American Parkour

In the climb up, I can't seem to get the transition very fast. I see videos where people do it instantly from hang to staight arms...how do I do that? I can get to the point where I press up, and can press up, but it just isn't fast...at all.

Thank you.

Also, please don't start with all that "this has already been posted" and "use the search bar" crap.

(edited)

I'm looking for a pull-up bar that works for kipping, muscle ups, front levers, and such. (not saying I can do all that, but I'm working...)

I posted some more stuff below.

(sorry to everyone who contributed ideas then I changed my mind...I tend to do that  )

Dips, especially wall dips, leave me with shoulder pain throughout the day, and soreness the next few. Dips are my low point, and I'm trying to train them to be able to do a climb-up.

My max effort wall dips are 3, and I think that's slightly breaking parallel...I think... I want to be able to do five fairly easily like my pull-ups, but I see no improvement...just soreness.

I refrained from doing them over the summer, because they made me sore for the next few days, and I wanted to have a good time practicing parkour with no soreness. Now that I'm starting up again, it hurts.

Help? Thanks.

I was told by a traceur at Parkour Visions that the cause of my knee problems (minor pain) was because my shoe was heeled and not flat, and that a heeled shoe will shorten your achilles tendon and will make your knee hurt. He recommended a pair of flat shoes... Now I have a few decisions to make, and questions to ask.

The shoe has to be good for every day wearing, not just parkour.

Does "flat" mean...perfectly flat, no curve, or just lacking that arch thing in the middle?

My current pair of shoes:

Which have great grip and are very comfortable.

If it means just lacking that arch thing in the middle like my current pair of shoes... Ariakes, Onitsuka Tigers, Feiyues...? The feiyues looked like they would feel  like converse with better grip, and those I hate.

If it means perfectly flat... (oh that can't be right.)

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY... Is this true? Or is a "heeled" shoe as he said okay? I've personally never heard of that, and I lurk a lot on here.

Also, I have a question about K-Swiss Tubes...are they any good? I have a pair right now, but I am thinking about returning them because the grip feels waxy. But if I go outside and try them on a wall run, I'll scrape them up and won't be able to return them.

Or any other "flat" shoe recommendations?

(it just doesn't seem right, because I always read that any running shoe is good for parkour...)

^Yeah...

I was just out training downtown today, and a lady saw me, and asked if she could take pictures, and that she was from the newspaper. (not going to say the name of the newspaper) I said sure, and she started, while I did individual moves for her to photograph. She took pictures of me doing turn vaults to drops, climbs to two handed vaults, kongs over walls, and freestyle climbing. It made me push myself... I wallrunned and climbed a wall I'd never been able to do before. I didn't do anything very impressive, IMO. Haha, just plain, no trick, parkour. I wanted to do a reverse vault, but there were no good places.

She got a picture of me doing an underbar, to ten-foot drop faceplant. Yes, I know I shouldn't have done that...but I only did it once. (I'm okay...surprisingly...my mom thought I broke my neck.) I asked her to email it to me...lol.

I'm worried about it getting into the paper. She never gave me the chance to explain it really well...she said she'd heard of it though. If it gets in the paper, it may mislead people in my town to thinking that parkour is just jumping over rails... Do you think she'll research it more, if it does get posted in the paper? Even then, if it gets in the paper, everybody will know I do parkour, and then I'll have to deal with haters.

Well, I made a mistake by not learning the speed vault first. Now, I can hardly do it, and when I do, it seems slow. It seems like I slow down in mid air... I made sure that I was doing the move right multiple times. I'm doing it a little lower than waist height. The same thing also happens with my reverse vault, which I learned today. It seems...slow. Maybe it's just me? 

http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/135/parkour2.png

The silhouette was a little messy, and I didn't have much to work with...but I think it turned out okay. Definitely not my best work. 

I searched for a while but couldn't find a video...so I'll explain as best I can...

It's like a lazy vault, but then you end up sitting on the rail, and you kick your legs around the rail so you spin around...  I've seen it in a few vids, but I can't find it.



Like that, then you complete the vault still sitting on the rail, and kick your legs back over to be where you started.

It looks really flowwy, if that helps at all.

How do I vault on to higher things? Like, nipple height? (lol) I normally do a mini-wallrun type thing. Well, what I mean is, are there any exercises to improve the height of my vaults?

I know I'm not ready for stuff that big, but I'm not looking to get over things, I'm looking to get on things. Y'see, I'm tryin' to adapt to my environment. My favorite practice place has lots of concrete walls about up to the bottom of my ribs and higher. I'm sick of doing a top-out like thing to get to the top. I want to do a monkey/kong on top. I want to be able to do something that everybody can't do. Everybody can struggle to the top of a wall thingy that's up to chest height; not many can do (or have heard of) a monkey/kong vault at that height.

So, exercise stuff that would help this? I could use progression...but, uh, there's nowhere to "progress".

Okay, ever since I started, I have had monkey vault problems. Instead of looking like a monkey vault, it looks like a two-handed vault. I know because it feels wrong, and because it looks wrong when I record one. I thought I had it fixed, because I was practicing on lower rails, lower than waist height, and it was right, for the most part. Now that I have moved on to higher rails, it's back to the problems. I am not scared, FYI....or at least I don't feel so. Any ideas on how I could fix this? Like I said, it looks like a two handed vault.

Same thing with my diving kongs, when I get to the end it looks like a diving two handed vault.

It's starting to seem hopeless and has me REALLY discouraged.

Thanks.