Take Flight

As with the many urban disciplines and sports before Parkour, the pioneers had to teach themselves and develop everything from scratch. Everything from basic fitness exercises for improving specific skills to the perfect technique of certain movements had to be determined through trial and error. People like David Belle and the Yamakasi had to rely on feedback from their bodies to direct their training.

Now there are dozens of gyms and academies around the world focused on teaching Parkour and Freerunning. One of the oldest and largest Parkour academies is our partner Revolution Parkour in Oregon.

Don’t worry about the limited access to gyms, there are groups all over holding classes and clinics in parks and local gymnastic gyms. Most of these classes are free and if your instructors are from one of our partners they are very dedicated. Hawaii Parkour’s founder, Ozzi, just sent out a new letter stating “I’d like to give everyone a reminder to reassure you that when it comes to the classes, rain, hail, tsunami or the miracle of snow, I WILL BE AT PARK, no matter what, to hold a session.”

Instructors from Texas Parkour travel hours sometimes to get to the locations of their clinics. So for anyone willing to learn, there is bound to be someone willing to guide you. Feel free to post questions about clinics and classes to 30,000 Traceurs worldwide on our Facebook wall, or try to network to find people to go out and train with.

Take Flight is excited to announce Stephen “Viking” Laster as our newest sponsored athlete and member of the Take Flight Street Team! Stephen has a few loves in life: heavy music,cooking, and teaching/learning Parkour. He has been training since November 2008, and through Parkour he has lost 80 pounds.

He also credits Parkour with helping him find a way to make it though his probation, and learn self-control in many parts of his life. His biggest passion in Parkour is teaching, says Stephen, “I love being able to spread the knowledge of Parkour to people and am always willing to travel up to an hour to teach a private lesson and I consistently drive from Denton to Austin in order to help lead a state-wide workshop.”

Stephen’s dedication to changing his own life, and now spreading Parkour in order to improve the lives of others, has gained him local and national recognition. We are proud to include him in our list of sponsored athletes.

Take Flight sponsored athlete Thomas Dolan, just recently finished his winter video and in our humble opinion, it is awesome! Thomas has produced a handful of great videos that can be found on his youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/thomasdolan08

This video follows suit with the others in his collection; by combining unique music and editing with amazing Parkour and movement he creates an incredible experience. Speaking of editing, did we mention Thomas edits all his own videos as well as starring in them? We are proud to show off Thomas as one of our sponsored athletes, and we are excited to see what great productions he will have in the future. Now here it is: Thomas Dolan’s Winter Training Video!

The mission statement of Parkour Uruguay (PKUY) is “Inspirar y enseñar el camino del Parkour.” In English it means, “To inspire and to teach the way of Parkour”. A mission to which you could devote your entire life and, for some, it would be a dream come true.

Parkour Uruguay is the most recent addition to Take Flight Partners, and it was established in 2007. They have worked with a range of professional Traceurs and you can see their video with 3Run on the PKUY partner page. Just a few days ago they were honored with a national news feature on a show called Supersport.

However, they prefer to focus on others instead of themselves. Parkour Uruguay organizes jam around Monte Video by posting times and locations on their website complete with google map directions. So anyone interested in working with them may join in at any point. They also offer classes to further the education of beginning Traceurs and help spread the knowledge of Parkour.

Take Flight is proud to have Parkour Uruguay as the newest partner.

Just in time for Spring, the newest PK Thermal has been added to the Take Flight apparel line. Keeping with tradition, the simple yet bold design, of the “PK” and the Take Flight Flight Man combined into one, remains. Obviously, we could not keep the gray print for the gray shirt, so instead we have a strong black print that really stands out on the gray thermals.

Our PK Thermals are not just a long sleeve tee, they are a specially woven 100% cotton fabric, providing a contoured fit that will keep you warm yet being breathable and not constricting movement. They are durable enough for any form of training, but comfortable enough to be your favorite pajamas. A thermal is a perfect addition to any Tacueur’s wardrobe.

We recently asked our fans what they wanted to see from us. To be exact, the post on our Facebook said:

LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD NOW! We want the Take Flight page to be something you are enthusiastic about sharing with your friends. What can we do for you to make this a reality? More PK videos? More quotes? Discounts?! New clothing?! A huge sale?! Or something else? This is your chance to change what we do at Take Flight …and how we run our page so let us know by commenting on this post!

In addition to fans wanting us to continue posting videos and quotes, the number one response we received was to begin making Parkour tutorial videos. When we heard this idea we immediately loved it! As such, starting this week we will begin doing this and we hope to release a new video every week or two.

