When you first begin parkour, you find yourself frequently thinking about the next time you are going to do parkour. You might think about what you are going to work on, how long you will work on it, where you will go, and in general, how to make that training productive.
The Concept of Always Training and Preparing
As you continue on your parkour journey, parkour begins to consume your thoughts. In order to always improve, you may start to train more and more. But the body has its limits on how much it can train. Because of this, you may start to think of ways to train that are less reliant on your physical state and more reliant on your mental or conscious state. Instead of thinking about the next time you will physically train and how to make that training productive, you begin to think about all that time during the day when you are not physically training. By using important skills that parkour teaches such as creativity, problem solving, adaptability, we can come up with ingenious ways to train for parkour at nearly any time; at work or school, while walking to the bus stop or standing in a line, and even on a date with your girlfriend or boyfriend. ;) This mentality of constantly looking for ways to get better and be ready for anything is unavoidable at a certain point in your parkour journey
Foot Placement
The way to train for parkour, at any time, I will discuss now is foot placement. Foot placement refers to what you do with your feet at all times; before, during, and after a particular movement. Foot placement is crucial in parkour. Often times, a great traceur’s movement can be attributed to their mastery of foot placement. In particular, it is their foot placement before and after a particular movement skill or technique. This allows them to seamlessly enter, exit, and link movement; resulting in that beautiful, fluid motion known as flow. Many new people focus on the actual movements such as precision jumps, vaults, and arm jumps. They learn to perform these movements well but when asked to combine many techniques in a row during a longer run, their movement will be tarnished with stutter steps, hesitations, changes of speed, and overall sloppiness. This is why it is important to train foot placement.
Training Foot Placement at Anytime
Foot placement is an easy thing to work on outside of your normal parkour sessions. The only requirement is that you are walking. In your house, to get the mail, at the mall, to your car, on a hiking trail. Anywhere. There are a couple main ways you can train foot placement no matter where you are.
- Hitting a distant target with a chosen foot.
Pick a distant target on the ground in the direction you are walking. This target could be anything; a fallen leaf, a crack in the sidewalk, a curb on the side of a street. This target should be at least 5-10 steps in front of you. Once you have picked a target, pick which foot you will step on it with when you get there. The goal of this drill is to visually pick a target in the distance and be able to step on it with the chosen foot without any significant break, stutter, or hesitation in your stride. More specifically, you want to step on it with the front half/ball of your foot, just like you would if you needed a solid take off and jump from a certain obstacle. In order to successfully do this drill, focus on your target and make constant small adjustments in your stride to hit the target. The more you practice this, the better you will become at judging distance and strides. You will also become more efficient and accurate at hitting a specified target.
- Using or avoiding only a certain type or part of the ground.
This method can be practiced in many ways. The goal is to avoid or use only certain parts of the ground with well placed strides. This is done in a more improvisational and continuous manner than the previous method. Some ways to do this are:
- Walking along street curbs without falling off.
- Avoiding puddles or wet parts of the ground after a rain storm.
- Avoiding cracks in the sidewalk.
- Walking along lines of rocks, boulders, or posts without falling.
- Stepping on cracks in a sidewalk or painted lines in a street or parking lot.
All of these methods are great for developing improvisation and promote balance and quick thinking. When cracks or lines are evenly spaced, you can develop step rhythms that are the same between each target. To further challenge yourself, try keeping the rhythm and hit all the targets even with the eyes closed. Closing the eyes is also a good balance challenge if walking along a curb.
Watch my video to get a better idea of some foot placement drills you can do anywhere. Remember to be creative and adaptive to your environment. Find other ways to apply these general ideas to wherever you go!
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