Nivla Parkour
Parkour
Parkour is the discipline of moving through your environment as efficiently and confidently as you can — running, jumping, vaulting, climbing and landing your way past whatever is in front of you. It grew out of France in the 1980s and 90s, shaped by David Belle and the Yamakasi and rooted in Georges Hébert's "méthode naturelle" of natural movement. Today it is practised in cities and gyms all over the world.
Below is a plain-English guide to the moves you will hear about most, and how to start training them safely. Every move here lives in the Nivla Parkour trick library, where you can look up exactly what it is and track your progress from "not started" to "yes, I can".
The core parkour moves
Landing and rolling
The most important skill in parkour isn't jumping — it's landing. A soft, quiet landing and a parkour roll (a diagonal shoulder roll that spreads impact across the back) protect your knees and let you keep your momentum. Master these before anything with height.
Precision jumps
A precision jump is a standing or running jump that lands exactly on a target — a rail, a ledge, a wall top — and sticks it without a wobble. It builds the accuracy and control that everything else depends on.
Vaults
Vaults are how you clear obstacles with your hands. The essentials: the safety vault (one hand, one foot — the first vault most people learn), the lazy vault (sideways, low and smooth), the kong vault (diving hands-first and tucking your legs through), the dash vault (feet-first) and the speed vault for keeping pace over a rail.
Wall movement
The cat leap (or arm jump) is grabbing and hanging onto a wall edge after a jump. The wall run uses a foot plant to reach a high edge, and the tic tac bounces off a wall to change direction or clear a gap.
How to start parkour
You don't need a gym or any gear beyond a decent pair of trainers. A sensible order:
- Landings and rolls first. Practise landing softly from a low height and rolling out until it's second nature.
- Precisions on the ground. Jump to lines and low objects to build accuracy with zero risk.
- Basic vaults on low walls. Safety vault, then lazy and speed vault on something knee-to-waist high.
- Build strength gradually. Parkour is demanding on ankles, knees and wrists — progress slowly and rest.
- Train with others. A local group or a parkour gym is the fastest, safest way to improve.
The golden rule is progression: only add height, speed or difficulty once the version below it feels easy and repeatable. That's exactly how the Nivla Parkour app structures every trick — a clear path with checkpoints, so you always know the next safe step.
Explore the other disciplines
Parkour sits alongside two related movement arts in the Nivla library: tricking (flips, kicks and twists) and trampoline (freestyle flips and twists on the bounce). Many practitioners cross between all three.