Time for my sports discipline international book of favorite sports | Page 142

VIII.2 Parkour - history
Georges Hébert
In Western Europe, a forerunner of parkour was French naval officer Georges
Hébert, who before World War I promoted athletic skill based on the models of
indigenous tribes he had met in Africa. He noted, "their bodies were splendid,
flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring, and resistant but yet they had no other tutor
in gymnastics but their lives in nature." His rescue efforts during the 1902
eruption of Mount Pelée on Saint-Pierre, Martinique, reinforced his belief that
athletic skill must be combined with courage and altruism. Hébert became a
physical education tutor at the college of Reims in France. Hébert set up a
"méthode naturelle" (natural method) session consisting of ten fundamental
groups: walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, balancing,
throwing, lifting, self-defence, swimming. These were intended to develop "the
three main forces": energetic (willpower, courage, coolness, and firmness),
moral (benevolence, assistance, honour, and honesty) and physical (muscles and
breath). During World War I and World War II, teaching continued to expand,
becoming the standard system of French military education and training.
Inspired by Hébert, a Swiss architect developed a "parcours du combattant"—
military obstacle course—the first of the courses that are now standard in
military training and which led to the development of civilian fitness trails and
confidence courses.
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