Fit For Purpose
What’s the point of being fit? Have you ever asked yourself this simple question? Many would say it’s to ensure we have a long, wholesome life; some kind of biological duty to our own bodies, to stay in mint condition until we finally succumb to old age and die, leaving an unblemished corpse. For me, fitness and health are just a means to a larger end – something to enable me to live as I wish, to accomplish what I want, to face any challenge and adversity that may come my way
Parkour and the Human Body: Preparation, Maintenance, Performance
“If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the axe” – Abraham Lincoln It is a fact that up to this point in the short history of parkour (in its modern guise) there has been no way to know, with absolute certainty, what effects the long-term practise of the discipline has upon the human body. There just isn’t a precedent yet. Even the longest practising individuals are still fairly young, in the prime of health even, and – accidents aside – going strong. But
Breaking the Jump: The Heart of Parkour
For the last few years one of the workshops I’ve delivered at events and seminars around the world has been entitled Breaking the Jump, which is designed to focus on that aspect of parkour which has always struck me as perhaps the most central, most essential , part of our discipline – that being the moment of fear and truth that arises whenever you face a jump, movement or challenge that requires you to be 100% present in order to stare it in the eye and overcome it. To ‘break’ the
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
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
Nature’s Athletes: Adapt or Die
‘Complex systems are weakened, even killed, when deprived of stressors’ Nassim Taleb Here’s a truth I want everyone who doubts their physical and mental potential to keep at the forefront of their mind: beneath the shell of the soft, sedentary people we have become are the raw materials of nature's most adaptive and capable athlete. The key word here is adaptive. If you’re not already convinced that adaptation is the true birth-right of all human beings, I’ve got one word for you: wingsuits. How the hell have we worked out how to do
Parkour: Movement for the Next Generation
States Parties recognise the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and arts. States Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity. - -- Article 31, United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children Parkour is the fastest growing free-sport in the
In or Out? The Dangers of Moving Parkour Indoors
It looks like parkour, sounds like parkour, is called parkour