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Free Running is an urban sport which originated from Parkour, the French term for the sport.

Free Running can be performed both outside or inside, in groups or alone.

Sébastien Foucan is the creator of the sport after finding that Parkour was too disciplined and lacked the creativity that he wanted. He describes Free Running as a, "Discipline to self development, following your own way."

There is a competitive side to the sport where one person sets a challenge which everyone else then tries to beat.

World Championship competitions also take place every year in London where Free Runners come from everywhere to compete to become world class.

Here in Warrington, there are two main Free Running teams, PKI (Parkour Instinct) and PKTwist (Parkour Twist). PKI was founded four years ago by Jordan Thain, Rupert Shankster and Christopher Porrino. This team is for Free Runners who are 15 years old or over. PKTwist has members aged between 12 and 14 years old and was founded by Declan Taylor, also four years ago. These two teams train together all over Warrington.

Some of the well known Free Running moves include Wall Scaling, where the Free Runner runs and climbs up the wall, the Kong, where they jump over a wall with only their hands touching it and flips. There are many different types of flips including back flips, side flips and star flips. A star flip is like a normal star jump but off a high level and turning upside down. Other tricks are a flash kick which is a bit like a cartwheel which lands on two legs facing the way the Free Runner came from.

Damien Walters, a Free Runner from Derby in the East Midlands of England, has been ranked 4th in the world at his best and has also won the World Championships with the Great Britain gymnastics tumbling team.
After uploading footage named, "Showreel 2007" onto the video sharing website, YouTube, he was spotted by Jackie Chan's stunt agent. Walters became the first non-Asian stuntman to join the agency, starting his career as a stuntman.
It has been reported that he began training in gymnastics at the age of 4 before becoming interested in Free Running. 25 years on and it is believed that he is training for up to 4 hours a day to stay at this high level.