Throughout the months to come we plan to release Parkour tutorials via the Take Flight YouTube channel on all sorts of movements and techniques to help our followers learn Parkour and be safe in their progression. With this in mind, if there is a specific technique you’d like to learn let us know so we can make a tutorial on it. Post on our Facebook wall or send us an email and we’ll get back to you. We want these video to help you, so let us know what you want!

Here is a fun edit from Parkour Generation’s 2nd annual Rendezvous event. The video was filmed by Julie Angle and features the Yamakasi founders Yann Hnautra, Châu Belle-Dinh, Williams Belle and Laurent Piemontesi along with Kazuma, the Vigroux Brothers, Forrest, Sébastien Goudot, Daniel Ilabaca and others. This video is an enjoyable watch as it shows the more playful side of Parkour training.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spaGrSBF-Nk

The Efficiency Principle is a new training principle created by MisterParkour.com. It seeks to correct and replace the erroneous ideas put forward by the efficiency paradox in an effort to aid Tracers across the world in implementing proper training methods in their own progressions.

Parkour is a utility art based on overcoming obstacles quickly and efficiently. Much of the Parkour community has found it amusing that to become better at this you have to train “inefficient movements.” (a misconception in and of itself which we will address shortly.) This enthusiasm has recently led to the coining of the phrase the “efficiency paradox” defined as training inefficient movements to promote efficiency. Unfortunately the “efficiency paradox” is a physiologically misguiding principle, and it should be permanently discarded from Parkour terminology in favor of the physiological accurate training concept known as the Efficiency Principle.

To say that Tracers train inefficient movements to promote efficiency is physiologically inaccurate (we will explain this momentarily). However, because of the linguistic novelty of the purpose of Parkour (namely, efficiently overcoming obstacles) and many common methods of training which do not encompass this type of movement, it is logical to see how some could erroneously and inadvertently support the Efficiency Paradox. Nevertheless, this concept has no credence once one understands two basic, foundational training principles that blatantly contradict the Efficiency Paradox. These concepts are What is Training? and Training vs. Performance. Analyzing these two training concepts proves the Efficiency Paradox inaccurate and also simultaneously provides the basis to found the Efficiency Principle.

The concept of true and proper training discredits the Efficiency Paradox because it contradicts the definition of the Efficiency Paradox. Contrary to the definition, correct training always reinforces efficiency of movement to the point that saying one is training “inefficient movement” is kind of like saying the color blue smells like roses. Neither statement makes any sense. Of course the rebuttal is that one could “move faster” or “move more efficiently”, but one must realize that efficiency in movement has absolutely nothing to do with speed, and efficiency in training has nothing to do with performance value. Efficiency has to do with optimizing output and minimizing waste given a certain input. Suffice to say that just because someone is not running as fast as he/she can does not mean that he/she is not moving efficiently or training efficiency.

The definition of the Efficiency Paradox not only puts forth physiological misguiding training principles by erroneously telling people to train inefficient movement (something that can not be done in proper training), the term also erroneously unites the two independent concepts ideas of Training and Performance. In opposition to the Efficiency Paradox the concepts of Training and Performance are two distinctly different actions. We do not perform so that we can perform better, and training is not a part of performance. Rather we train (concept 1) so that we can improve our performance (concept 2). The Efficiency Paradox however, erroneously assimilates and unites these two ideas. By explaining that we train inefficiency, the concept directly correlates Training and Performance by implicitly defining training as a lesser level of performance (the inefficient performance to be exact). Some may see this as a linguistic formality but it is not. The Efficiency Paradox is therefore in contradiction to the Training vs. Performance principle, and in this it is further misguiding and flawed.

The efficiency paradox puts forth erroneous physiological principles that are exposed when analyzing the What is Training? and the Training vs. Performance concepts. When combined, these two concepts not only defeat the Efficiency Paradox, they also create the new Efficiency Principle:

The Efficiency Principle is the act of training efficiency so that one can perform efficiently.

In the first person perspective one can explain the Efficiency Principle by saying, “We train efficiency so that we can perform efficiently.”

It is the linguistic novelty of the term Efficiency Paradox that has made it so widely publicized in the Parkour community. Unfortunately in spite of its originality, the Efficiency Paradox is an physiologically erroneous term, and its perpetuation is the direct result of a misunderstanding of the two principles What is Training? and Training vs. Performance. On the other hand, the Efficiency Principle is an accurate training guideline that succinctly explains the purpose and goal of training from a Parkour perspective through physiologically sound doctrine. Consider the Efficiency Paradox not only dead, but in the sentiment of Parkour, inefficient.

