Write up - Leave No Trace/Beginner Parkour Workshop

On Saturday, December 6th, Rochester Parkour held a “Leave No Trace Initiative/Beginner Parkour Workshop.” Thirty five people put on layer upon layer and headed out into 25 degree weather to Manhattan Square Park in downtown Rochester, New York.



We arrived at 2:00pm with three brooms, three dustpans, two (very) small rakes, six pairs of rubber work gloves, and about four thousand gallons of elbow grease. There were a lot of new faces, people out for the first time, so we all circled up and had a brief introduction to Parkour. Zachary Cohn explained what Parkour is, what it isn't, and what it means to be a traceur. We discussed the different facets of respect – respect for yourself, respect for others, and respect for your environment. Respect for yourself included a discussion on safety and an emphasis on slow progression. Respect for others was about respecting your fellow traceurs, pedestrians, property owners, and law enforcement. Respect for environment was the focus of the discussion however – we talked about how lucky we are to have these amazing locations to train on, and how it is important to give back to the community. We discussed how important it is to pick up trash as you see it; such a small effort can make a huge difference. On Saturday, we decided to clean up Manhattan Square Park.

Manhattan Square Park had several years worth of trash, broken glass, cigarettes, leaves, and other miscellaneous junk scattered around it. For the first 90 minutes of the day, we spread out around the park. We raked, swept, and picked up everything we saw. We ended up removing twenty one bags of trash and leaves from the park. It looked AMAZING afterwards, so much better than it did before. And the best part? I found out from a Fire Marshall that was there preparing for a fireworks show that night that there was a parade that evening, and it ended right smack in the middle of the park! So we ended up doing the whole city a huge favor by cleaning up the area for them. It was a very gratifying experience... even if as a whole the city never finds out who cleaned up, we still know and we still can be proud of that.

At 3:30, we started the Beginner's Workshop. The group was split about 50/50 between traceurs who had been coming fairly regularly and very inexperienced people. This workshop was focused on the very basics of Parkour, so that's where we started. Jeff Whalley lead the first half of the warm up, and Charles Moreland wrapped up with quadrupedal movement variants. Once the warmups were finished, Zachary Cohn taught landings in six separate phases: 1) Just jump. 2) Jump and land on the balls of the feet. 3) Jump, land on the balls of the feet, and bend the knees. 4) Jump, land on the balls of the feet, bend the knees, and use your arms when you jump. 5) Jump, land on the balls of the feet, bend knees, and maintain good back posture. 6) Jump, land on the balls of the feet, bend knees, maintain good back posture, and be silent when you land.

After everyone was taught how to properly land, we broke up into three separate groups. One group went to a playground with Charles to work on rolls, one group went to the park benches with Jeff to work on vaults, and the third group went with Zac to the field and worked on precisions. We brought three homemade precision trainers use, and then the precision group drilled footwork by taking two steps and then precisioning to a stair. The vault group learned safety vaults, and then some of the more experienced people drilled their speed vaults. The rolling group started by rolling from a squatting position, and some of the more experienced traceurs drilled rolls from standing.

We had to rush a little bit at the end, they were going to be shooting off fireworks and we needed to clear out. We packed all of the bags of trash into cars, gave out a few of the new “Rochester Parkour” t-shirts, then went across the street and stretched a bit. We decided to head to a local coffee shop for some well deserved hot chocolate to wrap up the day.

All in all, it went off better than we could have possibly expected. The weather was tolerable (and for Rochester, that's as good as it's going to get), we had a HUGE turnout, an article in the paper that morning, pulled out 21 bags of trash and leaves from a great training spot, made friends with several parents who were watching their kids play near us, and we all met new people and made new friends.

All in all, I'd call it a win.

Zenith Parkour Class - A Big Hit

On Sunday, October 5th, I ran a free "Parkour and Obstacle Coursing Workshop" at Zenith Gymnastics in Rochester, New York.

I've been working with Zenith Gymnastics through the RIT Gymnastics club since the end of last summer. I was calling all the local gyms I could find, trying to find somewhere that would give us access to their equipment and facilities and let us train there. After some negotiation, RIT Gymnastics started going there weekly, learning from Sasha and Maria Kourbatova - Russian olympic gold metalists and leaders in their fields. We learned a lot over the year, and we're looking forward to a very successful second year with them!

Amy, the owner of Zenith Gymnastics, has been trying to expand her boys program. My roommate, co-founder of Rochester Parkour, and President of the RIT Gymnastics Club Charles Moreland, offered his help and has begun to teach some of the Boy's Gymnastics classes at Zenith.

Back in August, I called Amy to confirm plans for Gymnastics this year. At the end of this call, I proposed to her the idea of starting a Parkour class. She was interested in the idea, and told me to develop a curriculum and some flyers. I came up with several different ways for the class to work, depending on some of Amy's goals, and we finally settled on a 4 week class aimed towards Zenith's primary demographic, 8-14 year olds.

Yesterday, I ran a free workshop at Zenith to generate some interest. Five kids arrived, and there were between eight and ten more on the list of people interested. Two brothers, around age 9, two fourteen year olds, and a seven year old.

We started with some fun running drills up and down the gym, then I introduced them to QM (Quadrupedal Motion). We did more of what I called a "gorilla run," a fast and galloping motion. After a minute or two of practice with this, I wanted to start getting them engaged.

One thing I've learned in my experience with Taekwondo is that kids are very easily distracted. In fact, I've made a chart:




You can't argue with science this sound.

In order to keep the kids entertained and on topic, I mixed a lot of games into the class. The first game we played is QM Tag. You have to stay on all fours, and then the person who is it has to tag someone's elbows. They enjoyed this a lot, and it was a great way to warm them up.

