On the 16th October we will be visiting the city of St Petersburg in Russia in order to give a presentation to the authorities there on the use of parkour in the education system. Wanting to emulate London's and the City of Westminster's incredibly successful use of the discipline in schools and for social inclusion programmes over the last few years, Russia could be the first non-European nation to implement the system.

Now that the new academic year is underway we are experiencing a huge surge of interest in parkour classes at primary and secondary schools in the UK. As of this week we now have 8 schools on our Parkour for Schools Programme and this is set only to expand even further over the next few months. Three UK universities are also about to join the programme, all of which means the grass roots teaching of the discipline is in better shape than ever before.

Following the recent week that Forrest, Dan, Stephane, Johann and Thomas spent in France with the Majestic Force team, a new post from Dan just went up on our Team Blog giving a small glimpse into the events of those few days. A couple of great photos from Kiell go with it, a sneak preview of a whole new set of shots to come. Read the post at the link above.

The latest volume in our training insights series, Behind The Jump, has just been released and can be seen here now. Short and simple, these episodes are designed to provide an insight into training principles and methods rather than being a straight tutorial. Volume 6 focuses on Forrest discussing some upper body conditioning drills, the types of which have given him his legendary strength and endurance. Voume 7 coming soon featuring Seb Goudot and Thomas Couetdic...

While the CASE Event workshops are ongoing today in Wiltshire, tomorrow sees a 5-man team from Parkour Generations running workshops in Olympic Way, Wembley, for ProActive in conjunction with the City of Westminster. One of the many tie-in events leading up to 2012, these workshops are completely free and open to the public. For more information, email Cory at Westminster Sports Unit on cmalcolm(at)westminster.gov.uk

The September Off the Wall parkour gathering has now been confirmed to be on (ahem) Sunday 5th OCTOBER at Tooting Broadway. All are welcome to gather at 12.30pm outside the Northern line tube station for the next monthly jam. Rain or shine, the Parkour Generations team will be present to share training techniques and tips and to join in the regular fun to be had. For more information please email Brian on Brian(at)parkourgenerations.com. or post any enquiries up on our forum.

Now that the first residential intensive training camp is over, newspieces on the successful event are beginning to pop up in the media. An official report from Parkour Generations is forthcoming, but until then you can get a snapshot of what went on (though without too much mention of the deep forest river crossing training and log-carrying drills..) in online news articles such as this one.

This week a team from Parkour Generations will be in France to train, teach, and hit the French press circuit alongside our Parisian partners and founders of the discipline, Majestic Force, in response to the demands for more information about our new ADAPT Certification Programme. Stephane, Dan, Forrest, Johann and Thomas will be heading over, with film-maker Julie Angel and photographer Andy Day also present to work on the week's projects. Results soon..

As last year we will be running parkour workshops and demonstrations again at Wiltshire's extreme sports participation event, CASE, on Saturday 27th September. Funded by Wiltshire Council, North Wiltshire Council, Corsham Community Partnership and others, the event aims to make accessible new activities for all young people in the area and has proven extremely successful and great fun. This year should be no exception. Hit the link above for details on timing and location.

The Southbank Centre festival of European Dance, DancEUnion, kicked off on Friday and Saturday with a contemporary dance performance put on by several of our Academy regulars. Both shows went without a hitch throughout the 20 minutes of non-stop energy based on the themes 'Jumping' and 'Stamina', and congratulations to everyone who took part. Big thanks to Brian and Yao for overseeing the rehearsals all week, and to all the guys and girls who gave up so much time to make it happen.

That time has come around again... The third in the Rendezvous series of international gatherings held in London will occur on the 13/14th December and is now open for booking. For the first time the event will span two days, involving both indoor and outdoor training, conditioning drills, Q&A sessions with the founders and more.

Earlier in the year we worked on a groundbreaking project with artist Layla Curtis and the City of Westminster which aimed to capture the trace of movement over urban terrain on a thermal imaging camera. The resulting art exhibition was showcased in the summer, and now this new film by Julie Angel reveals the entire behind the scenes process.

