A Man's Guide to Women and Parkour
Parkour is a discipline which offers benefits of value to all kinds of
people in the forms of health, fitness, self confidence and simple fun.
Unfortunately, due to the way in which it has come to common awareness,
it has become an activity dominated by young men with older adults,
children and women seriously underrepresented. I often hear traceurs
ask why there aren’t more women in their scene, or note when there's an
influx of women into the scene, even if their numbers are still dwarfed
by the number of young men. I have had the unique opportunity to be
married to a female traceur and to live with two more. I also teach
classes that often attract an even gender mix. This has given me a
unique perspective on why women tend to be underrepresented in parkour.
I think the problem started with the original representation of parkour
in the media; showing only the most dangerous and risky training done
by the most advanced traceurs. For one reason or another, young men are
more likely then any other group to see someone jumping from one roof
to another and think, "Hey, I could do that!" Once parkour had become
popular with young men, it made it more difficult for other groups to
join. From the outside, it now looks like an activity for young men.
Even on the inside, the specific applications and methods used in our
discipline have been those designed by and for young men. The culture
of any given parkour group in most places is likely to be dominated by
young male traditions, humor, and conversation topics.
There are reasons that women haven’t been initially as attracted to
parkour, or chosen to stick to it as often as men, and part of that is
because of the way we as men have behaved within the parkour community
and in our dealings with women interested in parkour. This is something
we should try to address, as a women interested in parkour should have
just as fair a shot of getting into the discipline as anyone else. So
here are some simple measures we can take to make it easier for women
to join our parkour communities.
1. This is obvious, and if you're reading this article you're probably
past this but it has to be said anyway, let go of any prejudices
against women doing parkour. I have heard way too many young traceurs
say that girls can’t or shouldn’t do parkour, or that it is for guys.
Think about it for a second, what is parkour but training your natural
ability to move? Why in the world would that be something only men
should do? Do you think your female ancestors couldn’t/shouldn’t have
run away from predators using their own four limbs? If they hadn’t we
wouldn’t be here today.
2. Be open and respectful to women who show
interest in parkour, just like you would to anyone else.
Don’t hit on women coming into the parkour community. For a while
Janine, my roommate, and Beth, my wife(girlfriend at the time), both
were hit on multiple times at every jam they went to. They started
joking about getting shirts with their boyfriends' names on them in
order to keep the other guys from asking. A girl who is interested in
parkour is at jam to train same as you are. Having to bat off the
advances of one guy after another is not only distracting and annoying,
but for a lot of women it's also intimidating. If the situation does
come up where you are seriously interested in dating a fellow traceur,
and feel like the sentiment is returned, try to avoid asking the other
party out at jam if possible. Also, please don’t invite the other party
to train as a mid-step, that's just confusing. Are they saying yes to
a date or saying yes because they want to train? Instead of this, the
best tactic is to just be clear and honest. Jams should be a safe zone,
a place to train, not a dating service.
3.
Don’t make a big deal out of seeing a woman at a jam. How would like it
if you showed up for a jam and people were like, "Oh my God! You have
brown hair! We don’t get many brown haired people interested in
parkour! I wasn’t sure brown haired people could do parkour! Let me
help you try this, etc etc." Be helpful, of course, but don’t treat
women coming in to the scene as novelties.
4.
Remember that they aren’t built the same way you are. Ever other piece
of advice here is about recognizing that women should be treated as
common humans. However, there are differences between men and women,
and understanding how to treat each other requires recognizing those.
Women are smaller on average, have smaller and less muscular upper
bodies, and are often less confident in their bodies. When my wife
started training parkour she was better then I was! She was more
confident in her movement, less hesitant, and learned many things
quicker than I. However, because my friend Dane and I liked to focus
on wall passing big walls and doing big jumps that were simply too high
or long for her (being a foot shorter then us) she became discouraged.
She felt like she couldn’t keep up with us and quit training for a
while. So, If you have a woman or group of women coming into their
first jam, taking them to train the biggest cat leap, wall pass or long
jump in the area is probably not the best way to introduce them to the
discipline. Likewise, I have seen many guys trying to teach incoming
women kongs as their first vault. Because a woman's center of gravity
is lower, and her upper body strength tends to be less, a kong is
usually the most difficult vault for her. This is not a good way to
start. Women can learn kongs and men can learn kash vaults, but in
general a women well learn the latter easier and men the former. If
you're trying to teach a girl a kong, and she ends up doing a kash,
it's not wrong. It's just a different, valuable skill that comes easier
to her.
5.
Remember that women may have very different emotional response to
training then a man might. It often takes a girl a significantly
greater commitment to get out there and start training, and they often
have more fear to overcome. We have had many of the girls we teach
break down into tears in class. Not because there was something wrong
with the class, or because there was something special going on with
the girls in question, they simply had a more emotional response to the
training. There is nothing wrong with that, parkour can be very
emotional for all of us. The best strategy we have come up with in
dealing with strong emotions is to check in on the traceur in question,
but not to draw attention to her or him for this matter can be
embarrassing. Gentle humor can often be helpful in setting the traceur
to rights.
Parkour should be for everyone, so if we are doing things that are
driving potential traceurs away (whether they are young old, male or
female) we should address that. I hope this article helps address the
problems women face in coming into parkour.
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