After a few other warmup activities, we moved straight into an obstacle course.
I started by showing them a simple safety vault over a balance beam, and then they landed, immediately QMed under a second balance beam, and then stood up and vaulted over a third. After that, pull-overs on the uneven bars, QM-balance on a balance beam (floor height), jumping over some blocks, some more qm, and then some precision jumps to and from tape on the floor.

We broke it down, piece by piece, so A) I could teach them some of the basics of a technique to overcome that obstacle, and B) so I could make sure they were doing it safely. The only thing people really had problems with was the pull-overs, and so I stood there and assisted them.

Later on, we played a game of PDQ (a game where the goal is to jump on people's feet), ran through another obstacle course, climbed ropes, and jumped in a foam pit!

The two brothers picked it up immediately. While I only showed them the safety vault, they were already modifying it into what looked like a two-handed speed vault. They plowed through all the vaulting and QM and balance. Later on, we were practicing rope climbs. Once they were done and waiting for the other three boys, they asked me if they could practice the pull-overs. I don't really know why this left such an impression on me, but I told them of course they could and watched as they figured out how to do it themselves!

The two fourteen year olds did quite well also, they had some problems with the rope climb and the pull-overs, but they didn't give up! That's another thing that really left an impact on me. Even when they couldn't do it, they were thinking about how to practice or how to build enough strength to do it. I can barely remember all these kids' names, and I'm already so proud of them.

All in all, it was a great experience. The kids had an enormous amount of fun and were really excited about coming back (one of them even signed up for the www.AmericanParkour.com forums already... I didn't even reference it! He must be doing his own research) Amy is very excited about Zenith being the only gym with a Parkour class for 400 miles (er, 200 miles. Stupid Toronto...), and I'm very excited to be teaching it!

For now, there's only one class a week: Sunday's at 1PM. The age range is 8-14 (although I'm sure plus or minus a year won't hurt much). If you are interested in a class, but you or your child is not within this age range, email me at zac@rochesterparkour.com and call Zenith and let us know. If there is enough interest, we would love to open up more classes.

If you are interested in registering for the Zenith Gymnastics Parkour and Obstacle Coursing Class, please call Zenith at 585-292-5370 and let them know! Zenith Gymnastics is located in Winton Place just off the East end of Brighton Henrietta Townline Road.

Madison, Wisconsin

I'm going to start posting a story from most of the places I visit. I'm going to start out with Madison, Wisconsin:

Alissa (Muse_of_Fire) and I were in the car, driving to a daycamp for pre-teen boys and girls in Madison. This was the first day we were working with Girls, Inc (the group that runs this camp), and we had absolutely no idea what to expect. We didn't know whether we'd be working with boys, girls, or both. We didn't know what kind of facilities we had to work with, or how many people we'd have to work with.

The night before, Alissa, Chad (her training partner), and I had dinner and planned out what we were going to do the next day. It took about two hours, and due to The Game (if you say certain words, you have to do 10 pushups), there were pretty constant distractions - but we finally worked out a rough lesson plan. We would start with a Julie Angel video, give a brief talk about Parkour, then, boys or girls, we were going to focus heavily on games.

We pull up to the driveway and get out of the car. We examine the Kennedy Heights Community Center, it's pretty much just a big temp building. There's a wooden fence outside for balancing, and a playground around the back. The director of the camp came out to meet us, introduced us to the girls, and we were on our own! There were eight girls, I'd say age 12 to 14. Long story short, they were not impressed by our pep talk, or by the Julie Angel video. Looking back, we probably needed something a bit more action oriented.

Once we got them outside though, we started to play some warmup games. Alissa started by having them all run in place, and then drop into the landing position whenever she said drop. We did some side QM, and did some other fun warmup activities. We wanted to start off with a game, so I ran a game of QM Redlight/Greenlight. Went to the fence to do some partner balancing drills, and then we played a balance game. Two people would stand about arms length apart, and try to push each other over without moving their feet. The first person who's feet moved, lost. We then played a finger jousting game, and then I taught precisions.

This was the only thing "taught" and "drilled" all day. Later on in Seattle, Rafe Kelly brought up the point that children and adults learn differently. Children are very "lets go go go stop talking and let me do it!" Adults have goals, they want to see progressions, and they want a specific set of steps to get to their goals. When teaching children, at least in the beginning, drilling something will only drive them away. It bores them, and they do not understand why it must be done. I felt it was necessary, however, to "drill" precisions, just for a little bit. We used one end of a sidewalk to another, so it was maybe two feet. I had them jump twice, and then I taught them something new.

First I just had them jump. Then I taught them about jumping in an arc, instead of straight to it. I had them jump two more times with this in mind, then I taught them about landing on the balls of the feet. Jump two more times, and then I taught them about bending their legs and compressing. Jump two more times, and that was it. I feel like this was the best way to introduce them to all the necessary concepts. I didn't want to drown them in information, or have them just standing around listening too long, but they needed to know those three basic concepts. It worked well, too. They didn't get bored, and they had fun with it.

As soon as we were done the lesson, the girls got to learn about some practical applications during a game of PDQ. It was a little bit bigger than optimal (8 girls, the director, Alissa, Chad, myself), but it was still a lot of fun, and some of the girls really got into it!

PDQ was the last game and activity of the day, and we gave them a quick pep talk, and then left. When the girls started, they were pretty typical pre-teen girls. Completely uninterested and unengaged. By the end, they were running and jumping around, talking and laughing and having fun.

I heard back from Alissa yesterday, who just had the second meeting. Apparently, I'm the cute one, because all the girls were asking where I was and when I'd be back. Which is cool....

Kinda. :)