Parkour
What is Parkour?
An introduction for the general public and aspiring traceurs.
The essence of Parkour can be stated simply: it is the art of overcoming obstacles as swiftly and efficiently as possible using only your body. The fundamentals include running, jumping, and climbing, and we build on these fundamentals to improve our ability to pass over, under, around and through obstacles with more complex movements. Parkour is a system of fitness training that improves strength, speed, agility, co-ordination, stamina, endurance, and precision. It offers a full-body workout at any level of experience, and improves your ability to move, to harness your confidence, to change how you see the world. Parkour practitioners are called traceurs.
Safety First, Middle and Last
Upon seeing some of the remarkable things experienced traceurs can do, it should come as no surprise to learn that these guys (and gals) did not just wake up one day with the ability to perform the various jumps, hops, and climbs etc. Just like athletes trying to improve their vertical jump, traceurs had to work at it before they became masters of the various movements.
An activity such as parkour would not last long nor be as popular as it is if its members were constantly injuring themselves (or worse!). Whilst undoubtedly there is some risk to it, particularly the more glamorized activities such as rooftop running, the reality is that most of it is done closer to the ground, and the riskier activities are performed only after many,
many hours of practice.
Parkour professionals always preach safety as the number one priority. They make sound recommendations about examining surfaces you train on, ensuring structural integrity, and being extra careful when it is wet.
The Urban Jungle
People often forget that Freerun and Parkour are best suited to natural urban environments. Whilst we encourage people to train indoors in order to drill specifics, there really is no substitute for taking it to the streets. Our outdoor classes are tailored to suit the needs of all attending and will be tweaked depending on the requirements of those in attendance.
“The final goal of physical education is to make strong beings. In the purely physical sense, the Natural Method promotes the qualities of organic resistance, muscularity and speed, towards being able to walk, run, jump, move quadrupedally, to climb, to walk in balance, to throw, lift, defend yourself and to swim.” – George Hebert
“Parkour belongs to the ones who live it, not the ones who want to live thanks to it” -David Belle
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Please note in order to spend more one on one time with each student and because of our busy performance schedule space is very limited in lessons. We reccomend all students check out Hawaii Parkour with instructor and good friend Richard Skowronski. For indoor lessons check out Precision Parkour Hawaii's one and only parkour gym run by another good friend Keith Mylett.
Practice, Practice, Practice
The general training approach for traceurs is that first and foremost the best way to get better at parkour is to practice doing parkour. If you have an identifiable weakness, whether that be relative strength, flexibility, balance or whatever, then you might do specific exercises to develop these traits, but mostly getting better is is best achieved by doing it.
Lessons offered teach people of all ages, building strength, balance, and full body awareness using the fundamental movements of Parkour, proper landing techniques and critical safety information. Technical Parkour movements are taught as students transition from basic vaults and bar techniques to explore more advanced Parkour movements and flow.
Parkour is tremendous fun and can be done virtually anywhere, and to some degree, by anyone. It is both very physically liberating and challenging. The more advanced traceur's have an amazing mix of physical talents of which some of the more obvious is their reactivity and jumping ability.
Through hard work, endurance and creativity, you'll be challenged to push yourself further than you ever have before and experience the satisfaction of overcoming fears and unleashing your true potential.
"Obstacles are found everywhere, and in overcoming them we nourish ourselves."
