Saturday 22 September 2007

If you are fairly new to Parkour please read.

When beginners start out in Parkour, a lot of them go for the big drops and jumps or want to make a video instantly. This mentality is the wrong way to approach Parkour.

Instead… Put down the camera and train on your vaults, jumps, rolls, climbs and balance at ground level. Perfect your technique first, get the body accustomed to Parkour. Develop your fitness, sense of vision, movement and sensitivity. Let your mind and body develop at the same time.

As a quote from a globally respected Traceur Blane "What will be the long-term effects of dropping 15ft to concrete when the legs haven't experienced 10,000, 5ft drops?" An article "Dilution" written by Blane of Team Traceur, in which he explains perfectly the “too much too soon” actions that plague our Traceurs in the discipline that is Parkour.

When starting off, try and always land on the balls of your feet, and avoid the heels of your feet from slapping on the ground, bend your knees no more than 90 degrees when you land, which will allow the muscles to take the impact and not the joints. Do your best to be as quiet as you can when landing. The more silent you are the better your technique will be.

Being a Traceur is about being on the path of self improvement, where your journey should ascend in the mastery of moves and development of a strong body and mind.

If your want to be strong and skilful in Parkour, you will have to discipline yourself. That means you will have to develop the technical knowledge through drilling your moves. As well as develop and adapt your body’s strength by conditioning it with functional body weight exercises coupled with sensible rest/recovery periods and quality nutrition. Only when the mind and body are strong will your Parkour vision and execution be greater, and your path to improvement will be so fulfilling.

A Traceur should effortlessly move through the obstacles in their environment efficiently and with great fluidity. Parkour is not about the check list of single moves, but the moves in between one obstacle and another, as well as the obstacle itself.

Say to you in your mind, “how can I get from here to there, in the most efficient way”.
Zeno

1 comment:

Ian Lyon said...

Just read this and discovered why my leg has been getting sore for the past week or two.

For a month or two i have been training a lot of precisions, and was always bending my knees more than 90 degrees, which must be the reason my legs have been so f**ked up lately.

Thank god i read this, thanks for posting.

Ian.