THREE ASPECTS OF TRAINING
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Physical
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Technical
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Mental​
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CLUB OR ACADEMY
There tend to be two types of activities that people do. The first is a club and the other is an academy. So what s the difference?
A club is a place where people go to socialise. The main aim is to have fun and make friends, but learning new skills is not a focus. There might be someone who is organising hall hire for example but they are not in charge in a sense. If that person turned around and said “Right lads, we need to do 100 squats every week” people would turn around and say “Who died and made you king”. And they would be right to be offended because that person would be imposing their will upon a social group.
An academy however is different. In an academy, the aim is the improve on a skill or ability. If you think of a sprinter their aim might be to improve in their speed, to reduce their overall time. A boxer might have the aim to stay in the right longer, so they need to improve their stamina. With all that comes training, and a coach student relationship. In this case, if the coach says “We need to do 100 squats every week” the expectation is that the students came to learn, not to play.
That being said, it does not mean that people don’t enjoy having fun with us. But if you are not coming to develop a skill and improve, you might not enjoy our classes all that much.
TECHNICAL
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Every sport has sports specific techniques and parkour is no different. If you are looking at a sport and are able to identify it from another then you are looking at the technique of that sport.
A person can distinguish between Kendo and Fencing simply by looking at the stance, and the way they wield their weapons. Both are sports derived from the sword but their techniques are distinctly different.
Parkour has many distinct parkour movements. Some one which are very dangerous. In our class it is not like Flip Out or Oxygen where you can just go in and jump of everything randomly. You have to start from the ground level, and build up over time.
We have a grading system where students grade every 3 months. In that time they will go over the fundamentals of a move. If you can imagine, working on the basic moves and doing 100 squats for 3 months. Your body will be a lot more adapted to the movements when you try the more dangerous ones, and it is a little safer also.
We also do not have a participation trophy culture. If you do not pass the grading, you will have to continue training the fundamental movements for the next 3 months. Only when you have mastered the skills will you be allowed to practice the more risky movements.
PHYSICAL
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As we have already hinted at, our students train hard. In the last term, they did 100 squats, 45 press ups, 3 min plank and chair every week. We are not expecting people to come with this level of strength and endurance but do come expecting that this will be a part of the training.
MENTAL TRAINING
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Every sport, and in fact every activity where someone is being trained include an aspect of mental (mindset training). Business coaches and even music teaches also work on developing the mindset that is necessary for success in their fields. Parkour requires a strong mental toughness and an ability to be aware of ones surroundings and own abilities in away that other sports do not require.
Unlike gymnastics where the goal is to go to the Olympics and compete in a controlled padded environment with coaches and paramedics on site. Parkour is trained in urban environments, on hard surfaces. Even being 1 m off the ground changes ones confidence in performing a move that they can land 100 times on the ground.
So how do you train someone to have this mental toughness?
We use a combination of games, conversations and sometimes putting students into situations where they will have to face their fear. We break down ways of looking at a situation.