In 1902, a volcano in the Caribbean island of Martinique blew up. A French naval officer on the scene, Lt. George Hébert managed to coordinate the rescue of over 700 people. He noticed, as he did so, how people moved, some well, some badly, around the obstacles in their path, and how this affected their chances of survival. Hébert had travelled widely and was well aware of skills many indigenous people exhibited in being able to traverse the natural environment. From these experiences, Hébert developed a training discipline which he called ‘the natural method’ in which climbing, jumping and running techniques were used to negotiate obstacles. His method was adopted by the French military and became the basis for all their training. In time, it became known as parkour – parcours du combattant – the path of the warrior. Parkour involves a range of ‘moves,’ although none are official. They involve vaulting, jumping and landing accurately on small and narrow features, catching ledges, traversing high wall and landing with a rolling impact to absorb impacts. From the late 1990s, the art and sport of parkour spread worldwide. In 2003, filmmaker Mike Christie made the film Jump London, and urban freerunning, or freeflow, began to dominate the London scene. But it was the arrival of YouTube in 2005 that really brought freerunning to a global audience. People around the world began to post their videos online, making freerunning a mainstream sport, and in 2007, the first major freerunning and parkour competition was held in Vienna. Since parkour values freedom, there are few facilities dedicated to the practice. Parkour participants are also known as Traceurs and they use both rural and urban areas, typically parks, offices and abandoned buildings. Traceurs generally respect the environment they practice in, and since part of their philosophy is ‘leave no trace,’ there have been few concerns over damage to property. However, law enforcement and fire and rescue teams argue that freerunners are risking their lives needlessly, especially when they practice at height. However, practitioners argue that injuries are rare, because they rely on their own hands and feet rather than things out of their immediate control, such as ice and wheels, as is the case with skiing and race-driving.