Creativity is a wonderful, and possibly one of the hardest attributes to teach. It involves breaking away from conventional normality to solve a personal or social problem. A social norm in this particular case is that of the modern day gym.  

 

As much of my training as I do in a typical gym, gyms have become an almost formidable institution, so much so that rarely will you find another person working out or exercising outdoors (unless they are running, jogging, hiking, playing sports which are other types of social norms).  I'm sure most of you have experienced these social norms first hand by looks most of us receive while training or practicing in a public place. Parkour is inherently a movement against many modernized views of what is capable or acceptable in the public realm. Just the same, the idea of a gym has the power to confine and suppress creative thinking.

A work out is not something that needs to happen inside the walls of a gym (although it is a very preferable method for most). Creativity comes by achieving the same results by utilizing the space given to you in your immediate surroundings. To expand this idea, how many of us would have developed the idea to crawl up stairs on all fours backwards had we not been directly taught or seen it in a youtube video? Reverse QM stair climbing is an excellent way to develop shoulder girdle and tricep strength as well as coordination.  

 

In this same way, an open field is the most difficult training area for most traceurs. We see the wonderful things being done in internet training vids and seasonal demos and samplers and are easily sucked into a trap of linear thinking. We enjoy seeing all the great ways other traceurs manipulate their environment, and sometimes become frustrated that our “facilities” do not have the same qualities for us to train a certain technique in the same way. Creative thinking is required to help you meet the goals you have set for yourself with a limited environment. 

 

Creativity is hard to teach because it does not follow a conventional method. Once an idea becomes an action and it is passed on and taught, in many cases it is no longer an example of creativity but simply a mimicked response. Because of this, I can only provide examples and hope that hearing about other people's creative thinking will jump start you to create your own or, put you in a situation where you must be creative to succeed. 

 

For example, a couple weeks I gave the members of Rochester Parkour a rather challenging task: 

 

Find a partner of similar size/mass and have one partner drop to the floor as “dead weight.” Using any way possible (but without hurting your partner), relocate from the starting position to the specified end position as fast as possible.  

 

The path was about 50 feet and had a few obstacles in the way. We all “plan” and train ourselves to circumvent space alone, but how many of us attempt the same with another person? A new situation provided the means for creative thinking. How can you get over a 4 foot wall with a person on your back? Are they on your back at all or can you safely set them down?  
 

The idea is, I had a set of problems that I was able to solve in an elegant fashion through the use of a game. I modified an exercise initially taught to me at COPK last year, where you were given a space and expected to move continuously through it for 15 seconds without stopping. The addition of dead-weight not only fostered creativity in the members, but also gave them an exercise that helped improve their strength. Dead-weight training has since become an integral part of the training Rochester traceurs and traceuses utilize.  

 

I am only one person and my experiences are limited, so I want to encourage constructive comments. What have you done to creatively stimulate your training? Share your experiences!