Your child has expressed an interest in learning parkour; you don’t know anything about it so like most parents you turn to the internet to find out more. You Google "parkour videos" and the first video that is recommended to you is ‘the world’s best parkour and free running’, it has 130 million views so it must be a good indicator of what parkour is — right? Within the first 30 seconds you’re shown someone doing a handstand on a roof edge, balancing on a rail at height, and someone walking on the edge of a roof!
As parents we do everything we can to keep our children safe, so is this sport something you want your child taking part in, is it even a sport at all?
Well, the short answer is yes to both questions.
My child, now nearly 21, started taking parkour classes at the age of 12. When he started, I didn’t know anything about parkour and didn’t even Google anything (luckily for him or I might have changed my mind!) as it was just a convenient time filler between diving lessons and trampolining. He had some friends that also attended the classes, and they all loved jumping around, climbing and swinging. The majority of coaches were all young themselves, late teens and early 20’s which made the whole thing seem much cooler to a teenager too. Safe to say he took to it right away, and not long after starting the classes the academy moved to a dedicated training space, with a large scaffold area to balance and swing on and higher-level obstacles to climb on and jump off of!
Terrifying right? In reality, not really!
The parkour classes were well structured arranged by age group with children rotating around the equipment in small groups. Not only were the classes run by enthusiastic and hugely knowledgeable coaches, but they were also more importantly qualified by a governing body.
During the lessons children learn the basics of controlled, low-level movement, progressing on to more difficult skills as they improve. But fear not, an improvement in a parkour practitioners’ skills doesn’t necessarily mean they then take a skill to height! It may be that they learn to jump a longer distance or jump to a narrower obstacle than they’ve done before.
As my son learned about parkour, so did I. I learned that the coaches and those people you see doing crazy things online are athletes. These guys and girls don’t just jump from one roof to another on a whim. They have spent hours training at ground level, knowing they can clear a jump way beyond that distance before they’ll even contemplate taking it higher. And if on the day they aren’t feeling confident they won’t do it. Like Simone Biles at the Olympics, there are hours and hours of training before you see the spectacular result and, just like Simone, if they don’t feel it’s safe for them to ‘send it’, then they’ll step away for another day. Unlike some environments they won’t face the peer pressure to just do it anyway. Training alongside other parkour athletes means they know that you don’t just have to be physically ready to commit to a skill, but mentally ready too. And this carries through to everyday life. Knowing how to risk assess a situation is a life skill which many adults don’t learn until much older, if ever.
My son, like so many children, wasn’t a fan of the traditional sports on offer at school, you know the usual, football, rugby and cricket, and so started the search for an activity he enjoyed. He loved skateboarding, but the park closed; he loved diving, but the pool closed; and he enjoyed trampolining but once he was pushed to compete, the rigidity and structure meant that the fun was lost. Thank goodness for parkour. Not only did he enjoy going to classes, but I enjoyed taking him. It was exciting to watch him progress but we both met some great friends.
And just like Sam Coppack, a great parkour coach, mentions in his recent article, I can honestly say that parkour is an amazing environment for children to thrive in. My son has always been pretty confident, but parkour allowed him to communicate with older participants on the same level, which means now in his early 20’s, he is able to hold a conversation with anyone of any age without the fear that so many young people seem to have.
After a couple of years attending classes, he started volunteering as a coach and at age 16 took the Parkour UK Activators course, the first step on their coaching pathway back then. He was also part of the academy’s display team, attending local events showcasing the sport, but also allowing him to be involved in some more high-profile events such as the opening of the Battersea Power Station tube line and the Festival of Heroes on the Isle of Wight. Post covid my son took his Parkour UK Level one qualification which meant that he could start earning money as an assistant coach at age 16! How many people get to do their dream job at that age?
The amazing opportunities continued, with the shooting of an internal video for Hasbro, a commercial job for IGN racing through an abandoned building competing against a pc gamer running the same course virtually, a performance at Wembley in front of over 50,000 people opening for a wrestler and a summer of commercial parkour displays ahead. He has been lucky enough to train in Canada, Holland, Lisbon and throughout the UK and despite being seen as a solo sport, he knows that wherever he goes in the world there is a parkour community he can call on to train with. He has competed at Nova City’s Project Underground, the UK’s largest parkour competition twice now and unlike trampolining, he knows that regardless of where he places, he’ll have a great time with friends from across the UK and Europe.
Nearly 10 years later he is now a Parkour UK qualified level 2 coach, and I am excited to see where the sport takes him next.
To find out how to get started or check out our find a class page
Written by Julie Standen
