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Addressing Your Weaknesses Parkour is such a dynamic activity and you must excel in many different things in order to be a well rounded traceur. Unfortunately, everyone has their weaknesses. Whether it is fear, body type, fitness, or something else, these mental blocks can sometimes be extremely hard to overcome. The burning desire to improve is what can separate a serious and well rounded traceur from a lazy and less skilled one. So do you want to take your parkour to that next level? We all have our weaknesses and here is what you need to do in order to address and improve upon yours.
Step One – Find Out Your Biggest Weakness In order to improve, you must first find your weakness. To most of us, our weaknesses are pretty obvious. However, sometimes we are so weak in one area that we never do it and therefore we overlook it. If you don’t know what your weakness is, go train with several other traceurs for a day. Ask them to watch your movement all day long and then at the end, give their opinion on what you need to work on. Step Two – Make a Plan to Improve Once you have identified your weakness, take the time to think hard about what you can do to improve. This could take several hours or several days but you really must dedicate yourself to finding a solution to your problem. Often times a good solution will include massive repetition because that is what parkour requires in general. Other things that may need work can be strength, confidence, flexibility, balance, power, speed, work ethic, and more. Be creative and innovative in your problem solving! Try filling out this list to help you make a plan: My Weakness: Why is It Hard for Me?: Things to Be Addressed: Ways to Improve Each Thing: Way to Improve as a Whole: Time or Repetitions to Spend on Plan: Method to Track Progress: Goal: Step Three – Take Action This can be the hardest part of improving upon your weakness. Our weaknesses are weaknesses because they are the hardest things to overcome, otherwise we would be better at them! It will take dedication and determination in order to succeed. This is one reason we come up with a strict plan to improve. Because our weaknesses are the most difficult thing for us to do, a strict plan can help force us to take action and motivate us to succeed. Improving upon your weakness will take time and effort. Do not give up if you don’t see immediate improvement. Some things take time to learn and you must stick to your plan. My Example So what is my weakness? Precision jumps and in particular, rails. Ugh! I have hated them with a passion for my entire parkour career. They have always been hard for me for several reasons. It took me a long time to realize that I had to stop making excuses and start taking action to improve. Here is what I did: My Weakness: Rail to Rail Precision Jumps Why Are They Hard for Me?: Fear of missing the rail and mangling myself. Lack of confidence from previous struggles. I have always thought these are extra hard for me to land due to my extremely tight Achilles tendons. However, this should not be an excuse, it should be just another obstacle to overcome. Things to Be Addressed: Fear, confidence, Achilles tendons. Ways to Improve Each Thing: For fear I need to practice over and over on rails with a low risk of getting hurt upon should I mess up. Solutions could be to find rails that are close together or low to the ground. For confidence I need to practice over and over as well. Confidence is a result of successful repetition. For my Achilles tendons, I will have to practice even harder and become even more precise to land my precisions in a way where the lack of flexibility will not prevent me from being successful. Way to Improve as a Whole: I will build two “mini-rails” (pictured below) a couple inches off the ground. I will mount them to wood and put Velcro on the bottom to make them stick in place on carpet. I will put these rails in my basement. The low level and adjustable width apart will help me overcome my fear. I will jump to the rails over and over to gain my confidence and refine my technique for landing. Time or Repetitions to Spend on Plan: 100 jumps every day. Method to Track Progress: I will create an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of every jump. I will rank them in four levels depending on the quality of my landings. Goal: To have 100/100 jumps ranked “good” or “perfect”. To begin doing more rail to rail precisions outside. 
Conclusion So there you have it. A solid plan to address a weakness that has kicked my ass my entire parkour career. I have seen much improvement in my precisions and my confidence has increased. My plan gave me a structured program to follow and my spreadsheet has shown proof of my improvement. I have not reached my goal of 100/100 jumps ranked “good” or “perfect” but I have begun to do some rail to rail precisions outside with greatly increased confidence. I will continue working to eradicate this weakness from my parkour abilities. Parkour is a progression and you must always think creatively on how you can devise methods to progress your skills. This is the concept that my drills are based upon. If you took part in this drill of the month, you have created your own drill. Please share your ideas and drills with others in the forum. Good job! |
