I've been incredibly fortunate to be living in London when learning Parkour as its a city that suits the discipline well. Over the last decade particularly it has seen Parkour explode and been at the centre of the global scene.

Filippo Coen from Milan in Italy recently joined us for a few months in London to train and explore the city. He has now returned to Milan and his team the Milan Monkeys and lately has been philosophising on his Parkour training and Parkour in general. His thoughts on this are in English and Italian below. 

Winter is cold, wet, and dark. Everything about it makes parkour training more challenging. Jumps get bigger and landings more challenging. Unless you want to sit on your butt for a few months of the year, though, you need to get outside and train.

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!

Nothing revolutionary here, just an observation.

The other day a few of us were out training, jumping about, doing our own thing, keeping an eye on the kids around us, making sure they didn't kill themselves whilst challenging us with 'can you do this?' whilst contorting themselves on a climbing frame or doing some sort of movement resembling a cartwheel. You know the scene.

For the last few years one of the workshops I’ve delivered at events and seminars around the world has been entitled Breaking the Jump, which is designed to focus on that aspect of parkour / freerunning which has always struck me as perhaps the most central, most essential , part of our discipline – that being the moment of fear and truth that arises whenever you face a jump, movement or challenge that requires you to be 100% present in order to stare it in the eye and overcome it.

Cueing

n. cue  1.a. A reminder or prompting. b. A hint or suggestion.    tr.v. cued, cu·ing, cue 1. To give a cue to; signal or prompt.

The Importance of Cueing

I want to share something with you that makes me smile.  Its something that I'm sure most of you will be able to relate to and have experienced yourself at some point.

There is a grey, fairly nondescript railing outside Kilburn Park Station.   For those of you who have been there I’m sure you’ve walked past it on many occasions without looking at it twice.  When I see that rail now it makes me feel all warm inside; it’s the simple things in life!

“To neglect one’s body for any other advantage in life is the greatest of follies” Arthur Schopenhauer
“It is the mind itself which shapes the body” Fredrich von Schiller

Two of Joseph Pilates favourite quotes

What is Pilates?