How to Do Parkour
Learn how to do parkour and you will be able to run up 8ft walls, leap across gaps, vault over rails, fly through your environment, and take drops up to 10ft with the same amount of impact as a normal person doing a jumping jack (it’s been scientifically proven).
Learn how to do parkour and if you are ever put in a critical situation where you need to escape from four thugs trying to mug you, catch someone who just stole your girlfriends purse, and etc., you will know exactly what to do, you won’t be scared, and you will succeed.
Master the dicipline of parkour, and it will be a joke when people try to chase after you, you will almost hope some one tries to steal your bag because the real life chase would be so much fun and easy.
Another good thing about parkour is that it is a great way to stay in shape, it works your whole body and builds efficient muscle. So whether you are a guy or girl, trying to lose weight or get extremely cut, parkour will get you there. It’s also a lot of fun! Once you get started you will quickly become addicted and it will actually change the way you look at the world around you (most traceurs, including myself, will tell you this first hand).
MISCONCEPTIONS OVER PARKOUR
Parkour has recently gotten very popular on television and in film. They show guys doing death defying jumps and enormous roof gaps across buildings.
This is NOT how parkour is!
Most of your training is spent in a low to ground safe environment. You start off small and gradually build your way up. It takes years of training for the big jumps that you see on television and they are not performed often.
We traceurs only perform a risky move when we are either put in a critical situation or have trained on that specific move and are 100% confident in the jump. If we are not feeling it for what ever reason we do not do it.
The last thing you want to do is severely injure yourself or die.
Some people think we are hoodlums that damage property and have no respect. This could not be any further from the truth. Traceurs respect their training areas, more so than the normal person. The architecture and obstacles almost become a part of us, the last thing we would want to do is harm the training spot that we use. We don’t want to damage property or harm anyone we just want to be able to move freely in our environment.
HOW TO GET STARTED
Parkour is a very physically demanding discipline. Always consult a physician or doctor before you begin training. No matter what age you are or physical level you are you can train parkour. It’s all about starting off at a level that is comfortable with you and building your way up. Parkour is also very inexpensive to get into. Ha all you really need are some comfortable workout clothes and some running shoes. The best places to train parkour are usually parks, college campuse, downtown city areas, and any other location that has a variety of obstacles.
Here are the three steps to getting start!
STEP #1- Learn all the basic movements
You need to learn all the basic moves, what they are and how to do them. Here’s a list of the basics -
Basic Landing, Parkour roll, Dive Roll, Precision, Stride Precision, Plyo jump, Crane, Wall-run, Cat Leap, Tac, Cat to Cat, Lache, Turn Vault, Speed Vault, Kong Vault, Diving Kong Vault, Double Kong Vault, Dash Vault, Reverse Vault, Kash Vault, Underbar, Balancing, Cat-Balance.
STEP #2- Conditioning
You need to condition your body for parkour as well. Most parkour conditioning is performed with just your body weight. Conditioning goes hand in hand with training the basics to parkour. The stronger and more coordinated your body get the faster, easier, and more powerful your movements will become.
A lot of times the parkour movements themselves will be added into the conditioning routine. You will want to condition about 3 times a week and involve a mix of specific workout routines.
STEP #3- Start Training
You have to get out there and start training. Start off small and gradually build up. So start by practicing a small precision jump, from one line to another on flat ground. Then when you get comfortable and successful with that, try jumping back and forth to lines at different lengths. Then move to jumping back and forth to raised up objects, such as two curbs. Then build up to two ledges. Then to two rails.
That is how the cycle goes. Learn the basic moves, condition, and then train at a small level and keep increasing as you get stronger and more comfortable.
THE BASIC LANDING
Here’s the steps to the basic landing to get you started.
You must learn the basic landing before you learn any other moves or else you will not know how to land out of the movements and if you’re jumping off of something you will risk injuring yourself.
STEP #1- LAND ON THE BALLS OF YOUR FEET
You ALWAYS want to initiate the landing on the balls of your feet. You NEVER want to land flat footed or on your heels.
When you land flat footed or on your heels your body will act like a stiff board and will not be able to absorb any of the landing. All of the force and pressure of the jump will go straight into your joints and back. If you do this off of a medium to high impact jump you will injure yourself.
You want to land on the BALLS of your feet and allow your muscles and joints to act naturally, bend properly, and absorb the impact. This will allow your body to act like a spring that absorbs the force and the impact and puts less pressure on your joints and back.
STEP #2- DON’T LET YOUR LEGS BEND BELOW 90 DEGREES
Do not allow your legs to bend below 90 degrees. When you bend your knees below 90 degrees you are putting too much stress on your knee joints and it means you are not landing properly. If you are landing a drop that you won’t be able to absorb fully with your legs go into step # 3
STEP #3- GO TO YOUR HANDS ON A BIG DROP
If it’s a big drop that you won’t be able to fully absorb with your legs without bending below 90 degrees, you want to bring your hands down to the ground for extra support.
So you will lean your body slightly forward, keep your back straight, hands directly in front of you with your arms straight but with a slight bend, palms facing the ground, and use your hands to take away some of the impact.
You should almost resemble a gorilla, with legs bent and hands touching the ground. After you absorb spring up and forward. This will allow you to keep your legs from going below 90 degrees and enable you to absorb a lot more impact.
Now this basic landing should not be used when you have a lot of forward momentum with your jump. For example, if you were running and jumping off of anything above 4 feet with a lot of forward momentum you will want to perform a parkour roll, which is an advanced landing.
You also would want to use the parkour roll instead of a basic landing if you were jumping out off of anything above 6ft. The basic landing works well for small jumps, but the parkour roll is essential for taking big drops.