Although our Parkour Handbook isn't set for general release in the UK until June 4th, and a bit later in the USA and worldwide, we will be offering copies exclusively and at a discount at our indoor Academy Classes over the next few weeks. Illustrated with a bank of amazing photographs from legendary photographer Andy Day, a.k.a. Kiell, this first ever introductory book is a little piece of history for the discipline.

Following on from the workshop and conference that Dan and Stephane ran in Alicante, Spain, Atiende TV have released coverage of the event on Youtube. You can watch the video and interview they have posted by clicking on the link HERE.

You can also see footage from the festival captured by Japanese broadcaster NTDTV by clicking HERE.

Well done to all the Parkour Academy members who completed the London Marathon today - some good times! Congrats also to the Westminster Sports Unit team who ran, especially endurance athletes Eugene and Cory... great stuff guys. No excuses for missing out on Monday's Academy Class though, so rest while you can!

Next week we will be running a workshop and demonstration day at the week-long Oxdox International Film Festival in Oxford, UK, where several of Julie Angel's films will be featured. The workshops will run from 12-5 on Tuesday 28th, and Julie and the team will also be holding a panel discussion on parkour and movie-making at the festival. All details on the festival and the event can be found at the above link.

As of next week three Sutton schools begin regular classes with us, those being Overton Grange High School, Greenshaw High School and Carshalton Boys Sports College. With more and more schools joining our Parkour for Schools Programme the enormous benefits of the discipline are being introduced to young people all over the country. These weekly school sessions in Sutton run in the afternoons, and will be on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays respectively.

Our monthly Off the wall Jam will be hosted this Sunday 26th at Archway in North London. While hoping that this beautiful weather will continue to hold until the weekend, we will be meeting outside the Archway Tube station (Northern Line) at 12.45 so we'll be ready to leave for 1pm. Theses free London gatherings are open to any and all, and are a great way to meet other traceurs and exchanges ideas and tips on training as well as generally having a great time! For more details email brian(at)parkourgenerations.com.

Resident Parkour Generations photographer and climber Kiell has just posted a new gallery up on the website labeled "Preparations". The images are sneak previews of content that will appear in the new book available in June, so check out these photos of Dom, James and Alli by either going to his website www.kiell.com or by visiting our gallery section HERE.

The Australian Parkour Association's 2008 'wrap-up' newsletter has just come out and can be read online here. The first 2009 newsletter from the guys can be read here. Great way to keep up with what's been happening down under.

Team Member Dan has been invited to speak at the 6th world conference on sport and society held by sports political organisation Play the Game between 8-12 June this year. The Play the Game conference offers a unique forum for dialogue on sport.

With stronger and stronger links being forged now between the many national practicing communities and groups around the world, the global parkour community continues to grow. We would like to invite any such groups that haven't yet been highlighted on our Global Community Page to click the link, drop us a line and get themselves on the network..!

Recently the Guardian newspaper sent one of their reporters, John Ashdown, to come and experience one of our Indoor Academy classes at Moberley Sports Center. The report of his experiences has just been published on the Guardian website and you can read it HERE. If you wish to attend one of our classes then head on over to the classes section by clicking on the menu above!

The famous Hay Literature Festival organised by The Guardian newspaper have invited Parkour Generations down to the event to run some masterclasses for anyone wishing to jump in and get involved. The team will be there from the 25th May to celebrate the forthcoming new Parkour Handbook being released June 4th Worldwide. For more information about the festival you can find a full program of events on their website HERE.

This Friday 17th will play host to a full day workshop happening at Whitefields School in Barnet. Some of the coaches will be heading up to the school to give the students an overview of the basics of parkour which will include the importance of warming-up, safety, fitness, beginner techniques and stretching as well as proper warm-downs in training.

This Thursday is the fortnightly womens session for any ladies wishing to train alongside our coaches in an outdoor class. Its a great way for the girls to get to concentrate on specific parkour skills and as always it's open to all abilities. So if you want to head over to our class booking pages you can sign up there or just click HERE!

For anyone thinking of joining our outdoor classes, now is the time to be doing it! At various and alternating locations around London the Parkour Generations coaches will teach all levels and abilities from absolute beginner to the practiced professional. For more information and to sign up for an outdoor session please visit our classes page HERE. Oh, and don't forget we're offering a block-booking option for those of you who wish to regularly train every week!

