First, what is parkour? Parkour (also known by the abbreviated PK), is a bit like rock climbing, but for urbanites in largely urban environments. The objective of Parkour is to climb, leap and/or swing from point to point smoothly and aggressively. Oh, and there are points for style as well. You’ll want to bust out moves that are all your own.
Free running, on the other hand, involves a lot of speed bursts and full out sprinting, leaping and lunging through small portals, and every movement is connected seamlessly into a continuous flowing movement. Add the street ninja elements of parkour and you have an awesome new way to stay fit and feel alive.
Here’s a few things I’m learning (and have yet to master) while practicing and having fun with PK / Free Running.
- The quads and hamstring muscles really get firing with PK, so stretching the legs thoroughly before and even after is crucial to staying injury-free.
- Start with small jumps before really reaching deep down for the big jumps, especially if you’re new to the explosive movements in PK /Free Running. Train your muscles and nervous system progressively by jumping park benches, picnic tables, barriers and small fences, then move up to the physically trickier stuff.
- Creativity and quick thinking is key in PK / Free running. So is confidence. Bring ample supply of each at your next PK session. In fact, bring an ample supply of each to your life!
- Your adrenaline will be a good indication of whether you’re ready to step up to more challenging stuff. Certain amounts of adrenaline are good, it keeps you feeling “action jackson”, but feeling too much adrenaline may mean you need to back off a bit and acclimatize your nervous system with lesser feats first. Too much adrenaline will result in being unable to function properly physically or mentally. It’s about finding your optimal state of arousal.
- Minimizing the impact of your body with the ground after a long drop might be the most important skill to learn. 1) stay relaxed and exhale on the descent 2) land on the balls of your feet, with knees bent. Let the joints relent to the impact one by one. 3) Carry your momentum forward by rolling after the impact. You can do so by tucking in a shoulder immediately after impact and tucking in your head to your body.
Here is a list of some of the moves [source ]:
| Landing | Bending the knees when toes make contact with ground (never land flat footed; always land on toes and ball of your foot). |
| Balance | Walking along the crest of an obstacle; literally “balance.” |
| Cat balance | Quadrupedal movement along the crest of an obstacle. |
| Underbar, jump through | Jumping or swinging through a gap between obstacles; literally “to cross” or “to break through.” |
| Dismount, swinging jump | Hanging drop; lacher literally meaning “to let go.” To hang or swing (on a bar, on a wall, on a branch) and let go, dropping to the ground or to hang from another object. |
| Pop vault, wall hop | Overcoming a wall, usually by use of a kick off the wall to transform forward momentum into upward momentum. A passe muraille with two hand touches, for instance one touch on the top of a wall and another grabbing the top of the railing of the wall, is called a “Dyno”. |
| Vault | To move over an object with one’s hand(s) on an object to ease the movement. |
| Turn vault | A vault involving a 180° turn; literally “half turn.” This move is often used to place yourself hanging from the other side of an object in order to shorten a drop or prepare for a jump. |
| Speed vault | To overcome an obstacle by jumping side-wise first, then using one hand, while in the air, to push your body forwards. |
| Thief vault, Lazy vault, switch hands | To overcome an obstacle by using a one-handed vault, then using the other hand at the end of the vault to push oneself forwards in order to finish the move. |
| Cat pass/jump, (king) kong vault | The saut de chat involves diving forward over an obstacle so that the body becomes horizontal, pushing off with the hands and tucking the legs, such that the body is brought back to a vertical position, ready to land. |
| Dash vault | This vault, similar to the lazy vault, involves using the hands to move oneself forwards at the end of the vault. Unlike the lazy vault, one uses both hands to overcome an obstacle by jumping feet first over the obstacle and pushing off with the hands at the end. Visually, this might seem similar to the saut de chat, but reversed. David Belle has officially rebuked this vault however,[citation needed] and thus its inclusion as a parkour movement is debatable. |
| Reverse vault | A vault involving a 360° rotation such that the traceur’s back faces forward as they pass the obstacle. The purpose of the rotation is ease of technique in the case of otherwise awkward body position or loss of momentum prior to the vault. |
| Muscle-up or climb-up | To get from a hanging position (wall, rail, branch, arm jump, etc) into a position where your upper body is above the obstacle, supported by the arms. This then allows for you to climb up onto the obstacle and continue. |
| Roll | A forward roll where the hands, arms and diagonal of the back contact the ground. Used primarily to transfer the momentum/energy from jumps and to minimise impact preventing a painful landing. Identical to the basic Kaiten of martial arts such as Judo, Ninjutsu, Jujitsu, and Aikido. |
| Armjump, cat leap | To land on the side of an obstacle in a hanging/crouched position, the hands gripping the top edge, holding the body, ready to perform a muscle up. |
| Drop | Literally ‘jump to the ground’ / ‘jump to the floor’. To jump down, or drop down from something. |
| Gap jump | To jump from one place/object to another, over a gap/distance. This technique is most often followed with a roll. |
| Precision jump | Static jump from one object to a precise spot on another object. |
| Tic tac | To kick off a wall in order to overcome another obstacle or gain height to grab something. |
I’m wondering if readers have comments or experiences with PK / free running. I’d love to hear them.
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