The Associated Press has a “health news” article on the very cool sport/art of parkour, French ‘Urban Gymnastics’ Gaining Devotees:
The name means obstacle course in French and the goal of the sport’s traceurs, also known as freerunners, is to run, jump, vault or climb over obstacles in the most fluid manner possible.
Urban Freeflow describes parkour:
Parkour is very basically the art of movement where participants (otherwise known as ‘Free-runners’) use objects within their urban surroundings, to create new and interesting ways of moving. It encompasses running, jumping, vaulting and climbing to overcome these obstacles, where the ultimate aim is to do so in the most fluid and flowing way possible. For people unfamiliar to Parkour, the easiest picture to paint is to say that what we do is the closest you can get to the Matrix, Spiderman and Hong Kong martial arts movies in the sense of movement, but without the need for special FX or wires.