American Parkour

I can do many vaults well now (except for kong because I can't find a place to practice it) but I am not sure my speed vaults are up to par.  They feel more like lazy vaults except that i'm running at the rail head on.  Should I be using my hand to push or just to stop my head from colliding with metal?  Also how can I learn to go more horizontal when i'm jumping?
Thanks in advance!

for me it helped to learn the theif vault first then it came naturally by just running at an object and trying to get over it without losing speed

I can do a theif vault very well actually.  Just not speed vault.  Thanks anyways.

See if this helps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR8bn1KdLTA&feature=PlayList&p=A425AE16B5C9B144&index=3

My biggest suggestion, if it feels like a lazy vault, is to think about "slapping" your hand more on the obstacle, instead of placing and pushing.

Thanks Ozzi!  That helps alot, unfortunately it's raining so I can't practice outside today. :(

Can you maybe do a tutorial video for the theif vault? because that video looks a lot like what I though a theif vault was...

Theif vault is practically a lazy vault but going perpendicular in the landing away from the obstacle instead of continuing on parallell on the opposite side.  Chances are you've already done a few but haven't known it.  Watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMI6-nVc-I it cleared it up with me. 

I have to say that the above video doesnt show a thief vault but a lay vault with redirection.

Here is what I thief vault looks like.
It is just like an assisted speed vault. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbdgVocrwuM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29AMvUfIcq0

Whoa thanks for catchin' me on that, mate!  Looks like I have something new to work on today.

Ok so i was a bit confused on theif vaults too, so basically they look start like a speed vault but you end up kinda like a dash vault in the end?

from what i understood, its like a speedvault, but instead raising the leg closest to the wall, you raise the other and therefore naturraly ending in a dashvault position to clear the obstacle

(ez. if you're running towards the wall on your right side, you'll raise your right leg, clear the obstacle and land on your right leg.. thief vault: if you're running on your right side, you raise with your left, execute, and land on your left with a sort of the dash vault motion to correct your path in order to keep flow i think, coz if you perfom a normal speedvault with opposite legs you'd cross them and lose flow)


(am i right? coz im trying to figure it out myself also)

I usually think of the thief vault as sort of the opposite of a lazy vault.  In a lazy, you swing your inner leg up and over the obstacle and follow through with the outer leg.  With the thief, you swing the outer leg up/over and then pass the inner leg under it. 

The thing that mainly seperates a thief from a speed (in my mind, at least) is that in a thief vault, your ass is facing the obstacle as you pass over it, whereas in a speed vault your body is sideways.  Also you land on the other foot.

Correct me if anything there is incorrect, but thinking about it like this helped me get the motions better.  Hope it helps.

How about we just delete the word "thief vault" from our vocabularies so there isn't any confusion at all?  It's a pointless distinction, anyway.

With a speed, don't bear any weight on you rhand.  Just slap it down, as Zac said.  Pretend like the obstacle is a chunk of molten lava, and you don't want to be touching it much.