Starting Parkour

Parkour, labeled by many as an unofficial sport, is the movement from point A to point B in the most quick and efficient manner as possible. I don’t really like to call it a sport though, because the intense involvement it entails makes it more similar to a discipline, such as a martial art.

I know that many people who see parkour or freerunning videos for the first time are simply amazed by what they see, and cannot help but to think, “Man, I WANNA DO THAT!”

Image via Wikipedia

Well, you’re not alone. I too started parkour with this same idea in mind. I looked all over the internet watching videos of how to do kong vaults, and repeatedly watching videos of backflips and somersaults. I literally submerged myself in these awesome videos for about 2 days, and THAN I along with my troupe of 3 friends set out on a mission. We were jumping into dive rolls, and “konging” over picnic tables. We thought we were naturals at parkour. The funniest thing is that we began video taping on our first run (oh the hilarity!). When we got back from that day out, we were four happy men, feeling accomplished from the playback of our videos.

The next step we took was a ride to the closest gym of 1 and half hours away, to practice flips. It was a bit scary to just try a flip on the mat, so the trampoline was our first victim. I was the guinea pig, so I weakly stepped onto the spring-stretched bed of the trampoline (I was scared I was gonna break my neck! – a natural at parkour…what a joke!) I jumped up and down and thrust my head and hands forward to start the flip. I landed on my butt and thought hey that wasn’t so bad. I quickly got up to do it again before anyone else could on the trampoline, went into another flip and yea…let’s just say that wasn’t so great. Well, eventually we got to the point where we could do frontflips on the mat, but when we landed it looked we were sitting down (This means they SUCKED!). We were too scared to jump up higher and flip so that we could actually land in stand up position. Anyways we left the gym, once again proud of ourselves; believing we had mastered the frontflip in one day!

A few days later we went out for another parkour run, and we brought with us the trusty camera. We thought we were so awesome, because now we could already do vaults AND we could front-flip! We went to go try front-flips on the hard ground and realized that our work at the gym was a waste of time and TEN DOLLARS!!!! What I’m trying to relay to you guys is two things.

The first message I’m sending out is to the individuals who criticize traceurs (people involved in parkour/freerunning). Parkour is not learned overnight, and although there are traceurs who flip off of walls or jump onto small ledges from a long distance, they are not idiots. They have practiced these movements over and over and over again (this entails months to years). Parkour starts small and builds up. Now there are some people who decide that they want to jump from their roof one day, and than call it parkour. This is NOT parkour. This should not be affiliated with parkour. This is stupidity, UNLESS your house is on fire.

The next message I want to relay is to those who wish to start parkour. You’ve made an awesome decision, and if you want to be good, you have to look at spending more time on conditioning and practicing technique rather than looking cool and being awesome. It may sound harsh but it’s the truth. Although this may not sound fun to some, I must assure you that the payoff is amazing. My personal testimony is that the best workouts you can do are pull-ups and muscle-ups #1 and than push-ups. These 3 exercises are great for parkour, and should definitely be implemented. There are also exercises specially developed for parkour which you can find on the site below. These are great and you should definitely implement these as well. If you do not have anyone to parkour with, or you just want to connect with more people from the parkour realm, check out people in your state on the forums of the American Parkour website (links are listed below).

*Word to The WISE: Don’t start parkour expecting to be the greatest gift parkour has ever seen, and the best thing you can do is find a buddy or two who will stay strong with you. Train hard, and always train even if you don’t FEEL like it, because “feel will make you fail”.

I am not responisble or liable for any injury that may occur during freerunning/parkour. This discipline is practiced at your own risk.

By the way if you’d like to see those funny videos just let me know. They are on youtube hehe!

These links are your friends:

American Parkour Main Site:

http://www.americanparkour.com

American Parkour Forums:

http://www.americanparkour.com/smf/index.php

American Parkour Demon’s Drills:

http://www.americanparkour.com/content/category/10/27/407/

Good Training Videos:

http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_1969_do-parkour.html