Natural Development
Ever felt like your not improving? At a point where you just aren’t motivated? This often occurs and I admit it had happened to me a few times, but whilst talking to a friend these thoughts occurred to me.
People often find themselves at a point where they do not feel like they are at all improving. If one finds themselves in this position it is important to look back across their parkour pathway and realise the large improvements that they may have made.
Repetition! This is one way to conquer this feeling. Take a look at something I like to call ‘Natural Development’, this is where a Tracer/FreeRunner advances in a certain area just by constantly practicing and repeating simple movements. This is why repetition is very important not only will you know that you can do that certain movement but your subconscious mind will tell you that you can do it which is just as important. Also by repeating certain actions your muscles and joints will get used to the required movement needed to complete the action so it will get easier in this sense. ‘Natural Development’ is a brilliant technique for overcoming fear. For example: if you find a long jump that is quite high off the ground and you are scared, try repeating a similar jump closer to the ground until you are confident that you can do it.
A good example of this is the baby to toddler stages. Within about one year a baby will advance from lying down to crawling, to walking, then running, and finally jumping all in the short space of about a year. When this is done many people feel that these are the basic movements needed to live, but I ask you: why should it stop here?
To accomplish natural development all a Tracer/FreeRunner needs to know is what they interpret as a basic movement. This varies widely and is specific to each and every person but once you have found this out it will be much easier to work on improving. If you set yourself targets during training you will probably be surprised at how fast you improve. Here are some examples of targets that I use frequently in my training: 50 precision jumps work on height, then 10 kong vaults work on distance.
Obviously this is just an example so make sure if you decide to adopt this technique make sure you set your own targets.
Work hard, have fun and keep on training!
Joe Read AKA Presha