The new academic term has commenced in the UK, and with it a host of new schools joining our Parkour for Schools Programme. Haverstock School in Camden has commenced weekly sessions and these are going very well, and next week we run initial sessions for both Graveney and Elliott Schools in the Wandsworth area of London, and commence a weekly course for St Marylebone's School in West London as well. Added to these, from the end of this month we will be running a regular club at the Rugby Portobello Trust for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Last year we worked on an exellent dance production project called 'Boxin' with innovative dance theatre group Kompany Malakhi. The project was so successful it is being repeated this year and we begin work training the dancers on the 21st of this month.

This coming week will see our first residential training camp in operation, being held in Morzine on the French/Swiss border. Those who are coming are in for a treat, as the itinerary that Forrest and Thomas have prepared for the camp is looking fairly intense... Lots of training, beautiful countryside, fresh air, and some fun activities thrown in: should be quite an experience. For those who missed out on the bookings this time round, we should be offering the camp again next year.. ;)

A classic television commercial featuring Forrest can now be viewed online on our YouTube Channel here as well as on the Videos section of the site. Shot for Blue Ribbon in South Africa, this stands out as a media piece with some of the highest production values we have seen anywhere in the world. Great action from Forrest, and very stylish all round! Check it out.

Parkour Generations is collaborating with the Southbank Centre in London next week to put on a display dance piece incorporating parkour practitioners that will run from September 19-21. We are looking for people between the ages of 16 and 25 (roughly) to work with choreographer Julie Nioche on creating a showpiece to be performed as part of Southbank Centre's DancEUnion Festival.

The September Girl Jam in London falls on Sunday 14th, and will be held in the Earlsfield training grounds. This one kicks off at the slightly later time of 2pm, and is open to women of all levels of ability and experience. A great way for beginners to learn the ropes from some of the most experienced female practitioners in the UK, and for those who kow what they are doing already the Girl Jams have proven an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and practise in a friendly, positive and relaxed environment.

The new academic year for schools across the UK begins this coming week which means the recommencing of our Parkour for Schools Programme: all of our regular classes at participating schools get going as usual, including London schools Quintin Kynaston, St. Augustines, Hallfields and East Barnett, plus some new schools that are entering the course for the first time this year. With such high demand from schools and some powerful new developments about to take place, the discipline will soon be reaching a whole new generation of practitioners.

Three new short videos by Julie Angel have just been released, showing more elements of the latest USA Seminar we ran in Ohio in May of this year. Entitled Warm Up, Awaken the Touch, and Training with Kazuma, these great little edits capture some of the amazing energy and spirit that went into those few days from all involved.

The Spanish education authorities are following the example of the UK and are planning to bring parkour instruction into their school curriculum. September 8th-11th sees us running a special course in Cadiz, Spain for sports teachers so that they can begin to get a grasp of how they can integrate the very basic elements of the discipline into their sports programmes.

Following the hugely successful International Art du Deplacement Gathering in Evry, Paris in May of this year, organised by our good friends and partners the Yamakasi Founders, more information on the opening of the Paris ADD Academy can now be found on their website here. Also on the page is a short video piece documenting the May gathering, which catpures very well the spirit, energy and enormous fun of the whole two days. All in French of course, so break out the dictionaries..!

Wednesday 3rd September sees the first initial run of the A.D.A.P.T (Art du Deplacement And Parkour Teaching) Certification Assessments commencing in London for a select group of candidates. Chau Belle-Dinh of the Yamakasi Founders will be one of the Assessors for this preliminary 3-day course, along with Stephane and Johann Vigroux and Forrest. Good luck to all the candidates, and we look forward to welcoming the first Affiliated Instructors in due course.

August's London gathering, Off The Wall VII, went off with a bang on Sunday despite the threatening rainclouds at the start. Great to see so many faces, old and new, attending the Jam and having so much fun. Brian did a fine job with the group warm-up before unleashing everyone on the walls and scaffoldings of Vauxhall, and by the end of the day everything had dried up nicely! Also very good to see everyone there treating the training areas with such respect and care, and leaving it better than they found it.