Etre et Durer: Plyometric Training for Parkour
Your toes hang off the edge of the last brick as you take in a measured breath and then step out into space. You drop, enjoying the momentary freedom of airtime before bracing yourself for the compression of the precision landing. The uncompromising concrete is met, joint at a time, as ankles, knees and hips absorb the shock, storing up the potential energy like a coiled spring. Fractions of a second later the spring releases and you are launched forward and upwards, your centre of gravity shifting to allow your
Parkour: Way of the Pathfinder
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein What we now know as parkour began with a quest: a quest for strength; a quest for the next challenge; a quest for
Parkour Generations London: New Harrow Gym
WEST LONDON CLASSES If you haven't yet tried our dedicated parkour space at HarroWall Climbing Centre, then what are you waiting for? Jump on over! Not only do we have a great training set-up that's suitable for absolute beginners, but you'll also be taught by one of the world's most experienced parkour coaches, Chris Keighley. For class times and age ranges simply visit www.parkourgenerationslondon.com or download the 'Parkour Generations' App now. Or if you have further questions, please DM here or hit us up at contact@parkourgenerations.com.
The Tao Of Parkour
Much has been made of Bruce Lee’s enduring concept of Jeet Kune Do, across myriad different activities, art-forms, sports and disciplines. Often it is applied quite wrongly, of course, flourished with bravado in a slapdash attempt to justify some sort of unstructured and unresearched approach to training or development. Nothing could be further from what Lee intended with his concept, or indeed more removed from his own path towards personal liberation. However, a strong and meaningful analogy can be drawn between Lee’s concept and our own discipline of parkour[1]. In fact, parkour is
Parkour Vision: What’s a City For?
How do you view the city you live in? Does it feel constricting? Restrictive? Is it full of cold, lifeless structures that have no meaning for you? Is it unwelcoming? Unappealing? Or do you have no feeling about it, positive or negative? What's your vision of the urban environment you inhabit? Perhaps one of the most powerful and profound changes that happen to those who walk through our doors and take up parkour is that of how they view their environment and, subsequently, their place within it. Almost universally we see
Trickour Treat – Kids Event In London
JOIN US FOR ALL THE FUN AND FROLICS OF OUR SPOOKY 'TRICKOUR TREAT' EVENT The games will begin at 10am on the dot, so make sure your young ghouls and goblins are at The Parkour School and ready to get stuck into our day of parkour fun and halloween monster challenges! Fancy dress is actively encouraged and there will be a prize for the best dressed! Spaces are limited so sign up soon! All our young movers from 5-16 years old are welcome. All you will need is a pair of trainers, a waterproof
Time to Play
Look at how children move when they play: almost universally (assuming the adults around them don’t intervene and impose restrictions on their natural instincts to play) they run, jump, climb, crawl and they do these things at every given opportunity, exploring their space and learning what their bodies can do. The movements of play are holistic, complex-dynamic, non-linear, instinctive and adaptive. They don’t play by repeating isolated patterns over and over. They don’t play by deconstructing movement into its component parts. They don’t obsess about ‘alignment’ or ‘core strength’. And
SPRING-LOADED: WHY PARKOUR JUMPS WORK
One question I’ve been asked countless times over the years by fitness professionals, physiotherapists, sport scientists and general public alike is how do you (parkour practitioners) not break things, explode joints and generally cripple yourselves taking all those impacts from jumps? And looking through the lens of many recent models of human movement – typically those that deconstruct and treat the body as an automaton – the question is an obvious one, as it just doesn’t seem to make sense or adhere to prevailing theories of what the human body can safely