Techniques
Balance
The foundation of any and all movement relies on a sense of balance, for our purposes I’ve broken balance down into foot, hand, body and combination balances to help understand the different applications for balance in Parkour.
Roll
These movements help us traverse from one position and place to the next while maintaining contact. Rolls also are some of the best movements for adapting during a fall and progressing into flips. I’ve broken them down into Shoulder, spine and lateral rolls.
Crawl
Crawling is a great tool for building base coordination and pushing strength in addition to helping us progress into many of the various vaults in Parkour. Crawls have been grouped into contralateral, upper and lower, and novelty categories.
Climb
When we take our crawling movements on a vertical surface we open up the lovely world of climbing. Climbing is great for our pulling strength, coordination and resolve. Not to mention being incredibly useful for traversing our environment. Climbing techniques can be separated based on traverse, ascend, descend and climb+
Step
Walking is our made mode of human transport but that doesn’t mean we should leave it at that. Developing our stepping ability can help with our unilateral strength, our coordination and many other elements. The different types of stepping are broken down here as footwork and Take offs.
Flip
Acrobatics and their many incarnations help us become more adaptable, they challenge us in unique ways and they open up the air for new forms of expression and possibilities. The different flips are separated as back, front, side, with hands and etc.
Vault
These movements help us utilize our entire body to traverse an environment. They offer a great method for continuing the work of our crawls while adding new levels of commitment and momentum development. I have fit each vault into linear, lateral or redirection categories.
Swing
Swinging benefits our shoulders, grip and pulling strength while also utilizing gravity and momentum in a way that we don’t often see in the other techniques. If we train enough, we might even be able to live out our video game platformer fantasies with our swings. Swings are grouped into swing, brachiation, release, ascend and descend
Jump
Generally one of the first movements you are asked about as a parkour practitioner, jumps are great for expressing balance, developing explosive leg strength and challenging your ability to balance power and control. The different forms a jump can take are depending on how you take off and land so we have 2 to 1, 1 to 2, 2 to 2, and 1 to 1. For jumps that differ from this formula you can find them in the novelty section.