OPINION is divided over the last James Bond instalment Casino Royale; some love it, some hate it. That said, almost everyone who watched the movie would agree that the part where Daniel Craig runs after the African dude was one of the coolest chase scenes ever.

When the African guy was making death-defying leaps across buildings and from one crane to another, James Bond must've been wondering: how bad is my luck that the guy I'm chasing has to be a friggin' traceur?

A traceur is someone who practices parkour, a relatively new discipline that uses the abilities of the human body to get from point A to point B in the most effective possible manner – running straight towards your destination while getting past all obstacles.

In practice, this means making death-defying jumps with perfect landings, leaping from roof-top to roof-top, and scaling impossible obstacles like tall dividers, walls, fences and boulders among others (think Jackie Chan escape sequences, sans the kung fu).

The traceur in Casino Royale was none other than Sébastien Foucan, co-founder of the discipline along with David Belle. Since its creation, the two have continued to be prominent and highly respected traceurs, inspiring thousands of others around the world.

Belle in particular has inspired others like local traceurs Amir Hamzah, Qayyim Mohd Hafidzi and Muhammad Sabree with his purist approach to parkour. The trio have been practising parkour for three to four years now, which makes them veterans in the local scene, considering parkour has only been around for about 10 years.

Amir and Qayyim's usual training ground is at a small park just next to the Putra Mosque in Putrajaya, where R.AGE caught up with them to get a taste of the local Parkour scene.

There were about 15 traceurs there, from teenage wannabes to semi-professionals like 23-year-old Amir, who has done stunt work for TV ads and ambassadorial work for a Reebok roadshow. The group consists of youngsters from the Bangi area, and started off when Qayyim and a friend were inspired by videos of Belle and other famous traceurs on YouTube.

But things only started to get serious when Qayyim joined the Parkour Malaysia forum (www.pkmy.tk) where he met Amir. Since then, the two have been organising the weekly meets, called "jams", at Putrajaya where they train new traceurs.

After a 15-minute warm-up session, the guys started doing their thing. Most of them practised short jumps to perfect their landing, while some like Amir and Qayyim attempted impressive drops from around seven to 10 feet high. They also practised climbing some walls that were around seven or eight feet high, which they did with incredible ease.

To Qayyim however, it is not the impressive drops and flashy tricks that are important in parkour. They are simply the outward expression of the spirit and core principles of parkour.

"Parkour is more than the running and the physical aspect people usually see. It's a mindset, one about challenging yourself to progress in life and to know yourself better, especially your limitations. It has a lot to do with becoming a better person," said the 21-year-old student.

Sabree, 22, who was joining Qayyim's jam for the first time, added: "There's no point jumping down from a 30-foot wall, apart from maybe being able to say you can do it. But it's a totally different matter if you see your girlfriend in trouble down there and want to save her. Then it would mean something."

That's why, according to Amir, people who think that injuries are part and parcel of parkour are wrong.

"You're supposed to push yourself to slowly get better, keeping your limitations in mind. You should take it step-by-step and train yourself to go further and faster each time. If you're getting hurt, it means you're getting ahead of yourself," he said.

Another common misconception about parkour that annoys the three is that it is the same thing as free running.

"Fancy tricks and flips are part of free running. In parkour, we just train ourselves to get from point A to point B in the most efficient way you can manage. If you've hurt yourself, or you perform unnecessary tricks, that's not efficient anymore,” said Qayyim.

Physical conditioning, however, does allow traceurs to express this philosophy of altruism and liberty. And serious traceurs like Amir practise and condition themselves daily.

"I do mostly conditioning workouts which utilise bodyweight, like push-ups, sit-ups and chin-ups. I do training almost two hours a day, and I go for jams in the weekends," he added. Excessive weight training is avoided as it bulks up the body, reducing the fluidity of the individual's body movements.

But apart from physical training, Qayyim believes that parkour has given him greater mental and spiritual strength as well.

"That's what I love most about parkour - that it gives you strength in all three areas - physical, mental and spiritual. We're obviously physically fitter, but you also have to be mentally strong to challenge yourself the way we do with parkour. And in terms of spirituality, we're always mindful that the essence of parkour is to do good, that we're pushing ourselves to be better individuals."