Youth groups are battling to keep up with young people's demand for free running because of a lack of professional guidance.

This is the first I have heard of Parkour, Can some one out there give me an explanition of what it is and what the likely insurance risks may be. I run A youth Group in Redcar & Cleveland. This sounds as if there could be some health benefits for the teenagers?

The whole point of parkour is Freedom - no rules, no legislation, no health and safety, no training required - it is a natural expression of the individual to his/her environment. Once you start to formalise this you will lose it's appeal to the young.Some thought should be given to why it is so popular now when there is nothing to formal about it.

This article is confusing free running with parkour. The two have aesthetic similarities but are considerably different. For more information, see the following articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_running

there is a good website if you want to find out more about parkour and free running. www.urbanfreeflow.com the guys on here offer advice and come out and teach young people how to do the sport.

I do community work in Leeds and know of at least one group in Hyde Park who want to have an area for free running, the issue for authorities is the insurance and associated 'risk' of free style spontanious acrobatics yet this would render the scope of a project pretty useless in terms of appeal; it simply removes the dynamic of risk and freedom as mentioned below. I also looked at this 2 years ago in my old job (Notts) and was told it would be hard because of the insurance aspect. There are public open spaces which are classed as informal play which are not subject to the same insurance as play areas; could this be the answer we are looking for? An other option would be to set up a private club via committee which operates an open space and disclaims any insurance via conscent/sign up. Either way, free running is a fantastic way in which to put the risk back into play!

i completely agree with the comment on freedom and lack of rules

if anything, get the young people who run parkour in your area or nearby city to lead informal stuff with new young people. Avoiding formalisation is a good idea