by Heather McGraw, contributing writer

On a dark night, Dan Solon hangs from an eight-foot high railing and is ready to jump.

Solon is getting ready to do a “lache,” one of the many trick moves involved in parkour—an exercise craze that became popular in the U.S. through YouTube exposure.

A fast-paced workout technique where practitioners run up walls, jump over railings and balance on ledges, parkour has simple, basic moves for beginners, but those with more experience have the skills necessary to practice their art form in parks and urban areas.

Nine years ago, Columbia alumnus Ryan Cousins, 24, learned of parkour.

“Parkour is the efficiency of movement and using your body to overcome obstacles in your environment—whether that be urban or rural—in the fastest and most effective manner,” said Cousins, who currently lives in Los Angeles and works for Nickelodeon Studios.

Parkour is also sometimes called free running, based on one’s ability to move quickly and effortlessly past any infrastructure in his or her path, according to Cousins.

“For example, I might run up a wall … then jump from the top, land on the ground and go into a roll and then proceed to either a vault or an underbar through a railing,” Cousins said.

According to Parkour-Online.com, David Belle and Sébastien Foucan—who are considered the parkour founders—started practicing the movements in France in the 1980s based on the philosophy of Georges Hébert’s “Natural Method.”

When Cousins first became interested, there were no organized parkour groups in the U.S. The activity was still exclusive to France and the United Kingdom.

“Basically, we just got together and created our own group called Aero,” Cousins said.

Cousins, his brother Andy and a friend, Matt Norton, 25, of Chicago—also a Columbia graduate—started as a group of three that grew to 200. They also started a website for the group, ChicagoParkour.com, which currently has 1,342 members, 286 of whom are active.

“There was no one to teach us in the U.S., so we just had to create our own movements and teach ourselves,” Cousins said.

Once the Cousins brothers taught themselves, they realized there was no one to mentor any other kids who had an interest in parkour.

“Over time, someone had to step up and help out the community

with the basics and teaching younger kids,” Cousins said. “Me and my brother and a lot of the other leaders of Aero stepped in and started teaching basic movements and techniques to everyone in Chicago Parkour.”

One of the younger kids, freshman Deandre Washington, 19, discovered parkour through the video game

“Mirror’s Edge,” which focuses on a group of outlaws specializing in parkour skills.

“I started because of the game, but I kept doing it because of the people I met,” said Washington, who attends weekly parkour sessions in Berwyn, Ill.

Solon, 20, of West Chicago, also meets with the group.

“My upper-body strength doubled since I started parkour,” Solon said. “It’s a great workout.  But beyond its physical properties, a lot of it is about the people.”

Cousins said those involved in gymnastics or martial arts usually have the easiest time picking up the techniques, but parkour can be for anyone.

“In general, practitioners of parkour come from all backgrounds and you really can’t say one group is better then the other,” Cousins said.

With warmer weather on its way out, weekly outdoor parkour sessions are being scaled back, but the Chicago Parkour website still offers lists of area parkour practitioners along with local gyms and

weekend sessions.

“When dealing with problems in life there’s always more than one route to overcome them,” Cousins said.

“Parkour will teach you this physically and mentally.”