Urban Freeflow

Urban Freeflow (often abbreviated to UF) started as a UK-based limited company that was founded in 2003 and was active as the world's first Parkour and Freerunning related brand.

After the original founder lost his personal interest in promoting the values and principles of Parkour or Freerunning, four German Parkour athletes took over the brand-name and the official URL www.urbanfreeflow.com to re-emphasize the disciplines' altruistic values and the importance of creating community within the sports.

Established in 2003, Urban Freeflow (UF) was founded by Paul Corkery (known as Ez), a former boxer who saw an opportunity to connect the international Parkour community through an online forum. As the first mover, the company managed to be profitable as the momentum of parkour and its popularity grew. The reputation built at this time allowed them to grow to be the most prominent group within the scene at that time. The corporate structure of the group was compromised in 2005 when Companies House dissolved the trading company for failing to meet their statutory filing obligations. At this time, Ez and former partner Mark Toorock (M2) split and Ez formed a new company, Urban Free Flow.

Through the companies well established website, although the popular forums have been shut since 2010, the company sold branded clothes, many of which feature the Urban Freeflow trademarked Glyph logo. The Glyph logo today has undergone a rebranding to emphasize the new direction, while maintaining its core attribute - to build community. The Glyph logo had become recognised globally as the symbol of Parkour & Freerunning, yet many voices from within the community justly claimed that Urban Freeflow didn't influence the community as positively as its status had demanded.

Today, under a new management, Urban Freeflow is a strong advocate for creating a positive image for Parkour as movement discipline and tool that helps its practitioners to grow stronger, to be more useful in helping others.

Despite having over a million registered users on its website, Urban Freeflow has polarised opinion within the parkour and free-running communities for its self-appointed leadership of the movement and its commercialisation of what many consider to be a grass-roots movement. Due to its position as the largest UK based group, it is the popular choice for new traceurs, thus guaranteeing it a constant stream of new customers. However, many become disillusioned over time, and migrate towards other groups which better represent their ideals. It has been criticized over the years more than any other free running or parkour group. It stems from the fact that they claim to be the "Official Worldwide Freerun/Parkour Network", while the website is neither multilingual nor affiliated with David Belle, the founder of parkour. UF does however have some affiliation with Sébastien Foucan, the founder and lead ambassador of freerunning. Worldwide Jam may have also contributed to some of the criticism of Urban Freeflow because of an ongoing feud between UF and Worldwide Jam.

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