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An American Parkour Pioneer

Mark Toorock was a self-described 'spaz' when he was growing up. But the D.C. resident has since learned to transform his energy into a passion for practicing and teaching Parkour.

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After watching the video, Toorock and his friends went out to give it a try. In retrospect, Toorock says, they're lucky they didn't kill themselves.

"Like a lot of people who get interested in parkour, we had no idea what were supposed to do," says Toorock, who in his early experimenting suffered only a few twisted ankles and nasty scrapes. "It was just ridiculous. Picture a bunch of guys running around like idiots, trying to jump off of the highest things they could find. We didn't have the tools, the training or the knowledge to do it safely, and we didn't have any idea what we were supposed to do to get from where we were to what David Belle was doing. Without any guidance, we were just making it up as we went. It wasn't until we met S¿bastien Foucan that we finally got some useful training."

Along with Belle, St¿ve Harrison and Stephane Vigroux, Foucan was one of the creators of parkour and its offshoot, "freerunning," more than 18 years ago in Lisses, France. Parkour, as practiced by Belle, is a purist's pursuit: Point A to Point B, as expediently as possible. Freerunning is its more playful, flashier form -- Point A to Point B, with as much dramatic flair as possible -- and Foucan is its chief stylist. Foucan was responsible for the first wave of mainstream exposure for the sports in the United States in 2002 with his "Angry Chicken" ad for Nike -- which featured him scrambling over buildings to avoid a perturbed bird -- and, later, as a performer in a music video for Madonna. He is credited with coining the term freerunning and has been the most recognizable face of the activity internationally.

Foucan says that parkour and free-running initially grew out of the childish ninja and superhero games he and his friends, including Belle, invented on school playgrounds and around their town but that they have evolved into a discipline as focused as any martial art. Foucan's philosophy about his training activities helped form the basis for Toorock's approach to parkour instruction and his efforts to build a parkour community in the United States.

"The traits you display in life are the same traits you display in freerunning," says Foucan, in a voice-over for the documentary "Jump London." "The doubts and fears you have in everyday life are the same you find in the discipline. In everyday life, though, they can be more difficult to combat. Freerunning is a way of fighting one's fears and demons, and then one can apply this to life."

Toorock took the lesson seriously: Seeing Belle in action made him realize how little of his physical potential he had been using. Meeting Foucan at a parkour jam in London helped him see that he hadn't been using his head, either.

"In the beginning, I really didn't see the depth of it or what it could be," says Toorock. "But when you get around these guys and see that they are playful, physical, philosophical and incredibly disciplined about everything they do, you start to get a better idea about how to treat this machine the way it's meant to be treated."

AS TOOROCK PROGRESSED IN HIS TRAINING, he became increasingly aware of the physical and psychological benefits -- and of the business potential in parkour. By day, he was working for a stock brokerage firm, always on the lookout for the next big thing. Outside of work, as he began to approach superhuman feats in his own runs around the city, he realized he might have already found it. So he left a career he'd begun to hate to take a shot at opening a gym back in the United States, with the aim of bringing the underground French sport into the American mainstream.

"From the beginning, I realized it could be lucrative," says Toorock. "In parkour, you have a dramatic and visually stunning sport that requires no equipment, that essentially replicates the experience of playing on a playground and that combines the best workout elements of running, jumping and climbing. I figured if I could make a lot of money by helping a lot of people get fit and have a lot of fun, I'd be a very happy man." In addition to his efforts at Primal Fitness and creating the Web site AmericanParkour.com, he has pulled together a national team of traceurs called the Tribe to help spread the concept of parkour. He serves as de facto agent, manager and promoter for the 10 athletes leading the Tribe.

Parkour is huge in France and London, where it started, and is catching on in urban areas in the United States, such as Chicago, New York, Washington and Phoenix. Toorock might very well be the most accomplished traceur in America. Still, when the producers of "Survivor: China" came looking for someone with a parkour background to add to their tribe on this season's installment of the reality TV series, Toorock directed them to Michael "Frosti" Zernow, 20, a freerunner from Chicago, instead of offering himself.

"I'm not trying to fade into the background; I'm trying to push everyone into the foreground, myself included," says Toorock.

"There are some people in parkour who have called me a sellout because I relate business to it at all. They see me as a businessman who is in it for the money, and they say they just want it to be free. Well, that's all true and correct. Parkour is free, and it always will be. You can do it on any street corner. But it's also true that parkour is marketable, it's extremely hot right now, and I personally have an interest in seeing it get as big as it can possibly get while remaining true to its origins."