to it; they had the idea that parkour was more of an indoor sport. Now, we’ve been questioning whether we’re doing parkour a disservice or what. (P3)

For the experienced traceurs, indoor practice was often seen as a perfect way to try some demanding tricks and build muscular strength, after which the same movements could be tried in non-planned locations. For instance, P2 suggested that it was possible to remodel the indoor rehearsal spaces to facilitate practising long swings that would not be possible elsewhere. The same kind of observation about the positive elements in indoor practice has been made by Strafford et al. (2021) in their study on traceurs’ ideas of ideal training environments. In their research, the opportunity to manipulate training spaces that are constructed from modules was also appreciated. P8 mentioned that some skills, such as certain hanging movements, had improved due to practising in a parkour gym. After some indoor training, they could then apply the same strategies outdoors.

Although positive sides of indoor practice were acknowledged, more hesitant opinions were also expressed. P5 mentioned that indoor practice could kill the creativity of parkour, and the way in which traceurs transformed ‘mundane obstacles’ into opportunities (Højbjerre Larsen, 2021). The idea of spaces that can be modified turns the original idea of parkour upside down: whereas earlier traceurs adapted their movements to the requirements of the physical spaces, the rehearsal spaces are now adjusted to the needs of certain movements. P7 explained that the role of urban spaces had changed: ‘Traceurs have always been fascinated by urban exploration and searching for new places for training. Nowadays, it doesn’t play such a big role anymore’ (P7). The same phenomenon has also been identified by Højbjerre Larsen (2022, p. 409) in her study on Danish traceurs: all her interviewees mentioned how the popularity of indoor facilities had changed the essence of parkour, which some traceurs found positive, and others negative.

Another significant element in the change in parkour has been the opening of outdoor locations specifically designed for traceurs. The first Finnish parkour park was opened in Jyväskylä in 2009. The planning of the park began with an initiative by the city planners, but the Finnish Parkour Association along with local traceurs were also asked to participate in the planning process (Ameel & Tani, 2012b).

In the interviews, parkour parks aroused diverse opinions and talking points. For example, P4 discussed the possible threats that the parks could pose for parkour:

And then I see there’s also a risk that people who don’t know parkour can start to think okay, can you now leave our public space and go to practise parkour in your parkour parks. The park is [designed] for you to practise there, so that you don’t have to practise here, in other parts of the city. I haven’t encountered this attitude, but that kind of risk is possible. (P4)

Commercial companies that have previously designed playgrounds for children have initiated plans for parkour parks and special equipment that can be applied in parkour practice. Many parks have been designed in collaboration with these companies and active traceurs. One of the largest companies manufacturing playground and sport park equipment worldwide, the Finnish Lappset Group, works with professional traceurs from the Parkour Academy. P3 and P6 were critical of parkour parks, however, describing some problems that they had observed or considered that could possibly be encountered when practising parkour in the parks:

Lappset is convenient because they have ready-made products. But when you’ve seen one [of their parks], you don’t have to go to the others because they’re all so similar. (P3)

I’ve been disappointed with the Lappset parks: … all so similar and superficial, and when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all … They’re often used by children and that’s why traceurs don’t want to go there because they could demonstrate some movements that could be too dangerous for the kids. (P6)

Many traceurs thought that the positive side of the parks was their ability to offer features that were not easily found in the urban environment. For example, high bars that could be used for training swings were often constructed in the parks. However, P4 pointed out that there was a risk that traceurs in the parks would not acquire ‘parkour vision’ (Lamb, 2014) or ‘parkour eyes’ (Ameel & Tani, 2012a):

I think there’s a risk in parkour parks that people will get stuck there somehow, just practising in parkour parks and gyms … so maybe [parkour] will become poorer then… it could mean that one’s so-called parkour eyes will not be opened. (P4)

