David Belle?


I remember seeing a program on Channel 4 years ago about the Yamakasi. (The Parkour team Sebastien used to be in with David Belle) On Jump Britain last night there was no mention of David Belle. I did some research and found out that the two had fallen foul of each other. Does anybody know why this was. I mean Seb and David are credited as the creators of Parkour but there was absolutely no mention of Mr. Belle...

reply

Why mention David Belle in Jump Britain? He is indeed recognised as a 'co-founder' of Parkour but after Yamakasi and the BBC ident he has contributed absoluetly nothing to the development of Parkour in the UK. In this specific documentary it was deemed unnecessary to elaborate on this.

If you want to be pedantic, it seems unwise to credit any specific person as a 'creator' of Parkour (Sebastien himself has never said he founded or created it REF; Jump London, merely took in another direction) but neither did Jump Britain mention Jean Haberey and George Herbert, men with a rightful claim as the true pioneers of Parkour.

Jump Britain was NOT an excerise examing the history of Parkour, rather a study of its development in the UK. Nobody can argue that David Belles BBC ident was the spark and Jump London the flame.

PS: David Belle is currently working on some media projects of his own, which will be released this year.


reply

More like David Belle didn't sell out to UF and the "freestyle" parkour movement.

reply

... UF relized that "freestyle" parkour is just parkour with tricks added and realized, that they're a parkour group, that just do tricks on the side for fun (Which David Belle does as well), and moved back to normal Parkour (Freestlye parkour doesn't exist)

reply

no, they realised that freestyle parkour wasn't making them money.

reply

It doesn't matter if people are doing tricks or not doing tricks, obviously tricking is lots of fun and it looks good. it's the natural progression of all things, one does it until they are comfortable with every aspect and then they elaborate on it. in this instance the next obvious step to further enjoying what they were doing was adding tricking. Before all of you start talking about anyone selling out or betraying their roots, ask yourself what you would do in their position? you could A.)Keep on keepin' on, and live the life of the unsung master of your craft. or B.)Make a little scratch doing what you love, make a name for yourself and show the world what it is you love about it, and hopefully spread the joy.

reply

but why did they fall out?

reply

This is actually just meedia crap. Belle and Foucan remain good friends, but people say the opposite because they went in different phylosophic directions. Belle wanted to progress the phylosophy of going to point A to B as fast and as effective as possible, and tricks would only get in the way (He does them for fun). Foucan wanted to explore the freestyle possibilities. Both refuse to say that what THEY do is Parkour. Foucan's point of view has been given a new popular name, Freerunning. But Belle doesn't claim that doing tricks isn't Parkour. In Belle's point of view, Parkour is what you make of it and that's that. They're both probably laughing at the idiots that criticize other people for doing or not doing tricks.

And Belle wasn't mentioned in Jump London/Britain because it wasn't about the creation of the sport, but the development in the UK. Belle has nothing to do with that. If you wanba see Belle in action, I suggest District B13. It kicks butt.

Karsten Baumgartl
"Guddy"
Producer, Director and Editor of Vala Pictures
Sports Movies with art and insanity...

reply

I'm going to have to argue two things here.
First, David Belle did say tricks are not Parkour. If you can find the interview of him (located on www.parkour.net), he states that flips are not Parkour, although he does do them for fun.

Also, the thing that Jump London did that ticked me off, was say that Sebastian Foucan founded Parkour with his friends. They could have at least said, "...with his friends David Belle, Jerome, etc."

It's my other signature's job to keep punk rock elite

reply