Over the past few months we’ve been working with a team of young, energetic and enthusiastic traceurs to set up small classes with big results! The class, which is made up of 8 boys and 2 girls, covers the basics of warm-ups/ warm downs, mobility, fitness, conditioning and of course parkour.
We start with a light run into run with jump ups/downs/sideways/backwards and over & under obstacles, insisting on small obstacles with light impact to raise CV. Then onto mobility covering all major joints, paying extra attention to wrists and knees. Progressing to a full-body stretch session, we name and talk about muscles being used and the roles they play.
Then conditioning, we have a set which starts with our hands on the ground, feet up on hip-height wall and combines locks and holds/push-ups/one-arm holds/forearm holds/backwards holds/dips/ 3 stage wall push-ups and so on.Then the fun stuff… Because the classes are a mixed bunch, we usually split the class based on age as our youngest is 8 and oldest 28!
We’ve worked on the fundamentals of parkour e.g. jumps/lands/rolls/small volts/balance and foot placement. More recently we have moved on to arm jumps/wall runs and volts with speed. Also we have started to combine movements in “Runs” giving the students a chance to apply what they have learnt over the past few months. We always finish class with “Games” – run outs or had, we even have people from the local area who don’t attend the classes begging to join in the action!
The majority of the students are new to parkour, but show a real passion for it, they are always training before and after class, weekends and school holidays. We’ve had so much fun with them and hope it continues over the summer and into next year.
Other highlights have been wicked music via The Boombox, giant crash mat day, kung-fu with Jim aka ‘Par-fu’, PK Easter egg hunt day (we hid Cadbury’s crème eggs all over The Black Square, one of our training locations).
Thanks also to good friends Christian, Alex, Ross, ‘Backwards’ Elliott (
click here to find out why we call him that), ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ Bobby and everyone else who has come along to support the class.
Finally the biggest thanks to our students:
The brothers Polski - Marchin, Michal & Tristian.
The GP Crew – PJ, Elliott, Scott & Mitch
The girls – Katie & Mojo
Old man Amit
… and all the others!
Classes Wed: 5-7pm Weekends 12pm-late
For info on classes e-mail the garden.
Parkour Generations are working in association with Sandbag.org.uk to raise awareness of climate change, through parkour meetings around the world on the same day. Click here for more details.
We started saturday up in Broadfizzle for a light warm up in Black Square where we met up with our students Elliot, Mitch and PJ and also Doug from Canterbury, (or Dak, if u ask Flo) who had been housing Flo since his two wheeled arrival in this country. We jumped on the train down to Waterloo, a train ride that felt a lot shorter than usual due to a rudamentary paper ball and Tilo and Flo's encyclopaedic ability to recall Jukebox hits of the past few decades! Down at imax we crossed over with some of t
he large numbers gathered for the 3run family jam. The place was rammed so we decided to get on a bit of slacklining between the two trees while the euros tackled the crowd to get a little blue wall action. We spent the day trying to hit as many of the close spots as we could like OXO and BFI, as the guys only had a short time in LDN.
Sunday morning definitely got off to a slower start but i've always felt thats what Sundays are there for. We were joined again by Doug who set up camp locally, and our students Mitch, PJ and Scott. We eventually managed to get on a train bound for Tooting, another journey that would have been a lot longer without handball and karaoke! We went down to Earlsfield to meet with PKGen's Tracey, Dan and Brian and the girls at their monthy girl jam. Runa spends all her time training with guys, and although this may have its advantages I'm sure she enjoyed training with the girls. We spent the afternoon training in the estate and in the local kids park. We couldnt have picked a better day to go, as Tracey organised an after training bbq in the park where we all relaxed, chatted and cooked things that i thought had no place on a bbq. one being haloumi cheese, which was really good, the other was banana.....which the jury are still out on.
Unfortunately this year the Trace team will not be hosting a gathering in the peaks... or anywhere. The decision was hard to make but due to time constraints, teaching priorities, overseas work and so on we can't dedicate time to the vast organisation it takes to get 200+ people safely to the peaks. We hope for a gathering next year, fingers crossed
Over the past few months we’ve been working with a team of young, energetic and enthusiastic traceurs to set up small classes with big results! The class, which is made up of 8 boys and 2 girls, covers the basics of warm-ups/ warm downs, mobility, fitness, conditioning and of course parkour. 
We start with a light run into run with jump ups/downs/sideways/backwards and over & under obstacles, insisting on small obstacles with light impact to raise CV. Then onto mobility covering all major joints, paying extra attention to wrists and knees. Progressing to a full-body stretch session, we name and talk about muscles being used and the roles they play. 
Then conditioning, we have a set which starts with our hands on the ground, feet up on hip-height wall and combines locks and holds/push-ups/one-arm holds/forearm holds/backwards holds/dips/ 3 stage wall push-ups and so on.Then the fun stuff… Because the classes are a mixed bunch, we usually split the class based on age as our youngest is 8 and oldest 28! 
We’ve worked on the fundamentals of parkour e.g. jumps/lands/rolls/small volts/balance and foot placement. More recently we have moved on to arm jumps/wall runs and volts with speed. Also we have started to combine movements in “Runs” giving the students a chance to apply what they have learnt over the past few months. We always finish class with “Games” – run outs or had, we even have people from the local area who don’t attend the classes begging to join in the action! 
The majority of the students are new to parkour, but show a real passion for it, they are always training before and after class, weekends and school holidays. We’ve had so much fun with them and hope it continues over the summer and into next year.
Thanks also to good friends Christian, Alex, Ross, ‘Backwards’ Elliott (click here to find out why we call him that), ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ Bobby and everyone else who has come along to support the class.
