More than the sum of its parts

As graduate student, and I'll probably end up as a professor teaching classes somewhere, and I'm very happy about that prospect. I love teaching. I love interacting with students and seeing their sense of triumph they grasp some new concept or skill. Though I've taught several academic courses while in grad school, I think teaching Parkour has taught me more about being an instructor than anything I've done in the classroom. One of the biggest lessons for me was about how important it is to form a class of individuals into a group. I want to share it with you here, in case it can help you, should you ever get the opportunity to teach Parkour (or anything else!).

Recently I've been working mostly with the advanced Parkour students at Primal Fitness. Though the advanced classes require some thought about ways to keep it new, interesting and challenging for the regulars, in the end, the people who make up the advanced class know each other, build off each other, and can work together to help each others' weaknesses. It less like a formal class, and more a group of friends striving together to get better at Parkour. The exact skills that we go over in class aren't as important as having many voices, many suggestions, and the support of the group to help everyone do better.

In contrast, in the beginners classes, the teacher is responsible not only for keeping the students safe and teaching them skills, but also for making it possible for the group to become a whole, to work together. I think having the students become a group is one of the most important things that happens in the bootcamps, but it is also the thing that I find the most challenging, because it's something a teacher ultimately isn't able to do; it is up to the individuals whether to form a group or not. The class I'm working with now includes people from ages 17 to 35, men and women, in all sorts of physical shapes and from all walks of life. About the only thing they have in common is an interest (not even an ability, yet, but just a sort of “gee, that sounds neat” feeling) about Parkour. That interest may not be enough to get them to work together, but it's all an instructor is given to work with. I've watched the other instructors at Primal and have seen how the students react, and have seen a variety of strategies for helping groups come together.

One of the easiest ways to help build a group is to learn everyone's name, and to call them by name regularly. This gives the students a feeling of belonging, and it gives others a chance to learn their name.

Slightly harder is providing challenges that they have to work on as a group. Among other things, group conditioning exercises can help people bond. We do things like make everyone do a wall sit and pass a medicine ball back and forth, or form a long tunnel of people holding plank and make everyone QM through it one at a time.

Hardest of all, though, is finding the appropriate level of challenge. Everyone has different skill levels, and it's hard to challenge the most skilled while not alienating those who are struggling. We do this by scaling the activities. In some cases, that's easy to manage: If someone can't speed vault a 3ft box, we have them work on a safety vault instead. If speed vaulting a 3ft box is too easy, we pull out the 4ft box. In other cases, it requires more creativity. We assign a certain number of exercises for the warm up each day, and some people finish sooner than others. Rather than letting them stand around, we now make them hold a static posture until everyone has finished, so that no one is making the group wait – instead they are all part of a group exercising until everyone is done.

I'm grateful I've had the chance to learn these teaching strategies, and I hope they help others who want to teach.

-Amanda Henry