Monday 25 July 2011

Beginners - how to start parkour

A good blogger and follower of mine http://mydayinasentence.blogspot.com/ made me think to post this so here it goes.

Tips on starting Parkour.

First off, Parkour is literally for everyone and anyone, what ever level of fitness you are at, really just give it a go.
The best way of starting is to find a few friends and show them some parkour videos, I post many on here so maybe show them my blog, and go out with them lot and just have fun. Jump on some walls and get the feel for it, the reality is, you probably wont be great to start with! :P But parkour is so enjoyable to nearly everyone that I know that progression is quick and easy as you just WANT to go and train and have fun rather than feel forced to.

So things you should learn;
Youtube is to thank mainly for how parkour spread around the world, there are many helpful tutorials for getting started and would take me and while to find a link good ones so I shall list things for you to youtube.

Speed vault tutorial
Lazy vault tutorial
Kong vault tutorial (call it catpass but it is often named kong for some reason)
Dash vault tutorial
Kash vault tutorial.
Precision tutorial (this may be vague so maybe type parkour in there)
Climb up tutorial (again write parkour)
Cat leap tutorial (or arm jump, preferably arm jump)

So they are all the basics and you can branch off from there as you progress things like; plyo's (precisioning then precisioning again), strides (one footed strides), cat pass pre (doing at cat pass and landing on a wall), 180 arm jumps (arm jump position then push off and land in arm jump on another wall) and others.

A good tip with getting into parkour, is watch a lot of video's it will give you inspiration for movements and keep you involved in the community, the parkour community is amazing and very friendly so it is great to get involved. The channel http://www.youtube.com/glyphmedia is probably the easiest to find good video's.

After a while when you and your friends have gotten into it a bit more go online and search for local community's to go and train with I live in a town near London and I searched things like "parkour in st albans/luton/london/dunstable/watford" and got in contact with the people, most communtiys have a website so search for it with your town/ region name. Your first time training with good people may be relatively daunting  but be relaxed, most tracuers as I say are very kind and will help you out and they know you are new and won't judge you, ask for their help and make friends with them. But if they are doing something and concentrating let them get on with it and talk to them later.

Parkour is about overcoming your mental and physical boundaries so when you are scared of a jump don't get disheartened be determined to get that jump if not that day then another and keep having fun, work on everything and train often. Also understand where you are at, don't try things you know you wont make at that time, start small and build up. Oh p.s jumping off roofs onto grass isn't cool

Things to bare in mind;

Clothing, for the love of god don't wear jeans, and preferably not those waterproof tracksuit bottoms, wear joggers (sweatpants) and a t shirts.
Shoes; get a pair of running shoes, popularly old-school running shoes are preferred or buy a cheap pair of kalenji ekiden's.
Bag; take a bag you can leave around, just put things like water bottles, deodorant, food in it and money if you wish.
Cuts and callus; you will receive cuts, and calluses on your hands, just man up :P
Respect; be respectful when you are training to the area and to the owners and the public, be polite and if the owners tell you to move on do so, make them like you it is the best way. It leaves parkour with a good name.
Awareness; be aware of people, and the surfaces you are training on, make sure they wont break for your saftey. Test the walls and see how slippy things are.

That is pretty much everything overall but just a few more things

Precisions are important in Parkour, make sure you do them right. Land on the corner of the wall lightly and softly, try to stick most of your jumps when needed and work at landings properly.
Work on climb ups don't use your forearm or your shins, try get up with out them touching the wall.

Be careful train safe and have fun, if you have questions just ask and yeah :) I may have missed things out here this way just a brief introduction to how to start Parkour.

16 comments:

  1. now this is an exciting update :D

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  2. Perfect, I'll take a look to those tutorial then :P

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  3. Awesome! :) got a few friends that practice parkour

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  4. This is very interesting. Someday I'll be pro. :P

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  5. I live next to a forest, and sometimes I do "wilderness parkour" jumping over dead trees and stuff in the way that you would a wall, its pretty fun

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  6. i would like to start parkour but im afraid of looking like a fool when i first start out haha

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  7. Yep, cuts are gonna happen.

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  8. @chaz just start, its worth it trust me, find some spots that are quiet and try a few things. I'm gunna make a new post called what to look for in spots. But really you should start, if you are with a group of mates it will be fine :)

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  9. @gryt you can do lots of training in the wilderness type area's. :) iv'e seen awesome videos, its all the same you precision to tree's vault over them, climb them. Iv'e never done it myself but heard it to be fun :D

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  10. @gryt again :P http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1YDqSkVgTg they aren't good but they are training in a woodland area, as you see looks great fun :)

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  11. Great post, I'm definitely going to give it another try. And stick with it this time.

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  12. @theundeclaredwinner excellent :) Really its the most amazing thing iv'e done. :D

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