He’s not as energetic as the parkour baby goat, but he covers more ground. Your move, Buttermilk.

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Parkour — the style of movement seen in chase scenes Casino Royale, The Incredible Hulk, and Live Free or Die Hard — officially got its start by David Belle in the mid-90s, with inspiration from French military and rescue training.  But this clip from 1977′s Gizmo! (via Kottke) shows footage from the 1930s that indicates David Belle is a big French plagiarist.

In a related bit of news, I found this section from Parkour’s Wikipedia page enlightening, yet unsurprising:

According to Belle, “the physical aspect of parkour is getting over all the obstacles in your path as you would in an emergency…” Thus, when faced with a hostile confrontation with a person, one will be able to speak, fight, or flee. As martial arts are a form of training for the fight, parkour is a form of training for the flight.

In other words, the French actually created an entire discipline dedicated to finding the most efficient method to run away.  Stereotypes are awesome.

If the guys at Fan IQ know what they're talking about — and it's possible they do — then Damien Walters, the guy in this video, is a British gymnast.  But as we all know, gymnastics is super-gay, which is why God invented parkour, which is fucking sweet.  I like parkour because (a) it looks cool when people do it well, and (b) it's hilarious when tools try to copy the moves and land on their faces.

And Walters does parkour very, very well.  It's not often I post video of someone just being awesome, because who wants to watch another home movie of me?  But this is a pretty worthwhile exception.

I'm an unabashed fan of parkour (which I still prefer to call "free running" because it sounds less French).  It's that rare phenomenon that's impressive as hell to watch because of the athleticism required and the inherent danger.  Also, because it looks so cool, people who don't have the athleticism or grasp the danger love to attempt parkour stunts.  And, thankfully, they make sure their friends film them trying it.

Like this guy, for example.  For this clip, I have to turn to the wise words of YouTube commenter Shurikens16:

jajajajajajajajajaja dios no paro de reirme jajajajajaajaja se ha tirado y le ha dado en todos los huevos jajajajajajaja MUY BUENO EL VIDEO

Yes, muy bueno el video.  Muy bueno el video, indeed.

I freely admit that I'm a fan of parkour, also known as free running.  Any sport that has disdain for things like gravity, danger, and man-made structures is all right in my book, especially if it results in sweet-ass videos like this.  Then there's the above video, which is also awesome, but for entirely different reasons.  And by "different reasons" I mean "smashed face." 

Let this be today's lesson: God hates people with visors. 

If you saw Casino Royale, you know that the best part of the movie besides the extremely sexy Daniel Craig Judi Dench Caterina Murino was the opening chase sequence where the bomb maker dude does all sorts of crazy shit to run away from Bond. Well, that guy is Sebastien Foucan, the sport is called free running, and there's a very long, very fucking sweet YouTube video of it (free running, not the Bond scene).

Seriously, this clip is worth your eight and a half minutes. It's the coolest thing I've seen all day. Which is saying a lot, because I've looked in the mirror at least three times. And one of those times I was wearing a fedora.

(You can see some more free running over at We Are The Postmen, if you're so inclined.)