Awhile ago (edit: 2 years) in the heyday of parkour.net there used to be some sort of bias against “flow” or training directly for fluidity. Whenever some new person would talk about trying to gain more fluidity in their movements or how cool something looks because of its flow, we would always say something along the lines of “Fluidity comes as a byproduct of training for parkour, it’s not the end goal.”
Too Strict?
And I can totally see why that seemed important to say, it was part of the never-ending battle to move parkour back to its origins of being a useful discipline, rather than just something that looks cool. But what’s wrong with training for fluidity directly? (if you are not already making that original wrong assumption)
In order for something to look effortless when it really isn’t (fluidity), it takes a complete understanding of all of the components of that movement. Track stars and gymnasts make horrendously difficult things look easy because they’ve drilled every step and every tiny movement into their muscles relentlously. Attaining perfect fluidity in a movement takes great control, strength, agility, and grace.
Fluidity Training
I think there are many different paths to achieve those qualities, and many different goals that will lead to the same end product. And again, as long you understand where parkour comes from and why, I always say train however you like. I just had a great night of fluidity training moving through trees, which is what got me started on this whole line of thought. It was an exploration of different pathways through and around all of the limbs, with the focus on making it as fluid and as simple as it could be. It felt great! And progression came very obviously, unlike what happens with straight repetition training a lot of the time.
An Example
I think there are a few points in this video that do a pretty great job of explaining what I’m referring to, that of the original Yamakasi. And watch how amazingly adaptive and precise they are!
Oh and on another note, I’m 21 years old today 
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I don’t think anyone was ever against fluidity, its just that people got sick of the word flow because it was so over used and misunderstood. From a sports science standpoint flow is specific mental state that allows optimal athletic performance. One can be in the flow state without appearing graceful or fluid though its not that likely. I think I refer to the same concept when I talk about appreciating continuity in seeing people do parkour, that is not just that the can do impressive movement but they are able to connect multiple movements together in a way that is efficient and effective. Fluidity is in essence a visual signal of efficiency, the problem is that you can do a inefficient movement in a fluid way theres an efficient fluid way to do a front flip whether it is useful in parkour or not.
That said I think aiming to be fluid can be helpful in ones training in making you think about efficiency in a different way. Recently I was training some beginers and I just felt like my movement over a particular set of obstacles was rough. So I went back on my own and took my shoes of and just really focused on foot placement, transitioning between steps and everthing else and by the end I felt much more fluid. Which to me meant I would also be faster, safer and more energy efficient which to me are the main goals of parkour training.
btw. nice pic.
i messed a note that it is my pic you used here.
well thank you for the nice pic
Normally a script of mine pulls the info (including author) from Flickr and displays it all in a lightbox when someone clicks on it, but it’s down and not working right now. So instead it just links to your page on Flickr, do you not want me using it?
it is o.k.
it is nice that other people like my pics too, but if you want to use a pic of mine in the future, please let me know in advance, ok? and a short note that it is my pic and i am the holder of the pics copyright would be nice…
sorry, for my poor english
have a nice weekend!!