In the 5th behind the scenes episode of B13 – Ultimatum we said, “Pay special attention to David’s movements at :37 in the video… [it] is… an incredible testament to his athleticism.” We promised to explain this statement, and now we are keeping true to that promise.

Most people see David jump from buildings and awe at his athletic ability. In reality, even the simple things he does are awe inspiring from an athletic perspective. To this day no one has provided an accurate physiological explanation as to how David can do what he does, but simply enough it is through his seemingly inconsequential movements which we can understand and explain it.

What is so incredible about David’s movements at :54 of Episode 5 is his dexterity and range of motion (also shown in his window perched position in :58 of Episode 15). These are signs of the dynamic tension he has achieved in his muscles. Dynamic tension is the perfect state of muscular equilibrium, where every muscle is proportionally strong in correlation to every other muscle in the body. Not having dynamic tension (also known as having a lack of muscular integrity) creates unnecessary tension in the body, and pulls the joints into an improper alignment causing the body to move compensatively and inefficiently. One of the most obvious signs of a lack of muscular integrity is a lack of range of motion. A lack of integrity also commonly manifests itself in aching joints (forget all of the “itis” diagnosis’, it is caused by a lack of muscular integrity). Injuries in Parkour of every kind are almost always the result of a lack of muscular integrity as well.

David’s body has been trained into a perfect functional state characterized by this dynamic tension which is why he is able to do what he does. Most peoples see the big movements David performs, the man power gap at 1:44 in his Et Vous? video, or the massive building to building leap he did at 1:07 in the BBC commercial, and are in awe. But we would argue that far more inspiring are his subtle movements that clue to why he is so capable. You can see it in his abilities to immediately change direction as in his lateral jump at 2:53 in the French News Feature. You can see it in his explosion from a standing position at :47 in the Accrohes Toi video (notice there is absolutely no tension in his body when he jumps). You can see it in his leg movement at 30:19 during his interview at the New Yorker Festival. You can see it in his resilience to absorb shock in his jump over the railings at 1:43 in the Speed Air Man video and when he drops from the overpass later in the video at 2:21. And you can clear your mind of any confusion you have from David’s famous fall on the UCLA campus. The fact that he walked away uninjured was also the result of his perfect muscular integrity.

All of David’s abilities as well as his resistance to injury can be credited to the dynamic tension of his muscles. This analysis of course circles back to present day David where we can verify our claim. Many Tracers train for only a short time and begin suffering from physical aliments. Others train for a long time without aliments, but then are all of sudden seriously injured. Both instances are the result of a lack of muscular integrity. David on the other hand has never been seriously injured. Furthermore he is in his mid 30’s and he is stronger, faster, and more capable than ever. He has no joint pain, no shoulder, knee, or wrist issues, and he continues to perform feats of athleticism that a few decades before would have thought impossible by even the most capable humans. How can David perform such incredible feats of athleticism? Maybe we should not ask how David can do what he does, but rather how we can attain that same dynamic tension that will enable us to follow in his footsteps.

The following is an absolutely incredible, dare we say groundbreaking, article from Chris “Blane” Rowat. An expertly written editorial piece, Blane makes some fantastic observations about the difference between modern Tracers and the original practitioners from Lisses while exposing the most predominant oversight for modern Tracers in their training. This article does lack physiological insight into principles behind what makes David so physically capable and resistant to injury. Nevertheless, many of the theoretical principles are there making this a must read for every Tracer bar none. The realizations put forth in this article will, without a doubt, help you to begin understanding how to direct your training in order to improve the safety and longevity of your Parkour career.

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Dilution

Dilution:

a) The process of making weaker or less concentrated

b) A dilute or weakened condition.

c) A diluted substance.

My mind has been busy for a while and it’s only now that I feel I want to share the outcome of my thoughts. This entry may offend you, it may seem like it’s directed at you and maybe it is.

I can live with being disliked for telling the truth, but I can not continue living with this opinion and not sharing it with the people I think it might help. I know I am not the only one who shares the following opinions and I feel it is worthwhile voicing them if it changes just one person’s mindset and helps them. This is primarily for a friend of mine who I haven’t trained with in a little while. A friend who seems to have become a little down with his training, a little distant, a little worried that he’s not as good as other people. This is for him and all of the other people who feel disheartened watching the people around them do things they cannot… and also for the newcomers to Parkour.

