It's 2013 and I'm increasingly thinking about what we pass on in our training.

Thinking back to how I was introduced to Parkour- there were only a few videos online and all learning was a painstaking process of trial and error with one's self. This was many years before the birth of Youtube. Importantly, I never felt discouraged when watching these videos... quite the opposite actually. So where exactly am I going with this you may ask!

As London gets set to host the Olympics this summer, I got thinking about the history of Olympic jumping. London has been the setting for two previous Olympic Games, in 1948 and way back in 1908. The 1908 games featured two events long since dropped from the Olympic schedule, but nonetheless relevant to the contemporary parkour practitioner – the standing high jump, and standing long jump.

Well, full disclosure first...this is one of those blog writings that are written in a slightly uninspired phase, so I had to really think about what I have been up to recently to try to find something to write about. Unfortunately, winter training can be a bit unexciting at times.

Work hard and be kind

Work hard and be kind is one of few life rules I try to live by.

Both move you forward.

But when life gets hectic, one of them can fool you into feeling it’s the only force you should feed.

Be strong to be useful. For sure. For that I have to work hard.

And being useful is many things, one of them being kind.

First of all, go and watch the amazing TED talk attached below.

I’d liked to touch on what I believe is one of the more important aspects of training for athletes. Conditioning. Yes, training your particular sport is equally important!  However, if your body isn’t prepared for the sport, then longevity in the sport is unlikely. You won’t see gains without putting in a little effort! I’ll keep this short, as there is a vast amount of detail that could be introduced and maybe I’ll flesh this out in future posts.

Back at the end of May at American Rendezvous 2, Dan held a module “Breaking Jumps: Psychology of Conquering Fears”. The aim of the module was to have each person attending find a single jump that would bring out the fear. The module was excellent and really illustrated the important of pushing one's comfort zone.

So, most of the information you can find on this website, or any other parkour related website, is obviously about.....parkour, right? Well, yeah that's a no brainer. You want to learn how to jump better, or climb-up faster. Maybe add a few flips into your movement, who knows? But recently, what I've been personally discovering more is how helpful it could be to broaden your mind in the art of movement. So I'm going to be a bit unorthodox and advise you to stop drilling jumps now and then go learn something new.

As I have recently started teaching weekly classes in Southern California, I have received similar questions along the lines of

“How can I get myself to do a jump?”