While some of the participants took quite a negative attitude towards parkour parks, there were others who had experience in planning them with commercial companies. P8 described the collaboration between the Parkour Academy and Lappset that had existed since 2009 when there were no special safety standards for parkour equipment. The first safety standard for parkour was launched in the United Kingdom in 2013. The European standard was developed in 2016 and published in January 2017 (Sports and recreational equipment, 2017). In 2016, Finland also received its official standard. The European standard shows how the regulations are justified by safety issues. Lappset and other companies manufacturing parkour equipment for commercial use must follow these standards. Such regulatory practices are examples of how the institutionalization and sportization of lifestyle sports, parkour included, have combined safety issues with the original ideas of freedom and excitement embraced by these sports. These safety regulations have begun to change the essence of parkour in a way that has been identified earlier in many other lifestyle sports (e.g. van Bottenburg & Salome, 2010).

P8 reported that the collaboration with Lappset had been intensive. Based on feedback from the parkour community, the company had launched new parkour equipment in 2019. For P8 and some other seasoned traceurs at the Parkour Academy, it had been possible to influence the design to optimize practising certain movements with the new equipment. When asked about Lappset’s possible monopoly, P8 said that there was no official monopoly but no actual competition either. He described how the role of the traceurs in the actual design has now been acknowledged. In 2019, Lappset decided to call their new parkour products ‘Dash Parkour’, giving some credit to their collaborators: ‘The Concept of Dash’ (referring to the dash vault in parkour) was the name used by the group of early traceurs in Jyväskylä before the establishment of the Parkour Academy. Now Lappset emphasizes the role of traceurs in their product development:

The look of Dash Parkour is appealing and street credible also among parkour traceurs: Dash Parkour inspires people to move. The equipment provides something for all levels of practitioners and situations: there are many different angles, different types of surfaces to jump, land and balance … The parkour professionals behind the product line are able to reflect all the needs of different levels from children to grownups and beginners to professionals in the product line. (Lappset, 2019)

Interviewees P5 and P3, representing the Parkour Centre, had also participated in park planning but not in collaboration with Lappset. They were ready to criticize earlier parks because of the materials used. They highlighted the importance of natural materials in the parks that they had planned. P3 was ready to talk about his controversial role as a critic but also as one of the actors in the business:

This is a kind of funny contradiction; I think that parkour is at its best when it doesn’t cost anything, and you do it yourself. So, in some ways, although I run these activities myself, I still think that commercialism doesn’t really fit in. Something will be lost then. In those parks in particular, there’s a problem when some city authority that doesn’t know the discipline orders the park. Then you just look at the equipment in the brochure and consider what you can manage to have in this area, and then choose something that suits the budget. But the parks will all be so similar then, and the point will be lost. (P3)

As the interview extracts show, seasoned traceurs saw both positive and negative elements in the planned parkour parks. The same mixed feelings were expressed when other elements of the institutionalization and professionalization of parkour were discussed.

Conclusion

Parkour has undergone major changes since its global spread. From its original idea of free and creative movement across outdoor spaces, it has become a sport with commercial courses, specially planned parks, and commercialized competitions. Institutionalization has changed the essence of parkour for many practitioners: for beginners, the first encounter with parkour is most often via its various media representations and YouTube videos, in which amazing tricks and seemingly easy-looking movements create an alluring image. For those who began their parkour practice during its early years, there were no tutorials available; instead, they began by copying the moves that they had seen in the first videos of the French pioneers. Experienced traceurs who participated in this research were ready to talk about these changes and their own relationship with parkour in its present form.