Yesterday was my 1300th day of practicing Parkour. I’m not a big believer in anniversaries but it was on this day that the thoughts of two weeks came together and fused to become solid in my head.

I started training 1301 days ago on September 10, 2003, the day after Jump London aired for the first time on Channel 4 and it’s amazing to think how much has happened and how much my life has changed since then.

I vividly remember the very first training session I had, 185 weeks and 6 days ago. It was with my good friend at the time, Tom, and we were both so excited from watching Jump London and wanted to jump right in and get started! I remember trying some vaults, small jumps through a gap in a moving swing and I remember the first real experience of fear in Parkour as I jumped off the roof of a local gymnastics club and rolled on the grass. It was terrifying at the time and I think it was around 12ft high. I did this because I thought this is what Parkour was, jumping off high things and living to tell the tale the next day. Oh how far we’ve all come since then… or have we?

Now as most people will tell you, the days after your first session are hellish. Who remembers that unspeakable sensation of pain just walking up a flight of stairs in the days following your first real hardcore session? I remember my quads feeling like they had been assaulted by a gang of angry thugs with baseball bats for 2 weeks.

These days there is a wealth of great information available for people starting out in the discipline that I did not have access to in the beginning of my training. It was mostly trial and error, with a large dose of the latter. But despite the benefits that learning from past experiences of veteran traceurs can bring, I can’t help but wonder if there are consequences to this.

I realise how difficult it must have been for David Belle and all of the other original traceurs of Lisses as they plunged forward in darkness over 15 years ago having no idea what they were doing or where it would lead. They slowly carved a path in a new direction and lit it up along the way for people to follow. It took many years for those guys to create the most basic movements and refine them to the extent that almost any obstacle could be overcome using just a handful of varying techniques and it is a truly remarkable accomplishment. An epic journey that a new traceur of today can bypass, almost, as they learn 10 new techniques in 2 months, that would have taken perhaps 5 years worth of training back in Lisses in the early 90′s to achieve.

So at the rate we are developing, progressing and learning, surely we will catch up to them carving in the distance and be able to help them light up the path, right?

No, I don’t think so.

I think we are travelling so quickly along that same path that we are going to run out of fuel before we reach them. They are looking behind them and see us in the distance and I think they are probably hoping we reach them to help the discipline grow, but I don’t think many people of future generations ever will.
To quote Stephane Vigroux, “I think for many people it has to be more personal… everybody’s moving… I’m really happy for them… but too quickly, too fast, too easy, too much show… too much.”

There are guys who have been training for less than a year that are doing bigger and further things than guys who have been training for four years and I believe this is mainly due to the library of knowledge available now. This may sound good in principle, that as the generations go on, we will have new guys able to sidestep the trial and error process and just stick to what has been proven to work, to get to a good level in Parkour. But I’m worried.

I think that the trial and error approach taught the original traceurs of Lisses a vast amount about themselves and injected them with a creativity and passion and courage that is being forgotten today and is being replaced with ‘by the book’ training. Not only do I believe that their mental and physical adeptness is far superior to my own, I believe this will be further diluted as the generations go by and the future traceurs begin their training. People now have lists of movements to learn and tick them off as they do them and quickly move on to something new, something bigger, something more impressive.

The best way to get respected in the Parkour community today seems to be doing the biggest and best things with the minimum amount of training to get there. As long as you do it, it doesn’t matter how sloppy it was, how slow the climb up was, how precise the landing was or how much damage it did to the person. Everybody spreads the word that “X” did “Y” so they must be better than [that person] since they have only been training for [a few] months! This approach can quickly escalate and recently I feel it has been destroying the true nature of Parkour. People are doing things to be recognised by other people and itis tough for the people working hard and progressing steadily to see this going on around them. They feel pressured in to attempting things beyond their level when they see it happening and that is not their fault.

To me, Parkour is a long and worthwhile campaign – not one short, epic battle.

I’m not only worried about the mental progression and creativity of new practitioners being sacrificed, I’m equally concerned about the physical costs of such textbook progression.

Like myself, some of you may have memories of a granddad who was the only one in the family that could open the pickle jar at dinner time, despite his advanced years. This ‘granddad strength’ I speak of was no miracle – it was the product of 60 years of manual labour and a strength produced from many years of repetitive muscle use.

I’m concerned that the shortcuts available to today’s practitioners might rob them of the irreplaceable muscular development that the Lisses traceurs have, the deep rooted neurological pathways and the vast amount of muscle memory that no book, article or spoken word can give to them. The granddad strength.

