Here is a short video of a stunt man that is being billed as a video of Georges Hebert, the French navy man who founded Methode Naturelle back in the early 20th century and originated parkour* (Perhaps Hebert was the original traceur). It’s a cool video, even though it’s not Hebert. The stunt man bounds up trees, walls, pipes, and makes any number of insane leaps into bodies of water.
There are two “tells” that this isn’t Hebert. The first is that the motto of Methode Naturelle was:
“Être fort pour être utile”–“Being strong to be useful.”
Carrying a kid up a parallel wall to show off — nifty, impressive, dangerous, but not really useful!
The second tell was really that I got told or tipped off by Erwan that this isn’t Hebert, and it really should have been obvious. In Erwan’s words:
I’ve noticed your link to the so-called Methode Naturelle founder. This is not AT ALL Georges Hebert, this is an old footage I think of a movie called Gizmo.
Hebert was born in 1875 and got badly injured (his right arm paralyzed) in 1914. There’s no video footage of him! The guy is a stuntman, pretty talented (the tree climbing is nice, but obviously sped up though). In any case, not Hebert, but a cool illustration of the practical side of natural movement, even though the kid carrying is I think not very smart, great skill, but if the guy had fell, the boy could have died just to show off…
Glad he told me even though I feel like a horse’s pa toot for being gullible enough to think it was Hebert (From my original post). Alas, still a neat video, and you gotta love the goofy old-time music:
H/T CF by Imperium
*Though you could argue that parkour originated with our innate nature as human beings who had to be strong to be useful.