Caleb...and neither will parkour. Parkour develops a lot of mental abilities, but it wont develop every mental ability. So now what point are you trying to make.
The same point as as I made in the first post. Parkour develops more of your abilities than weightlifting does. Parkour helps develop all of your skills that are necessary for performing a complete practical task, weightlifting doesn't.
You didn't clarify that, that was one example. That just happened to be the only example you used, because you were being passive aggressive, because you believe that strength training only helps you with something that physically appears to be parkour on a superficial level. You've stated this before.
The phrase 'such as' means this is a sample of a larger group.
Yes, I think that strength training through specialized methods (such as weightlifting) is only beneficial if you have purely physical goals, and yes, I think that if you take away everything but the purely physical goals in Parkour then you're left with just copying movements from others.
However you're forgetting that I'm well aware that most people who use these specialized methods disagree with me on these points. I don't think they (or you) are just trying to copy others, I think their motives are most likely similar to mine, they are trying to improve themselves in the best way they can. I think they've made a bad choice of method, but that's something that happens to us all.
I find no fault with a person for making a mistake, particularly with ideas as new as these. I question people's conceptions, but I absolutely do not question their intentions like you claim I do.
You're good at talking in circles and generally bullshitting your way through these discussions. Ill give you that. But in the end, all i see is a bunch of contradictory statements spread out just enough to make it hardly noticeable to anyone who hasn't read every single post you've made.
If you're not sure how any parts of my argument fit together all you have to do is ask.
BryanGI can see where you're coming from in terms of the judging distance part. But I see the process as "Jump x metres" followed by "find a harder precision; jump x+1 metres" in that case, you need to first start with small jumps and gradually build up. To a certain point, parkour on it's own does this perfectly. But once you have reached a plateau and cannot jump any further, despite being ready mentally, what do you do? This is where I believe strength training plays it's part.
I don't believe this problem exists. Parkour (practiced correctly) keeps on developing all of your abilities. If a type of task requires an ability then it must also be possible to use tasks of that type to develop that ability. If a physical plateau exists, it exists only when the real world ceases to contain challenges that require anything more from you physically.
Ah, I see what you mean by "needing" to be able to do something. We supposedly train to overcome obstacles we think we need to overcome. Because of personal belief and philosophy, I don't believe anything is truly "needed" so I use "want" instead 
in that sense I do think it's constructive to train things you don't need, because to me improving in any areais constructive 
Tell me if you'd rather not discuss it, because these sorts of discussions can sometimes get personal, but I think that's an interesting point. I don't think I've heard anyone claim that we have no needs before. What about food, water, shelter, happiness?
I believe that it doesn't help you develop all the mental skills you need. That's why I train parkour alongside it. I don't believe there is an imbalance though, at least I don't feel there is. In fact most of the time it is my mind that holds me back.
That is in fact the main point I've been making in this thread, that training by weightlifting will result in you being limited by your mental strength. Is that what you meant to say?
It is sometimes difficult to identify exactly what factor is limiting you, but ultimately the only thing you need to do in order to get past your limits is to keep trying, thus making all limits mental by nature.
Also, I don't believe that weightlifting actively hinders the mental skills developed in parkour. If that was the case, wouldn't anything that isn't parkour actively hinder my progress? The way I see it, I train parkour whilst developing these skills, "recover" if that makes sense, and then continue to devlop them when I am rested I've tried actively developing mental parkour skills all the time whilst training, but have found that it doesn't become constructive when I do it too much. Also, in the gym new challenges are presented all the time, I can name examples if you wish.
Other activities won't hinder the practice of Parkour if they involve thinking about development in the same way. But yes, when they involve thinking in a different way about the same thing, contradicting Parkour's thought processes, all such activities hinder your Parkour progress.
I don't understand what you're trying to say with the part I highlighted in italics, but I don't think that the real world suffers from a lack of new challenges.
I don't see it as wasted effort, simply because it's not a decrease in mental ability, but an increase in physical ability. Mental skills will be weaker than physical skills when strength training, but this way the body does not limit the mind when it wants to improve.
I do see it as a decrease in mental ability though. Weightlifting isn't a break from overcoming mental obstacles, you still have the mental challenges of dealing with a difficult situation.
You still need the determination to try something difficult, you still need to concentrate, you still need to evaluate the difficulty, and you still have all the mental challenge of controlling the physical element. All these skills are still working together in weightlifting.
What they are not doing is working with the other skills needed for a practical task that I have described before, choosing a specific training challenge, evaluating complex situations. These elements are controlled in weightlifting, they are made solid and unchanging. The skills that are developed develop around these solid elements, using the control there to support greater strength elsewhere. Because we adapt to the situations we experience, you get used to functioning with these areas being solid when in fact they are not.
It's the same as wearing an ankle support longer after any injury has healed. The surrounding parts get stronger but not the bit that's being supported. When you find yourself without the support, because you are used to that area being solid you still treat it as solid, even though it is not. You do the same things you're used to doing, but instead of being successful you fail and get injured because that area can't handle what you normally ask of it.
If you treat a weak ankle as though it is strong then you fall, damage yourself physically and also lose a bit of confidence with your physical ability. If you treat an undeveloped ability to judge new obstacles as though it is strong, you damage your confidence in your ability to judge obstacles when you make a mistake. If you think your ability to choose the right obstacle to train with is strong when it's not, you get frustrated at the lack of progress that results and lose confidence with the training method itself, causing you to turn to another method or give up entirely.
In terms of lifting wiehgts; we see the process of improvement itself differently to one another. You see it as "Do something, find something harder, repeat" whereas I see it as "Do something, set a goal for something higher, work towards achieving that goal, repeat". Unless I'm mistaken of course, that's just how I view your reasoning Because of that, I see the gym as the real environment because it allows me to work towards my goal, whereas you don't because it doesn't involve finding that obstacle that is harder.
Improvement itself happens only as a result of facing progressively harder challenges, I'm just expressing a biological fact.
For the rest, I think it's important to have your ultimate goal in mind when you are training. You rarely follow a direct path to get what you want, and when you have to choose between different paths you need to keep thinking about which one leads to your destination. If you focus on just the bit immediately in front of you, that's when you take the wrong turning. For me, setting intermediate goals just lets you forget about the main objective. It leads to you forgetting the big picture, which makes it harder to take advantage of new opportunities if a new, better path opens up. For example, if you want to get to the top of a wall, spending 10 minutes climbing a wall when you could have used the stairs round the back.
When you train you need to know the full path from where you are now to where you want to be, from what you have achieved to what you want to achieve. The only important points are where you are now and where you ultimately want to be.
StevieWhy is it that you guys always have to argue with Dave? If you don't agree, walk away. The more you talk to him, the more he's gonna express his views. I can't lock every thread Dave posts in. I do believe that Dave pushes his views far to much, but I also believe that you guys need to walk away more. Let it go.
If you don't agree, explain why. I don't think that people ignoring each other solves any problem except the moderator's. Discussion is what this forum is here for. Stevie, I know you're feeling over-worked, but would you really prefer an empty forum where ideas weren't discussed?
Hurling insults and ignoring each other aren't the only two options, and neither solves anything. Asking questions and sharing ideas is the only way forward.
