A Parkour documentary that shows the struggles of traceurs while searching for meaning in their trainings. It is about the journey a couple of practitioners take to Lisses, the city where Parkour started, to discover what this discipline is and to follow the footsteps of the Yamakasi.
The maker is TK17, a traceur who broke both his legs and is still training today, is a great inspiration to many Parkour purists. This parkour documentary is one of his first projects and it is now up on Youtube for everyone to see.
It appears Parkour is getting more and more face-time in the media as an illegal activity. Two people were counseled by Vienna Police last week after they were found doing “Parkour,” a freestyle running sport, on the roof of The Virginian restaurant.
A citizen reported the pair around 8:40 p.m. Nov. 27 after they were spotted on the roof of the restaurant, located at 169 Glyndon Street SE.
Officers in Virginia, U.S. responded and found one adult on the ground and a juvenile still on the roof of the Vienna-based restaurant, the Virginian.
The juvenile could not get down, so Fairfax County Fire and Rescue responded with a ladder to assist the juvenile in safely getting down from the roof. The juvenile’s mother responded to retrieve him. Police are still assessing any damage to the building.
It begs to wonder, what were they doing on top of a building if they had no idea how to get down. There should be a test that prevents anyone failing it from taking up Parkour. Seriously! Read the rest of this entry »
Anyone who has lifted weights, on and off, for several years is familiar with the concept of “muscle memory”. Muscle memory in this context refers to the observation that when a person begins lifting weights after a prolonged lay off, it is much easier to return to their previous levels of size and strength than it was to get there the first time around. Once you understand the concept behind muscle memory, you will be able to improve your Parkour training much faster and better understand the way your body learns.
What is muscle memory?
Is the inherent ability of the body to turn movement into reflex. You can witness this in a situation where your body just reacts. When you drop a fork and instantly reach out to grab it, or when something is flying over and you automatically duck. That is muscle memory.
As a person develops from a toddler to a fully grown person, they go through a learning process that is called “basic motor skills”. After that, the process refines itself and imprints the most used activities in your brain so you don’t have to consciously activate them.
At first, the imprint is vague and can be discarded if it’s not practiced often. It has been estimated that the brain requires 1500 repetitions to permanently ingrain a certain movement in your muscle memory.
What does that mean? It means that, at this point, there will be a clear, distinct imprint in your nervous system. So clear, in fact that when you go to perform a task, your body will only refer to the spine, not the brain. Read the rest of this entry »
How did you do today? Did you train yet? If you did, where did you go? If I’m right, you most probably went to one of the regular places with your friends (or alone) and ran through your Parkour routine. If you’re new, you have a lot to learn, no matter how many times you go to that single place. You meet other people, learn new movements, so everything is alright.
But what happens when you keep doing it for a few months, for a year? Well, you get bored. This is when you training starts to become a necessity, not a choice. You should never train. When you look at your training grounds as a defined, static thing; only a wall and a rail, that is when you lose your perception of how Parkour training should be… fun and fulfilling. Read the rest of this entry »
Proper hydration is vital for everyone, not just the physically active. Water is so important because it is your body’s main chemical component, making up, on average, 60 to 70% of your body weight.
Drinking a large amount at once will result in negative effects if you do a lot of exercise immediately afterwards. Not drinking enough water will also result in negative effects (dehydration).
How to drink properly when training
You can either drink water often, in small amounts, or drink more but take a break from exercise for a short time afterwards. If neither of these are an option in a particular situation you just have to decide which problem you would prefer, damaging your internal systems by exercising after drinking a lot, or cooking your brain through dehydration. Neither are particularly great options, but I prefer to err on the side of drinking more water rather than less since a lack of water will probably kill you faster.
I’ve read somewhere (don’t remember where exactly) that it’s best to regularly sip some water from the bottle when you are not even thirsty rather than drink a lot when you are thirsty then not drink anymore. When you are thirsty, you have already lost at least 2 % of your body’s water.
Even mild dehydration can drain your energy and make you tired. Research has found that even a 2% drop in the water content of the body results in fatigue and tiredness whilst a decrease of 10% (severe dehydration) or more can be fatal if not treated immediately. Read the rest of this entry »
Training is all good when you know what you are doing and you condition your body to sustain the shock in your ankles, knees and joints. But if you’re not careful you will develop bad training habits. And this is why you should also train perfect form.
