Master Your Movement
We all harbour immense potential for extraordinary activity. We all possess the innate ability to move with the seemingly superhuman attributes that parkour develops. The truth is, of course, that there is nothing superhuman about these activities – and there are no secrets either. Diligent, intelligent practice and focused, regular training will bring about the realisation of this potential.
Stretching yourself is vital. Not the yoga kind, though – here I’m referring to stretching your abilities in movement and
Complex movement is not just a physical exercise, but a cognitive one.
Every movement you make, every thought you have, every decision you take fires a sequence of neurons which, over time, build movement engrams, the neurological blueprints for complex actions…
Motivating yourself is easy at the start, or when you are in phases of obvious progress: the process in itself is the reward at such times. But it won’t always be this way. ..
Impact can and should be a positive stressor for the body, promoting bone growth and improved density and creating healthy
Understand that true mastery can only come from deep immersion within a practice. It has to become part of who you are…
The mind is the most slippery of opponents, and the most cunning, and the most persistent…
Play will help refresh your mental processes, giving your mind a much-needed break from daily routines that can become all too monotonous and repetitive, slowly eating away at your resolve and enthusiasm for life.
It asks you difficult questions; probes your weak spots; identifies the parts that are broken. Then it demands that you fix them..
the greatest practices humans have yet created are those which train the entire individual, not just the athlete in us.
An inevitability of positive, intentional adaptation is that you will not initially see what the solution to a problem will be. If you could, the adaptive principle would not be necessary…
Too often we are taught to break apart the body and look at it as a series of problems; to fragment it in order to make the complexity of human movement more manageable, and injuries more fixable. But we pay a hidden and enormous price for this…
Your journey will be unique, and no one knows your body and mind better than you, if you take the time to listen and understand. Go at your own pace. Forgive your own errors.
There’s a moment in every jump we take in parkour, a point of no return when we decide to commit and trust our ability, training and experience to see us safely to the other side…
Dan Edwardes 