This is another reminder for our students, but there is no academy class tonight due to the bank holiday and Moberley being closed.

A seven minute video has gone up on YouTube coving some of the Rome charity event that Stephane, Chris and Blane ran alongside Chau Belle, Laurent Piemontesi and the guys from Parkour.it. Most of it is in Italian, but you can forward to the interviews with the team since they are still in English. You can view the video by clicking the link HERE.

Due to it being good Friday this week, our youth academy will be closing its doors until Friday 17th April. If you're one of our students why not take this time out to watch some of the movies on the new video page, or maybe have a read of the new blog articles that are being posted by the team. Regardless of what you do over the weekend the PKGen team wish you all a happy Easter!

We are now offering a block booking discount to any of our regular outdoor class students who wish to book for either one, two or three months in advance. The following prices are for the discounted blocks:

One Month : £70

Two Months : £130

Three Months : £190

For information on these discounts, either speak to your class instructor or email us HERE.

This is a little reminder that there will be no Academy class this bank holiday Monday 13th, but will obviously give you a spare evening to rest up for classes the rest of the week! Don't forget we have our beginner class on Tuesdays at Westminster academy and both a Wednesday and Friday outdoor class you can book by going to our classes section HERE.

This month Parkour Generations are running a number of sessions for City of Westminster's Pupil Referal Unit (PRU), giving excluded kids a chance at learning Parkour and engaging them through sport. The programme will give the students an opportunity to learn from our coaches the basics of the discipline through our tried and tested training methods.

Dan and Stephane have just returned from Alicante, Spain where they ran a workshop and conference as part of the line-up for the annual Urban Festival there. The festival was a great success with the likes of Hip-Hop legends Crazy Legs and Guru also on the line-up to perform and teach, and the parkour workshop went down very well with the local and visiting traceurs alike. Great spirit, good training, and a great place to practice too!

The London Nautical School for boys will soon be starting a regular weekly class with Parkour Generations, joining our very popular Parkour for Schools programme. Based in the Royal borough of Lambeth, near the Southbank, the class will already contain some of our regular students from the academy. You can visit the school website HERE for more information and contact details.

Today the team is starting our popular Positive Futures Edutain class over at Moberley Sports Center, Kilburn Lane in Kensal Rise which will be running all this week from 1pm to 3pm. Also starting today at Moberley is the Westminster Parkour Camp from 10am until 1pm! The camp will also allow some participants to qualify for their AQA Units 1 and 2 in Parkour.

On Monday, April 6th, Dan and Stephane will be in Alicante, Spain, holding a seminar day for the "Jornadas de cultura Hip-Hop" event. Now in its fifth year, the event has hosted shows, talks and workshops with personalities like Henry Chalfant, Ken Swift, DJ Q-Bert, DJ Marley Marl, Spinkings and the very best MCs and groups of the Spanish scene (Nach, Tote King, La Excepción, etc). The event explores the more cultural side of the Hip-Hop movement, and with parkour ever growing in popularity among young people in Spain for the first time it will be officially introduced to the programme.

For the next two weeks, Monday to Thursday, we will be running the City of Westminster Parkour Camp for young people at Moberly Sports Centre in Kilburn, West London, from 10am-1pm. The Camp has been an annual project for some time now and is always a pleasure to run. The participants will be put through their paces over the 8 days and some will qualify for the AQA Units 1 and 2 in Parkour that we deliver there.

Yesterday evening saw the launch event hosted at the Arsenal Emirates Stadium for the groudbreaking project with arts group All Change, studying the science of fear through parkour.

Keeping with the times and integrating with the social network phenomenon, Parkour Generations now has a twitter account that you can subscribe to HERE. Our profile name is 'PKGenerations' and if you subscribe to our feed you will get all of the current news and blog updates straight to your profile. Additionally you can add a mobile phone number and get these updates as an SMS!

Earlier in the month we announced our redesigned blog and promised a regular article for all of our readers. Today Dan gets the ball rolling with the first post of April, but be sure to check back daily since the whole team will be giving you their thoughts throughout the month! Also remember to subscribe via RSS, Email or Twitter to get an update of when the posts are submitted. You can visit the blog HERE.