History :

See also: Timeline of parkour

 Hébert's legacy

Main article: Georges Hébert

Before World War I, former naval officer Georges Hébert traveled throughout the world. During a visit to Africa, he was impressed by the physical development and skills of indigenous tribes that he met:^[12]

Their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring, and resistant but yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature.

—Georges Hébert, ^[12]

On May 8, 1902, the town of Saint-Pierre, Martinique, where he was stationed, suffered from the volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée. Hébert coordinated the escape and rescue of some 700 people. This experience had a profound effect on him, and reinforced his belief that athletic skill must be combined with courage and altruism. He eventually developed this ethos into his motto: "être fort pour être utile" (be strong to be useful).^[12]
Inspired by indigenous tribes, Hébert became a physical education tutor at the college of Reims in France. He began to define the principles of his own system of physical education and to create various apparatuses and exercises to teach his méthode naturelle,^[12] which he defined as:

Methodical, progressive and continuous action, from childhood to adulthood, that has as its objective: assuring integrated physical development; increasing organic resistances; emphasizing aptitudes across all genres of natural exercise and indispensable utilities (walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, equilibrium (balancing), throwing, lifting, defending and swimming); developing one's energy and all other facets of action or virility such that all assets, both physical and virile, are mastered; one dominant moral idea: altruism.

—Georges Hébert, ^[13]

Hébert set up a méthode naturelle session consisting of ten fundamental groups: walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, balancing, throwing, lifting, self-defense, swimming, which are part of three main forces:^[13]

• Energetic or virile sense: energy, willpower, courage, coolness, and firmness
• Moral sense: benevolence, assistance, honor, and honesty
• Physical sense: muscles and breath

During World War I and World War II, Hébert's teaching continued to expand, becoming the standard system of French military education and training. Thus, Hébert was one of the proponents of parcours — an obstacle course, developed by a Swiss architect,^[14] which is standard in the military training and led to the development of civilian fitness trails and confidence courses.^[12] Also, French soldiers and firefighters developed their obstacle courses known as parcours du combattant and parcours SP.^[15]