Update: I’ve moved this post over to the PNWPA blog where a lot of this stuff will go now, check it out!

Janine called me a workaholic the other day…and it’s weird because she’s totally right. I used to be the biggest slacker I knew throughout high school and college. I seriously had it down to an art, only putting the minimal amount of time into working as possible. That must have all changed big-time with parkour. I spend entire days (and nights) on the computer sometimes now, working on the never-ending amount of work that comes from running a nonprofit, moderating two parkour communities, working on APK/Tribe stuff, running promotion, learning video production, learning photography, and smuggling miniature chihuahuas across the border (harder than it sounds)…

It’s hard to describe, but I just really believe in this stuff and how important it is. I’m willing to spend all my free time working on IRS 1023 forms for the PNWPA or developing new articles and resources for the community. It’s really exciting to feel like we’re all on the frontier of a massive movement, and I don’t want to get left behind (or the community to be left behind). I tend to migrate from coffee shop to coffee shop during the day, utilizing their wifi to put a dent in my inbox and communicate with the other volunteer soldiers who are slugging through this stuff with me. I train at night as much as I can.

I go to jams nowadays not to train for myself, but primarily to meet the inevitable first timers and run them through the basics before unleashing them upon the world (about 5 per Gasworks jam, and much more per gym jam or clinic). I go to teach, and even when I don’t go with idea of teaching, I end teaching anyway. I just can’t train off on my own while watching others make some of the same mistakes I did when I started, that’s the responsibility of the experienced. I really don’t mind teaching (in fact I actually love it), but I don’t end up with much solid training time of my own any more. Ironically, I had more time to train as a student in college than I do working on parkour stuff full time….

I expect that to change though. My time demands are all self-imposed, I don’t have to be working this hard, and I am learning how to delegate. After the nonprofit has some funding and we can actually hire people I expect the workload to go down a lot. But I don’t mean to complain, this post is about how much parkour has changed my life. Even if that change means buying internet for my phone so I can tether wherever I am to get emails or learning how to code php to add streaming video functionality to APK

In particular, I wrote this paper for the parkour community in the USA, which is young and largely independent from the more advanced traceurs and ideas in Europe. Most people over here have been self-taught and now find themselves in the position to teach others. While we have a lot to teach the new people getting into parkour, there is still much that we have to learn ourselves. It is in our best interest to learn as much as we can from those who have more experience and knowledge.

Demon spent three days of training around Lisse and Evry, learning from many of the members of the Yamakasi as well as some of the best parkour teachers in the world.

One of the most important things to the Yamakasi is that you never give up and always try to push yourself that little bit extra. You should always strive to be better than you were the day before. When you train, push your limits past those set in your mind. Most of the time, the mind will quit long before the body will fail. Laurent repeatedly told me that, “When it starts to become hard is when it has just begun.” This is the most important part of training and it is what will define you in your training and your life.

Read the full story on APK -here-

…lucky bastard

Now running these through Parkour Visions (what used to be the PNWPA), take a look: http://parkourvisions.org/classes

It’s a little early to call, but I’d say the new idea I’m testing out for parkour classes is working out very well. So far there have been three classes of it through PSCS and one class through WAPK, and the students are really picking up on the idea quickly and enjoying the hell out of them.

Background

The basic idea behind them is to focus on finding creative challenges in our environment rather than teaching straight technique. The technique is learned naturally when it is actually needed to complete a challenge. This hopefully leads to students training more on their own in places near to where they live, as well as building a greater appreciation and understanding of how to usefully apply parkour movements to everything they do. There is some more information in my “creativity training” post on ideas for the classes.

To start with though, we focus on building the necessary strength, sensitivity, and recovery skills (what I’m calling parkour armor thanks to Blane), normally through challenging follow the leader type exercises. As everyone starts getting stronger and more aware of what their body can safely do (and more importantly cannot do), we’ll move on to a more open curriculum where students are basically experimenting on their own to find and share new challenges (identifying what steps they make each day towards completing that challenge as well).

The Future

These classes are all still rather experimental though and done on a totally volunteer basis. Eventually I hope to take what I’ve learned, share with it other instructors, and run a official parkour intro class through the PNWPA. Hopefully raising some money for the nonprofit in the process to pay for insurance and community outreach programs. Right now I just feel like I need a way to make it appeal to a broader range of people and run as safely as possible no matter the skill level (difficult things to figure out when all of your students are quick learning teenagers). But all good things in time.

And on a totally separate note, I finally have the capability to shoot video in HD! It only took 4 months longer than it should have (but it looks absolutely amazing)

I was wrong again

When jamming there Thursday, Alex started experimenting over there, and we ended up training close to an hour straight on some of the most challenging and fun climbing and parkour lines I have ever done. What I once thought was impossible is actually really easy with the right move, and once you get into the hallway we came up with some great challenges. For instance the whole area is a sequence of difficult stemming transitions, and we came up with the idea that you had to flick a light switch off at the end of the hallway. After getting that one, we found another switch, and decided to work until we could get both. After a great deal of crazy experimentation, we got both, and decided to up the challenge so that you could only turn off the switches with your hands (previously we just tapped them with our feet while stemming).

Through a series of simple experimentations and challenges we ended up with a balance line to a lieback transition, to a stem move, to a superman stem challenge, back down the hallway staying off of the floor (more stemming), to some tricky superman (extended) transitions. Hard to describe but a hell of a lot of fun! <- means="" >

Creativity and Exploration

One of the greatest things I’ve found about parkour is that the possiblities truly are endless. There are areas I have trained at almost every day, for two years, that I still find new and interesting challenges hidden in to this day. Forcing your mind to learn new patterns of movement every day is an amazing way to keep yourself sharp, physically as well as mentally.

I have noticed in myself as well as in others, though, that this ability to explore old familiar areas and still find new challenges isn’t always there. A lot of traceurs tend to look at an area seeking things that they already know how to do (I’ve been guilty of this myself many times), and just want to try bigger versions of. When in this frame of mind you can hear people describe slanted railings or strange obstacles as “not good” for parkour, when in reality they can foster some of the most incredibly difficult challenges with a little creativity applied. Just training bigger and bigger vaults will get you nowhere with parkour, the devil is in the details. If you want to actually be able to “use” parkour one day, it most likely won’t be you choosing which obstacles you face, you need complete mastery over any possible environment. This means experimenting and learning something new every day, to truly train for adaptability.

Teaching Creativity?

This has led to a new teaching idea for the Puget Sound Community School’s parkour class starting soon. Rather than taking the time to travel to new locations that are “good for parkour,” I’d like to foster creativity in the kids and stay at a single area for the whole class. Exhausting that area’s possiblities to the point of ridiculousness. Everyone will be encouraged to come up with their own challenges, and steps will be made to complete each challenge every class day. Sharing their personal challenges with others and helping them to achieve those challenges will hopefully inspire more teamwork and problem solving.

This is how to make leaders and good instructors I believe (but don’t tell them that). I found myself last year not spending that much time teaching actual techniques, most of my time instead was spent coming up with new challenges for the students and helping them overcome those crazy things. I’m not all that sure how I’m going to pitch this class or even run it, but PSCS has a way of making it all come together as long as there is passion behind it.