Friday 27 May 2016

27th May 2016: Shirt order form links sent!

Just as a heads up, we've just sent out shirt order forms to all who've attended a class within the last month if you're after our student-exclusive t-shirts! If you can't find the email and link, please drop us an email and we'll send it over to you.

Just as a reminder, next monday (30th May) we're at the Hadleigh Parkour Park launch and will not be running our Monday Explore Parkour session: Why not pop down and join us at Hadleigh instead!? - https://www.facebook.com/events/1771255953104680/

Wednesday 25 May 2016

25th May 2016: Hadleigh Parkour Park opening and tips for learning.

Ahead of the official opening of the Parkour Park in Hadleigh, I wanted to share a few thoughts for people who may be new or who have had little or no Parkour coaching. For many, this Park will be a first exposure to Parkour, so understanding more about the practice, it's training and how to use these types of environments, may help to learn safely, reduce risk and have fun.

In a positive learning environment; No-one would expect that because you have a bike and can ride it, you're ready to take the most difficult mountain bike route, on the same note, Parkour also needs time from its practitioners to learn, developing skills to prepare safely for the challenges ahead.

In order to aid safe learning and progression accessing the site, here a few points which should aid in keeping you safer and help you develop the fundamentals of Parkour movement: 
  • Low: Staying lower to the ground greatly reduces the risk related injury. Working on moving under obstacles develops spatial awareness, hand-foot coordination and controlled movement skills, essential for all other movements.
  • Slow: Reducing speed allows for you to have an ongoing feedback loop, able to learn and adapt your movement as it happens. Moving too fast, too soon often ends with movement with little understanding of what happened; reducing possible learning opportunities. As an example, running, jumping and swinging are high momentum and generally faster movements which automatically increases risk.
  • Keep it simple: Parkour is about doing simple things very well, get from one point to another and work to make that more effective. Being able to do simple movements well and consistently will develop the physical skills and understanding to progress onwards safely. 
Each single effective movement may just last a second, but is made of hours and hours of high quality practice.

We will be working closely with Hadleigh Park to provide beginners coaching sessions to help those new and interested across all ages to learn Parkour, alongside content to help learning both in and outside of coached sessions, keep up to date via www.southendparkour.com/news and www.hadleigh-park.co.uk - You can also sign up to our newsletter for news straight to your inbox here: https://goo.gl/1RSkmW

Be safe and train smart and see you at the park!

Tuesday 24 May 2016

W/C 23rd May and Half Term W/C 30th Updates!


Quick catch up for this week and next week!

Tonight: Explore Movement @ Chalkwell Junior - Only 2 spaces left.
Weds: Adult Outdoor - Good availability.
Thurs: Foundations @ Temple Sutton: Not running this week. (Sorry!)
Friday: Foundations @ St Bernard's: 6 Spaces left.
Intermediates: Spaces available (invite only)

There will be no adult indoor session this weekend and there will be no "Explore Parkour" session on the 30th due to the Hadleigh Park Opening event:
Event link here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1771255953104680/

All other classes are due to run as normal throughout the half term.

Details will follow about a couple of Hadleigh Park coaching sessions over next week's half term so keep posted here for news and details!

Wednesday 18 May 2016

May 18th 2016: Feedback: Let us know!

Constructive feedback is a key aspect of learning and improvement in all areas of life:

We always welcome feedback regarding our work; video content, blogs, newsletters, website, social media and of course; our coaching sessions. While we may not be able to change certain things, we absolutely will take suggestions on board and work to improve wherever possible for the benefit of our community.

To reflect on feedback provided over the past year, we have:

- Provided classes on several days a week
- Restarted adult indoor learning opportunities
- Created Summer classes/courses
- Improved timekeeping at classes
- Created new classes for different ages and levels of experience
- Provided video feedback for adult students
- Improved shirt print quality and design options (details to follow) 

- Covered specific health and safety related content ...AND MORE!

In short: we care about the learning of our students and developing Parkour in the local community and we want everyone to have the opportunity to #GiveParkourAGo

If you'd like to let us know anything good or not so good, please send us an email or message via the form on the website. Big thanks for all the support, advice and comments sent to us, we really do appreciate it. 


The Southend Parkour Team.

Friday 13 May 2016

13th May'16: Parkour on the mind, mindset and movement - Part 1.

We've all missed the bottom step (or thought that there was another step to go and smashed your foot on the ground), tripped down a curb (or tripped/slipped on nothing at all). So why can we do such complex movements and what some may consider "dangerous" activities without a scratch and then sprain an ankle stepping down a curb.

There's plenty of detail we could go into regarding sport psychology but going to try to keep this short and practical. 

Mindset and Attention: In a perfect and ideal world we'd all be super-zen, always-present people, fully aware and ready for anything. The reality however, is not quite there... we have so much in daily life to focus on; work, training, shopping, breakfast, lunch, dinner, those errands we have to do on Tuesday, the rent, bills, (Insert endless list here)....

I would argue the best we can realistically do is do the best in the situations we are presented with. If we are walking to work/school, that is our task, so lets do that consciously and with our attention, if we're training Parkour, we are training Parkour. Each space, each movement, each goal is different. Of course, we still need to be aware of the things around us during our tasks, cars, bikes, people, weather, our bodies, our energy levels, our attention levels etc, but having and being clear about a goal helps us shift our attention to what matter most in our training, our movement and choices regarding our movement. 

When we are out (specifically) training Parkour, generally we're focused on that type of movement, jumping, landing, being ready; -- when we aren't, we aren't; so why should expect our bodies to be ready and able if mentally we aren't fully in the regular "training" mindset? (Read about Situational Efficacy in sport)

There are "simple" gross movements which could/can be done 'from cold', on the way to places but it's a different mindset and need to absolutely approach with caution, I say mostly weekly throughout classes that unless we are (specifically) focused on the task at hand, complacency creeps in which may end badly. That's not saying there's not valuable learning which could be had in everyday "on the way to school/work/home" movement, but is it worth the risk of not achieving the current goal....?

We must give all our movement the attention it deserves.
We are not superhuman, we are not perfect, we will make mistakes during our attempts to be mindful, not just in training but all areas of our lives. To be safe and effective in both movement and life we need to continue to asses and adapt to our environment and the situations presented. Not all movement is equal so we need to focus our attention in to the SPECIFIC situation and goal we are working towards.

With actively working on our physical and mental adaptation, we can make these choices more effectively and ensure we are in the right mindset for the right task/goal, half the battle when it comes to moving safely and effectively.


Monday 9 May 2016

9th May '16 - May changes and summer schedule to follow.

No classes will be running on Thursday 26th due to a training course attendance in London, apologies for any inconvenience caused. On Monday 30th May (Bank Holiday), no "Explore Parkour" classes will be running due to the Hadleigh Park Parkour opening! Visit www.fb.com/southendparkour for the event page and details.

Hadleigh Parkour Park - Grand opening! - Event link:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1771255953104680/

If you are new to Parkour and looking to join our classes, from the 10/5/16 you will need to join our beginners session: "Explore Parkour" which will run on a Monday night from the 16th May 2016. This is to ensure each student has a good foundational level of movement and understanding before tackling our weekly foundations classes. Details can be found via the link below.

The schedule as it stands will be running up to the summer holidays and then our summer schedule will kick in at new locations across the local area. Details to follow.

Timetable and new weekly schedule from next week available via www.southendparkour.com/classes

Wednesday 4 May 2016