Lauren Stokes takes a deep breath. Her brown shoulder-length hair twists in the cold San Francisco breeze. Clad in a grey long-sleeve shirt, matching pants and worn out Nikes, she stands on the terrace railing on the top level of a parking garage at the corner of First and Mission Streets.

She waves both arms, struggling to gain balance, but eventually holds her position. She takes a second deep breath and instantly leaps, landing on another railing five feet across from where she started. She flails her arms out and adjusts her feet to regain balance on the rail but then quickly jumps off again. She does this five more times.

Slightly fatigued, she leans over, resting her arms on the railing. She looks up as a large middle-aged man with a Chris Mullen-esque haircut, wearing a black suit and carrying a walkie-talkie, strolls past. He looks suspiciously at Stokes. Since he hasn’t seen her do anything wrong, he says nothing and continues to walk toward the corner stairwell. If he had come two minutes earlier, he would have seen Stokes practicing the art of parkour.

Parkour—which derives from the French word parcour, meaning journey, route, or course—is the art, disciple, and philosophy of using the body’s strength and faculties to overcome obstacles. Its core ideal is getting from point-A to point-B in the most efficient way possible. Traceurs, who are practitioners of parkour, always leap, climb, roll, and crawl through obstacles—they never go around them.

Clear of distractions, this young traceur hurdles onto a six-foot high ledge and takes three deep breaths. She grunts and leaps onto a wall, grabbing the railing and scratching her feet on its surface to help pull herself up. Again, she stands tall on the ledge but before she can take the next leap, the suspicious security guard returns.

“You can’t be on the ledge,” he says. Stokes leaps towards him, giving the guard an uneasy stare. “Can I least sign a waiver?” she asks sarcastically. “No,” he states emphatically, clearly annoyed. “There are liability issues with what you are doing.”

To ensure Stokes doesn’t attempt another move, he sits in a nearby chair and waits for her to leave. She is extremely disappointed that she has to depart the rooftop terrace as she is eager to get in two hours of training. Instead, she only had forty-five minutes. Within days, Stokes, a twenty-five-year-old Noe Valley resident, will travel to London to train with a group of elite traceurs. Since she works two jobs, she rarely finds time to practice; this was a perfect opportunity to prepare before leaving the country. Chances are, the security guard doesn’t know what she was doing or why. But he is not alone.

For the most part, parkour remains an enigma in the United States. However, this relatively underground culture, which started in France nearly twenty years ago, is slowly gaining recognition with traceurs appearing in K-Swiss commercials and movies. Parkour communities are starting to form all over the country, like the one in San Francisco called SF Parkour (SFPK). Yet there is a common misconception that parkour is only about reckless jumping. Stokes seeks to change that fallacy and alter the face of parkour.

“I want to help people have a better understanding and build a solid foundation [for parkour],” she explains. “I want it to evolve.”

Eventually, Stokes hopes that people will recognize parkour for what it is—an art, a discipline, and a philosophy. But most importantly, Stokes wants parkour to grow. She cannot do this alone. She will need the aid of her fellow traceurs to expand parkour, which is why she will continue her training in London, where she will work with superlative practitioners—Tracey Tiltman, Dan Edwardes, Stephane Vigroux, and Forrest—and learn more about how to spread the culture.

Stokes studied nutrition at Baiko University in Japan where Hudson Murrell, her college professor, introduced her to parkour. She was playing Ultimate Frisbee when Murrell approached her about a discipline he had been practicing. He encouraged Stokes to look into it.

Later that evening, Stokes watched Jump London, a documentary that follows three respected traceurs—Sebastian Foucan, Jerome Ben Aoues, and Johann Vigroux—as they free-run throughout London. Instantly, Stokes was drawn to the culture of parkour. The next day, she tried some moves. Fortunately, Dan Edwardes, a teacher at Parkour Generations, a London-based group that teaches parkour, was looking for female practitioners. Stokes was the ideal candidate. She sent him footage of her practices and they soon connected and began to train.

“She was very enthusiastic about the discipline. The fact she was willing to drop everything and come to the UK for six months to train with people she had never met told us that she was passionate [about parkour],” says Edwardes. “Lauren was a very determined person and one who likes to act and make things happen—all good traits for someone wanting to learn parkour.”

When Stokes informed her family about her new-found venture, they were confused but supportive.
“It’s great. I love it. It’s good to see that she is dedicated and passionate about something. I am all about it,” says Stokes’ younger sister Audrey. Her dad, Joe Stokes, says he is behind his daughter’s “quest for spirituality” through parkour.

So far, her journey has been difficult. Spanning a two-year period, Stokes has journeyed to London to train with the best enthusiasts but has always had a short stay. In October 2006, she made her first trip to the UK to train with Edwardes. Upon her arrival at the airport, she was detained by immigration because they learned she was staying with someone she had never met; the trip lasted three days. In 2007, Stokes was able to stay in London for six months where she ate, slept, and breathed parkour training from morning until night five days a week. But her traveler’s Visa eventually expired. She returned to Texas, her home state, and later moved to San Francisco in September 2007 to be with her sister.

Stokes’ constant trips overseas demonstrate how dedicated she is to the parkour discipline. Within the twenty-four months of traveling back and forth from the UK to the U.S. she sacrificed the stability of a job and a home, and she was unable to see her family and friends. “Man, all the things I do for parkour,” she laughs.
But it’s clear that it has all been worth it.

“I love the way it makes me feel. I love the exercise and health aspect,” she explains. “You see an obstacle, you figure out how to get around it. Parkour helps with everyday life.”

Since parkour demands much physical activity, Stokes says it is the best way to stay in shape. Moreover, it is the best way for women “to lose weight after child birth,” she jokes. Parkour has also taught her things about herself.

“It’s the philosophy of life. It helps me deal with life,” she says. “It helps teach me about patience.”

She learned these valuable lessons from Edwardes, Tiltman, and the rest of Parkour Generations, who she considers “the best of the best.” In order for Stokes to spread the parkour culture, she says she will need to “observe the way they teach.” These elite traceurs will teach Stokes how to become a leader in the PK community and give her the confidence that she needs to help it grow when she returns to the United States. She feels she can do this because she “has a positive mental attitude.”

Stokes is uncertain when she will return to the United States with new profound methods of parkour. With the training she will receive and her overall confidence, it is without question that she can be a pioneer for not only female practitioners but for enthusiasts everywhere. But for now, she is still Lauren Stokes, the student. Maybe one year from now, she will be known as Lauren Stokes, the teacher.