Why train in perfect form?
Mainly, because it teaches you the automation of doing things right. What may feel easy and comfortable for you today, might – on the long term – make you develop some bad training habits. And while your body will be able to sustain and correct the impact to a certain degree, this will not come without a price. You can develop a lot of bad postures and movement restrictions over time.
So, let’s see a short list of some of the most common training mistakes that traceurs make when they train.
The top bad training habits
Landing precisions with the tips of you feet outwards – This will make the outer leg muscles develop better, while your inner thigh muscles will remain largely untrained. It will be extremely hard to counterbalance this deficit later. So, you should always try and land with your tips straight.
Landing precisions with the feet wide apart – While this may help you better balance yourself in certain situations, this is bad form because you put a lot of strain on your knees and do not dissipate the impact throughout all the leg muscles. Always land with your legs together; perfect form would be to land with the balls of your feet touching each other. Read the rest of this entry »
Many traceurs (Parkour practitioners) never think about training at night. And, perhaps you are also wondering why would you want to do that? I mean, it does not seem like you would ever need to do an obstacle course in zero visibility. That may be true, however, there are a lot of other advantages in doing so. If you think about it, what better way to train your senses that limiting you ability to see? Your touch, hearing and balance automatically fine tune to balance out the lack of sight and your focus increases dramatically. This means that you will get more in touch with your body and will feel the movements much better.
There are a lot of training methods in Parkour during the day, however, many of the movements you do in daytime need to be adapted when you cannot see very well. So, let’s see a few of the best techniques to improve your night training methods: Read the rest of this entry »
Today I want to talk to you about the practical part of Parkour. Many have heard about it, but few have actually had the chance of witnessing it or actually training it. This happens mainly because we do not train that way. But there are some advantages that might have you reconsider.
Like everything else, usefulness of a movement is achieved through projection, work and precise goals. So if your training is only targeted to aesthetics and speed, you will never be able to be usefull. You might be able to look good, but not to actually use your abilities. In order to be used for something useful, your Parkour training should be done in a single mind set: Usefulness.
What are the most common situations you meet in everyday life? Think about it. Tripping over a raised ledge, slipping on wet surfaces, car accidents, fires, being trapped in a confined space (elevator?). What would you do? What would your first reaction be? Parkour? I doubt it. Read the rest of this entry »
We are not going to talk about urban Parkour training here. No huge cat-leap fantasies for the frazzled mind or sliding through and under obstacles in the city. (Sorry to disappoint.) Let´s talk about nature for a change. We train in the city so much, that we forget that the Parkour discipline started thousands of years ago, in the woods. And it´s important to remember that.
Forests, like other wild settings, stimulate our senses in more subtle but evolutionarily familiar ways than our typical modern environments. Sounds in nature are quieter but more subtly layered. Our sight is more expansive. Our sense of touch, finer. Our smell, more acute. Surrounded by nature, our perception reorients to its default setting. So as we start going out in nature we go back more and more to our natural state of awareness and perception.
This is where you can practice your body’s natural inclination to move. Out in the outdoor environment where the obstacles are not that well aligned and the order of things is ruled by chaos. This is where Parkour becomes movement and not just sport.
The nature theory
E.O. Wilson and his theory of biophilia, says that humans have an innate, biologically determined need for nature. Wilson’s theory has been around for years, but the concept is getting a lot of attention lately. And I want to highlight this for good reason.
Richard Louv, noted journalist and author of a book called Last Child in the Woods, said an increasing number of child psychologists and education experts note that regular time in nature is vital for children’s cognitive and emotional development in addition to their physical wellness.
I believe that this requirement for nature isn’t very cultivated in modern lifestyle and training methods. But it’s allegedly in our biological blueprints. Nature remains the default setting for our senses, our concentration skills and physical backdrop. So we should try to train it and make it part of our tranings and life. Read the rest of this entry »
A lot of times we don’t have the time or the weather to go out and train in Parkour outside. For those of you stuck indoors here is a very good exercise routine to keep yourself strong by conditioning at home:
