No, I’ve not gone french now. “Le Parkour” is a french adrenaline sport that involves moving over and around obstacles in ways most people think the human body is not capable to (eg. jumping from great heights onto hard ground, running on walls, jump-diving through tight passages).
To get an impression, take this page of the “PARKOUR Österreich” (Parkour Austria) team explaining the basics: Basic Parkour Movements. Even if you don’t understand german, the animated gif movies will give you an impression what this is all about.
Well, to come to the point, watching some parkour videos I was immensely fascinated by the feats these “Traceurs” (the persons performing Parkour) could do. I know that jumps from 2 meters upwards are realistic since I’ve done that a lot as a child, much to the dismay of my parents. So I decided to begin learning parkour.
One of the worst things about living in a small village is that just about everyone seems to know you. Word would quickly spread you’ve gone crazy if people see you trying to jump off walls and attempting somersaults while running. But that’s not a problem as I go jogging through the local forest 3 or 4 times a week. Parkour originated from “La Méthode Naturelle”, which is basically parkour applied to nature instead of urban environments, so this should work out fine.
If you’ve ever been to a gym that is even remotely related to martial arts, you probably heard that being able to roll in order to deflect impact energy (or just so you don’t hit the ground hard with some part of your body) is of utmost importance. So I tried somersaulting inmidst of running on the soft forest floor. Funny how, becoming an adult, one can totally unlearned doing somersaults. The skin on my right shoulder blade has taken a healthy blue shade by now.
It was fun nevertheless and I’m definitely going to continue this. There also are lots of opportunities for practicing precision jumping and balancing. If I could manage to do a flip over a log or even a backflip against a tree trunk within the next few weeks that would be quite a feat I think 
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