Looking for experienced parkour teacher in Cape Town

[DC]

it's difficult to promote and support groups if there is nobody leading them. :-/

doing this kind of work is a thankless job. as long as things run, people arrive and everything is great. the minute you not there, people complaining.

it all comes from dedication and love for what you do. you have to LOVE parkour. not pretend to love it when it pays and then spend more time training and focused on other things.

sad, but true.

people come, people go, my passion for this stays put! Probably why I get so upset when people say one thing and do another.

stick together and make it work. Cape Town is smaller than Gauteng, yet we manage to pull it together. Even with the many different groups. people travel hours to get to one training session. that is passion and dedication.

Yet on the same note, people train where they can when they can. you don't need to be with "the more experienced guys". They themselves have little idea of what to do, and trying to figure out their training schedules.

Just because someone has been a member of PKSA or heard of Parkour for so many years ... doesn't make them more experienced.

[Scyth]

Well said. I think ill be fine with a decent job and pk for the love of it

[Pace]

I think what the newbies are battling to understand is parkour is not like any other sport. It is a much more personal and an individual practice. Too many noobs in Cape Town are relying too heavily on rocking up at a jam and being herded like sheep. I understand why there isn't many organized events, Its because there are too many people coming to jams with a lack of passion, understanding and love for parkour. If you really want to get into it then youtube some tutorials and get out there yourself. Learn your body. I guess the leaders are tired of wasting their time teaching people who aren't prepared to learn themselves and make an effort and not just come once off.

If there are no jams arranged by the facebook groups then post a jam here on PKSA and get together with other guys on your level.

[Scyth]

Also well said. Don't agree with the level thing though. If one intermediate traceur could show up at a jam, it could be alot of help. Yes, intermediate traceurs have urned their skills, but everyone was a newbie once and should remember it as a vital step in their journey, and be excited about others taking that first step.

[Pace]

yea sure. Well, get together with anyone who wants to train but its always better if you train with someone on your level so you can learn together. I'm sure its slightly annoying for someone really good to train with someone just starting out. Its always nice to have someone push you.

[Scyth]

That may be yes. But newbies can't learn eachother 'cos there isn't much to learn. Lol... I prefer to think of it as exploring together then.

[DC]

man, i LOVE training with n00bs! They remind me of things I had forgotten many years back. it's stuff I do naturally and don't even think about.

it forces me to focus that much more on my own training.

Oftentimes I am looking to improve a bit more and then seeing someone start out, will bring my focus to something they are not doing which in turn helps me focus more of that on my own.

weird, but true.

you're only ever a n00b once ..... it should be treasured! aaaaah

[plut0nash]

Weirdly enough I saw the same thing when my nephews came to a jam 2 weeks ago. I remember how the older one told me how the previous jump i taught him related to going into a roll, and seeing him adapt his roll from a precision. That was a pretty inspiring moment. Also, when I started showing my other nephew how to land on the balls of the feet he started doing it almost by habit. That was pretty amazing.

[Pace]

Yeah I understand what you guys are saying, its nice to teach and learn from a noob. But you don't exactly want to be training and teaching noobs all the time as you don't really get time to do your own thing. I'm just thinking about the last couple jams. Brett and Junaid have led them. There are always newcomers who would like to learn the basics, so a more experienced traceur would teach them step by step. The traceur spends his training session teaching others and gets little chance to jam himself. It wouldn't be frustrating if the person being taught was really amped to progress and train and come back week after week, but the thing is the majority of people don't come back and build on what they've been taught, rendering a useless training session for the traceur. You understand? So would the solution be to hold a workshop once a month where noobs can come and learn the basics and then the other jams be where everyone just does their own thing?

DC how do your train? How often are you teaching noobs and do noobs come to your training sessions or do you have private sessions or what?

[DC]

I train on my own or with a buddy away from the larger groups, when I'm not running workshops.

It's the toughest part of my parkour journey. I'm always expected to teach someone something, or check out this or that move and help out. It's OK, and I really don't mind it. I just have learned to go very far away from the groups if I want any training on my own.

Most of my time is spent teaching others. I'm working on evening that out a bit, so that I get some extra training hours in of my own.

Best way to do it, is make a space for basic training only on this day or that. that way you get people to fall in with the program.

[Pace]

I see. You can understand why the scene seems so dead in CT, because no one wants to train noobs every Saturday and arrange jams. They would rather call up a buddy or arrange a small group and train privately. Its more progressive for everyone. But we must not completely scrap the jams and workshops. I'll make sure a workshop happens once a month and they can arrange jams within their group if they really want to take parkour further.
DC you got any plans to come to Cape Town in the near future? Great place to live by the way

[DC]

Agreed. have one session that is for newbs a month, then state that the others are open training sessions. you may get help from other people at those open training days, but don't expect and demand it.

It seems the new generations in parkour expect everything on a platter rather than figuring it out for themselves. you have to remember, that in the beginning .. we never had teachers or trainers. we just taught ourselves with little to no guidance at all. some people naturally guided the groups a bit more than other people, but overall it was just fun and a great way to get out and train in whichever way you could.

The problem comes in when people try and improve way too fast. They see some move on tv or another person trying it out, then naturally everyone wants to be at that level instantly.

It took YEARS before guys got to prepare their bodies for some of the heavy impact that you see in videos now. not days or weeks.

then there's the other level of people being "involved" or knowing about parkour for years and realistically only doing 20-50 training sessions, and expecting to pull of the same movements.

That kind of Training, if you are serious about improvement, takes years of solid work! not on and off.

not ranting ... just saying.

as for moving down to the cape .... it's an awesome thought, and been on my mind. just not sure about work ops there.

[Pace]

I think I fit into the group which have known about parkour for a while but haven't trained on a consistent basis, but I don't think I can do all the advanced moves and big drops just because I've been around for a bit. I'm actually starting from the bottom up, realizing that I took it too fast and my body just wasn't ready for kongs and the impact on concrete without rolling. This time around I'll be drilling the basics and conditioning my body. I'm in it for the long haul, I don't want buggered knees and shins in a couple years time. Though I must still push myself though and work at being more in control of my mind and dealing with fear. Quite a good article: http://blane-parkour.blogspot.com/2007/04/dilution.html

Hope you find a job here Your workshops and presence would be an awesome contribution to parkour in Cape Town.

[plut0nash]

That post haunted me a bit because I am new to PK. How do I know if I am pushing too fast or too hard to progress? The way I see it Parkour is all about mastery and learning process, and making it a mindful but also mindless process of growth that seems to only happen in the moment and in the heart.

As for "grandad strength", how does one know if the practise we're doing is really benefitting us in the long term that by the age of 70 if we get there we'll still be able to do those things and still be able to teach your twenty-something grand kids?

[DC]

progression is key. and read that again .... progression. It doesn't say: Jump to the end goal immediately! start one step at a time.

The first step is to think like a child. play like a child. find ways to overcome obstacles. build strength and condition the body to get up and over it/them.

Do not drop from higher than you're own height (max 2mt) when starting out. there is no gain in doing this from the start. you will only damage your knees in the long term.

other than that, play .... get used the feeling of overcoming things.

later on down the line, you will begin to get frustrated at your movements and the lack of reasoning behind WHY you continue to do parkour, and then the mental discipline journey comes to the fore. much more on this I won't talk about right now as it will only confuse those starting out on their journeys. (It normally takes about 2-3 years of solid training to reach this next level.)