Vault, line, committed, and more: the Parkour ABC explains every key term in plain language before you dive into the guides.
You're reading your first parkour guide and by the second paragraph you're already stuck on words like "Vault," "Line," or "Committed" — wondering if you need to know all this before you even start. The honest answer: no, you just need to understand it once, and every guide after this reads twice as easily. This ABC collects exactly the terms that keep showing up in the DOMISPORTS parkour guides and translates them into plain language with everyday comparisons instead of jargon. No move is complicated once you actually know what's being talked about.
Traceur (female: traceuse, German uses Traceurin) is simply the French word for someone who practices parkour — it comes from "tracer," meaning "to trace the way." If someone says "I'm a traceur," it just means "I do parkour," whether they're a beginner or a pro.
Freerunning (Freerunning) is the closely related, more expressive sibling of parkour: while parkour is about clearing obstacles as efficiently as possible, freerunning adds flips and tricks as a form of expression. The foundation — landing, rolling, balance — is learned identically for both.
Spot (Spot) is simply the place where you train — a lawn with low walls, a park with curbs, a playground. Before you start at a new spot, you check it quickly: Is the ground dry? Are the edges solid? Any glass or debris in the landing zone?
Ready stance (Grundstellung) is your ready position: feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, weight on the front foot, eyes forward. Picture a goalkeeper waiting for a penalty kick — loose in the joints but ready to move at any moment. Almost every move starts from this position.
Precision landing (Präzisionslandung) is the landing technique where you touch down on the balls of your feet first and let your knees and hips absorb the impact softly — like a car with good shock absorbers instead of a rigid axle. The goal is a landing you can barely hear yourself.
Roll (Rolle) — also called the parkour roll — is your safety net for anything too high or too fast for a controlled precision landing. Instead of absorbing the impact in one hit, you redirect it diagonally from one shoulder to the opposite hip — like a ball rolling across the ground instead of bouncing hard.
Ground feel (Ground Feel) describes how directly you feel the surface through your shoe sole. Thin, flat soles give you a lot of ground feel — you can sense exactly where your foot lands, similar to running barefoot, just with a bit of protection in between.
Loading rate (Belastungsrate) describes how quickly a force hits you when you land — not just how big it is overall. Two impacts of the same total strength can feel completely different depending on how abruptly or gradually they arrive: a slap with a flat hand hurts more than the same pressure applied slowly.
Reactive strength (Reaktivkraft) is the ability to generate force again immediately after landing — like a bouncy ball that barely touches the ground before springing back up. It's what makes a landing flow smoothly into the next move instead of stalling.
Vault (Vault) is the umbrella term for getting over a wall or ledge in a controlled way using your hands — you "vault" over it rather than just jumping over. The classic beginner version is the safety vault or step vault: place one hand, put one foot between hand and body, and step over in control.
Precision (Precision, also Precision jump) means jumping from one exact point to another exact point — say, from one wall edge to another. It's not about jumping far; it's about landing exactly on target and standing still afterward — think dart throw, not shot put.
Drop (Drop) is simply a jump straight down from a height, with no sideways movement — from a wall to the ground, for example. You only increase drop height in small increments.
Cat leap (Cat Leap, sometimes called Katzensprung in German) is a jump where you land at a ledge with hands and feet at the same time and grab on — like a cat finding its footing on a windowsill. It requires solid pulling strength in your arms and grip.
Wallrun (Wallrun) means briefly running up a wall to gain more height than you could reach with a normal jump — the wall becomes a ramp for a step or two.
Tic-tac (Tic-Tac) is a sideways push-off from a wall with one foot, used to change direction or height without fully running up the wall — a brief contact that adds momentum rather than a climbing step.
Top-out (Top-out) describes pulling your body up and over a ledge you're hanging from — the moment you go from hanging to standing on top.
Line (Line) is a planned sequence of several obstacles that you run through in one continuous flow, instead of doing isolated jumps — like a climbing route, just horizontal through the environment instead of vertical up a wall.
Affordance (Affordance) sounds technical but is a simple idea: the possibilities for action that an environment offers you, measured against your current skill level. The same wall "affords" a vault for one person and only a detour for another, depending on their technique.
Committed (committed sein) means having fully made up your mind before a move, with no half-hearted hesitation once you're already moving. Like jumping into cold water: wavering halfway through is more dangerous than the jump itself.
Self-efficacy (Selbstwirksamkeit) is your trust in your own trained competence — not courage or adrenaline, but the calm knowledge that "I can do this because I've practiced it." It's exactly what separates controlled risk from overconfidence.
If you hit a word in a guide that isn't covered here, don't reach for Google right away — check whether the guide explains it in the very next sentence first. DOMISPORTS guides always translate technical terms directly in the text. And if you're unsure whether a move fits your level: the name alone tells you nothing about difficulty. A safety vault is built for beginners, while a cat leap already demands trained pulling strength — always read the guide's level tag alongside the move.
A traceur is simply someone who practices parkour — the French word for "one who traces the way." The female form is traceuse (Traceurin in German). The term says nothing about skill level: beginners and pros are equally traceurs the moment they train.
A vault is getting over a wall or ledge in a controlled way using your hands, typically placing one hand down and swinging over. There are many variations from simple to complex, but they all share the same principle: control before speed, and the landing determines the quality of the move.
Precision is a jump from one exact point to another, like wall to wall. Precision landing is the technique you use to land it — and almost every other move — with: balls of the feet first, soft knees and hips. One term describes the jump, the other describes how you land it.
A line is a planned chain of several obstacles that you run through in one continuous flow instead of doing isolated jumps. Experienced traceurs read a line in advance, plan bail-out points, and consciously choose the right technique for each obstacle — precision, roll, or vault.
Being committed means you've fully made up your mind before a move, with no hesitation once you're already in motion. A half-hearted yes in the middle of a jump is more dangerous than a clear decision beforehand — when in doubt, say no first and practice the move at a lower level instead.
Parkour: Getting Started Overview