PARKOUR

The video link below is of Vincent Thibault, author of Parkour and the Art du déplacement.

Click to view video.

As many of you know, our first Parkour specific class will be offered this Saturday at 11am. I have included a brief introduction to parkour below as well as a general outline of what you can expect from your first parkour class.

Parkour was borne in the suburbs of Paris. It is from the French parcours, which means route or path. Parkour is often also referred to as l'art du déplacement. (Ariane is trying to teach me how to pronounce this properly in French). Déplacement means to move from one place to another.  

Parkour is a creative physical practice that responds to a mostly urban environment. The practice takes daily encounters with typical urban signposts - cement stairs, railings, ramps and benches, and transforms these objects into challenges. How might I negotiate my environment? With parkour, a railing is no longer just a railing. A wall is no longer just a wall.

Parkour, much like capoeira, is what Amir Solsky (my capoeira teacher) would call a funky movement practice. While there are fundamental movements in parkour that a beginner should learn (vault types, proper mechanics of precision jumping, how to roll) there is a lot of room for creativity as it can be a very spontaneous practice. I hope through our shared experiences that we will learn to appreciate parkour as both a rigorous and healthy physical practice, as well as an idea, or way of thinking about one's surroundings. Parkour, at its essence, encourages both adaptability and curiosity.  Through parkour, our formerly humdrum environment becomes a playground. For the winter, we will play indoors but expect to see our parkour classes taken to the streets in the spring time.

The Flux Experience with Parkour
The coaching team at Flux had its first organized instruction in parkour from Odelia Goldschmidt, who teaches under Ido Portal. We started our lesson with one of the wooden Rogue boxes and from this one simple box we learned well over a dozen twists, turns, jumps, and vaults.

The second chapter of Flux's education in Parkour took place at The Monkey Vault in Toronto. An indoor parkour center where Thomas did a week long intensive training program. Thomas came back to Flux with even more vaulting and jumping practices. He also brought back some fantastic brachiation work that we will be doing with you on the bars. This material builds on the training we did with Odelia in the spring as well.

For our first session, Thomas and I will first lead you through some conditioning work. As with any physical practice, a strong foundation must be built. Expect to go through some simple quadrupedal drills and shoulder mobility work at the start of each session. Following our conditioning, we will delve into some skill work.

- Darci