PNWPA Blog :: Archives

I recently received a request via the contact form to assist with a research paper on Parkour. Matt Marble wrote to us:

I am doing a research paper on Parkour for a school project and was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about this topic:
1. Who founded Parkour?
2. When was it created?
3. Why was it created?
4. Where does it exist?
5. Why is it so popular?
6. What challenges has it faced?
7. How will the problems be fixed?

Thanks for the inquiry, Matt. I’m posting my answers here for the benefit of others and any comment others might wish to contribute.

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            After straining my ankle…again, it became clear that ankle health is a key component to my active lifestyle.  I confined myself to the house for the day with my foot up on ice and decided to share all I could to help other traceurs avoid injury.  I’m just beginning further education toward a medical career so this is all pretty exciting stuff for me.  I’ll try to simplify and recap without being too dry and boring.  Truly, I believe the more you understand about what is going on under your skin, the more you can learn to control it.

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Jake Mohr goes to Gig Harbor High School and has chosen to learn parkour and integrate it into his schooling as his senior project. To do so, he is setting and working toward numerous training goals, duly documenting his journey along the way. He contacted the PNWPA to assist him in this process by providing a mentor from the community–that’s me–as well as seeking opportunities for community service. The project is well on it’s way and it’s to be an exciting six months of learning, training, and play!

Last Saturday, the 8th of November, I met with Jake for the first time to work with him on learning the fundamentals of training parkour. We began our day of basics at Gasworks Park–a popular training ground for Seattle traceurs–starting with running to get our blood circulating and followed immediately by a solid quadrupedal movement conditioning session on a section of stairways by the waterfront. From there we moved to practicing rolls, jumping and landing, and precision, then moved over to vaulting techniques and balance. Overall it was a good few hours of overview, focused on the importance of conditioning and essential training technique.

A bit from Jake’s training log on the Washington Parkour forums:

I started parkour for personal reasons, and took serious steps for academic reasons, let’s see how it turns out!

November:
Week One (technically week 2):
So, today I met up with [Brandee] at Gas Works Park and here’s my recap:

What I learned:
1. an awesome conditioning routing
2. tips on how to roll, jump and vault
3. improvements on jumping and landing

Goals for this week:
1. try to increase amount of conditioning using [Brandee's] tips
2. dedicate a minimum of 10 minutes to practicing rolls while out practicing …

After training we hit the NWCrossfit Gym in Greenlake to check out the facility and meet some local traceurs attending the weekly parkour class taught by Tyson and Rafe of the PNWPA. Unfortunately, we hit the very end of class (free every second Saturday after the regular class,) and so missed out on the training of the day there, but we were able to make the PNWPA board meeting, which had a large turnout and yielded plenty of good information and progress within the association.

All around it was a great day for training parkour and I am strongly looking forward to working wtih Jake and experiencing the improvement that’s sure to come for both of us while training together.

Cheers to all and safe training!

Me Working

My name is Tim and recently I had the opportunity to work with Rafe Kelley and Erwan Le Corre in France, on the island of Corsica. For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve been pointing my video camera at parkour practitioners for the last couple years mostly in Portland, where I live, but occasionally in Washington as well (here are a few I’ve shot). This incredible trip came about because Erwan came to Washington to teach about his method of training called MovNat. I found his concepts interesting, so I went and shot the two day clinic, and after than Erwan asked if I wished to join him in Corsica to shoot a more substantial piece. Unfortunately for the moment I cannot really share much of the work I did in Corsica because the MovNat site is still being prepared. But even so I hope some of this will be inspiring to you, to again reconsider your surroundings either urban or rural, and realize there is always, always somewhere to train.

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