We all know you can condition your body from the beginning of your training and this will help your technical ability but I still feel people are moving too quickly and progressing too fast. I regularly see things being done by newer traceurs that guys with years of experience haven’t done and sometimes the more experienced guys feel bad… often they find themselves questioning their training and wondering why they aren’t as good, wondering where they got left behind and wondering why everybody seems to be better than them.

People have come to me, literally depressed about their training and looking for advice and asking where they went wrong, wondering what the newer guys have that they don’t. The answer I’ve given to these people is simple. The new practitioners doing the massive jumps, the impressive techniques, the big, the hard, the long, the far etc. have ignited a fuse that will see them burn out years before they might want to, simply because their bodies are not ready for what they are doing. It’s not just a question of knees, what about the damage being done to the shoulders of new guys doing big drops from branch to branch? What about their elbows?

What will be the long-term effects of this?

What will be the long-term effects of doing 12ft level arm jumps when the shoulders haven’t experienced 10,000 smaller ones?

What will be the long-term effects of dropping 15ft to concrete when the legs haven’t experienced 10,000, 5ft drops?

Time will tell.

Look at the best traceurs in the world. Go to Lisses and see them, talk to them, train with them and learn from them. They are not the best because they are genetically gifted or were crazy to try all the new things when they were younger and they are not the best because they progressed quickly. They are the best and the strongest because the progressed steadily. They built layer upon layer of armour on their bodies over years and years, repeating things thousands of times and not rushing the process. They have deep rooted granddad strength and resilience and resistance to injury that comes from gradual progression.

Various interviews with David have all asked about injuries and David has shaken his head and said his knees are fine, his arms are fine, he has no pain. This is after 18 years of training. By contrast, today we have guys with one year of training behind them taking months out with knee problems, shoulder dislocations, tendonitis… surgery to repair the body before 20 years of age. Is this a coincidence? Or is this because we are pushing too hard, too fast, trying to be the best and compare to others?

Parkour is a personal journey and one that is hard work. There are no shortcuts and there are no quick fixes. If you want ‘to be and to last’ then I suggest you take a long hard look at your training and ask yourself if you are doing this for fun, for a few years until you can settle down and get a job, get married, have kids and retire. If so then do what you want, do the massive jumps, do everything you want to do and don’t look back. Just be aware that you are having an effect on the others who are in this for the long haul and working hard to get strong. Try to bear this in mind when you say ‘I did this, so why don’t you?’ to them.

But if you want to truly discipline your body, become strong and last in Parkour then you must not compare yourself to anybody else. It can be too tempting to get talked in to doing something beyond your level when you see less experienced people doing it. Be the bigger man/woman and realise the damage they are doing to themselves and take pride in knowing you didn’t succumb to peer pressure. In 10 years when they’re walking with a cane, you will be able to do that jump a hundred times without generating a bead of sweat.

I’m not sure how we can help the future generations of traceurs and the future of Parkour. By providing them with our experience we can prepare them but it must not become a substitute for trial and error or we will all become clones of our teachers. There must remain an element of trial and error and an element of exploration. They must also be allowed to progress in their own time without feeling the pressure of people around them. I’m going to make it a personal goal of mine to help the people I see feeling pressured in to doing something they don’t want to, it would be great if some people reading this could take the time to join me.

To summarize the two points in the above article…

1) If you’re new to Parkour, research as much as possible and learn from the people who have walked the path before you, but do not lose your creativity and ability to think for yourself. Try new things, explore different methods and progress at your own pace. What you need to remember is that the people before you have more physical experience that has built what I refer to as “granddad strength” and that cannot be taught or passed on. You can rush the theory but you cannot take shortcuts on the practical stage if you want to last in this discipline.

2) If you are more experienced in Parkour and feel like newer people are better than you, do not feel pressured in to pushing yourself too hard or doing things just because they are. Try to warn them of the dangers of trying things beyond their bodies’ conditioned state – even if they can do something, doesn’t mean they should. They are learning faster than you due to the wealth of information before them, due to your hard work.

If you care for the future of Parkour then it is your duty to help them to progress sensibly and remind them that they should slow down when you think they are going too fast. If we do not do this, Parkour will slowly die as its practitioners become weaker and weaker duplicates of past traceurs due to injury, overtraining and joint destruction.

Are you going to help to dilute Parkour and the new traceurs, or are you going help to concentrate it and strengthen them?

“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” – William Butler Yeats

-Blane

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