An analysis of specially planned spaces from the perspectives of tight and loose spaces revealed the multifaceted aspects of parkour. One of the most obvious outcomes of institutionalization is the diminished role of outdoor practice for traceurs. While parkour was originally based on traceurs’ embodied connection with the immediate environment, for the new parkour practitioners, outdoor environments are often unfamiliar spaces where they may feel insecure. The popularity of indoor facilities has changed the role of urban space for many of them; parkour has turned into a hobby that has a certain structure, time, and space. However, the idea of the playful use of urban surroundings is still alive for those seasoned traceurs who started to practise parkour by themselves, without any organized courses or online tutorials. As some of them explained, they still found some excitement in exploring new spaces in their daily lives. While they were ready to highlight the foundational ideas of parkour, they were also concerned about the possibility that newcomers would not necessarily acquire ‘parkour vision’ if they only practised in modifiable spaces in gyms. The same notion can also be connected to the specially-planned parkour parks – spaces that are constructed for parkour, not for exploring urban spaces and their affordances.

In parkour parks, safety regulations such as soft surfaces have made practising safer, whereas risks were an integral part of the earlier version of parkour. When traceurs practised in urban spaces, they had to familiarize themselves with their training spots, and through repeated movements, they constructed their personal bond with the space. Indoor spaces and parkour parks reduced their fear of possible injury.

The status of indoor facilities and parkour parks can be compared with the development in the skateboarding culture. For example, Chiu (2009) has shown that skateparks and street skating have different roles and purposes for the skaters: while the specially planned parks offer them the freedom to skate without any risk of being chased from the location by passers-by, on streets they must negotiate their right to use the space with other urban dwellers. Despite the possible problems that street skaters may face, they still appropriate streets in which they can explore their surroundings and use different locations creatively for their movements. Chiu (ibid.) has shown how both parks and streets have their place in skateboarding culture. The same can be seen in parkour culture: parkour parks and indoor rehearsal spaces have obvious advantages, but they are not regarded as a replacement for practice in non-planned settings.

Due to the increased popularity of indoor facilities, parkour’s visibility in public spaces has diminished, which has decreased encounters between traceurs and other users of the same spaces. This may have led to the decreased need to negotiate traceurs’ right to use public spaces in creative ways. In the interviews, many seasoned traceurs identified several contradictory elements caused by the institutionalization and professionalization of parkour: some of them longed for the past and tried to follow the original principles of parkour, while others thought that the observed changes were natural phases in the development of the discipline.

As Thorpe and Wheaton (2013, p. 349; see also Griggs, 2009) have mentioned, ‘[c]ontemporary action sports cultures are complex, multidimensional, and in a constant state of change and flux’, which is also the situation in parkour. Until the late 1990s, most of the youth subcultures were considered fields of symbolic resistance to mainstream culture. This was also the case in early studies on the commercialization of action or lifestyle sports: commercial aspects were often interpreted as mainly negative (Thorpe & Wheaton, 2013, p. 345), threatening the authenticity of these lifestyle sports. Since then, the sharp juxtaposition of ‘authentic’ and commercial dimensions of these disciplines has been questioned.

There is a long tradition of research on lifestyle sports and their commercialization. Most of these studies have concentrated on snowboarding, skateboarding, windsurfing, and BMX, and most often on the commercial organization of sports activities and the question of competitions (e.g. Thorpe & Wheaton, 2011). In the field of parkour research, there are few studies on the commercial aspects of the discipline. Researchers on parkour are also still relatively rare among sport geographers but based on the obvious links to spatial elements that parkour has, more geographical studies would be welcome (literature reviews on sport geography, see e.g. Andrews, 2017; Palmer, 2010).

Compared to all the other lifestyle sports mentioned here, parkour is special because no equipment is used; thus, the traceur is exclusively connected with the environment through their body. This, together with the idea of parkour as a creative and free lifestyle sport, offers an interesting field for future research. The professionalization of parkour has, however, decreased its visibility in everyday surroundings, which has likewise decreased its potential to loosen urban spaces, and to make spaces more tolerant towards different people and different ways of being.

Acknowledgments

I want to sincerely thank all the interviewees for sharing their experiences and ideas on parkour. My special thanks go to Lieven Ameel for our research collaboration on parkour over the years. Thank you also to the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their help in improving the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.