Parkour is fun and with a focus on individual physical and mental challenge, which is why it’s a brilliant physical activity for children
Mention parkour to most people and the first thing they think of is crazy stunts across rooftops in TV adverts or the classic James Bond chase scene that opened Casino Royale. The second thing they think is: ‘That looks dangerous’. But think again.
Now recognised officially as a sport in the UK, parkour is becoming increasingly popular for children from primary years up. And, says Dan Edwardes, founder of Parkour Generations, it has an excellent safety record. “Statistically, parkour is way down on the risk list compared to most traditional sports. In fact, injuries per 1,000 hours is lower than almost any traditional sport.”
Edwardes was a UK pioneer of parkour, which is, in simplest terms, the discipline of freely moving in and around your space. While the roots of parkour can be traced back to everything from martial arts to obstacle courses, the parkour we know now is widely acknowledged to have developed in the Paris suburbs in the 1990s. It’s still a big deal there – in fact, a parkour torch bearer was part of the opening ceremony of this summer’s Olympics.
While the stunts on TV are undeniably cool, this is not how parkour is taught to children. It’s a logical step on from play. Watch any group of toddlers to teens in a playground and you will see an almost obsessive compulsion to clamber up, around, over and through things. “Our birthright as human beings is to be very physically literate and very adaptive movers, and so all parkour is doing is tapping into that natural desire to move and play and giving it a little bit more discipline and focus,” says Edwardes.
While Parkour Generations’ work ranges from advising on stunts and sequences in film to training serious practitioners, its grassroots-level arm is central. It has worked with schools up and down the country and internationally since 2005, training teachers, leading sessions and also designing and supplying parkour equipment and courses for indoor and outdoor facilities.
It’s also behind the London Parkour School in Docklands, a centre specifically for the under 16 age group. This opened just after the pandemic and now hosts children from all over London. The school even runs micro parkour sessions for tots from six months. It has been such a success that more centres are now being planned across London and other UK cities.
“They won’t see it as work, they won’t see it as exercise, they will just see it as fun, and they’ll want to do it over and over again”
Parkour is a brilliant way for children to let off steam because it combines elements of play with physical and mental challenges. “About 25% of all play is what’s called locomotor play. So, if you leave kids alone, at least a quarter of their time will be spent in very physical, very active play. All kids want to do that because It’s what we evolved to do – to move over terrain,” says Edwardes. “If you catch them early and you encourage them to move, and you make movement easier for them and more fun, they are much more likely to stick with it.”
So how does parkour work when you’re teaching it to a lively bunch of kids? “A lot of people might think that we get them to focus on parkour techniques but actually, especially when they are young, there’s not a lot of technical instruction. That’s not a good way to get kids moving. The better way is the constraint-led method, which is basically to give them some constraints and parameters,” he says.
This might be an obstacle course to complete as fast as possible then tag a teammate, or a task where they have to stay off the ground (a lava-style game). “They won’t see it as work, they won’t see it as exercise, they will just see it as fun, and they’ll want to do it over and over again,” says Edwardes. “As a teacher, that’s done your job for you – you don’t need to motivate them, they’re very happy to do that all day!”
It’s a style of movement that is both natural and empowering, as children test their own limits, refine the moves they’ve tried before and learn to use the space and restrictions presented to them. Along the way, they are developing strength, agility and coordination, but also thinking skills as they learn to judge risks, appraise situations and find practical solutions.
One other reason parkour is so appealing to children is that it’s not about competing to win – the challenges are for each individual to solve. “It’s trained in groups, and it’s got a hugely strong community base and a social aspect to it, but it’s a solo skill,” says Dan Edwardes. This gives it real advantages over traditional play-to-win sports. “About 50% of kids don’t have much interest in competitive sport. But equally, the kids that do have a competitive streak also enjoy parkour because it is so challenging, and they want to be able to test themselves.”
Schools are receptive to parkour – not least because when you talk to any sports lead these days, they are more focused on establishing lifelong habits of healthy activity than trophy cabinets. That said, parkour helps with both objectives. “Where parkour fits in is in the general physical literacy development. Sports are fantastic in their physical development, but they are quite specialised in their movement skills,” says Dan Edwardes. “It’s better to give a kid a broad based, general physical literacy when they are young. If they’ve got that they can adopt any sport they want for the rest of their life.”
He also thinks the breadth of movements involved in parkour builds body resilience to help with traditional sport. He points to the high frequency of repetitive strain injuries in sports such as running. “If you want to reduce the chance of those injuries, then the best thing to do is to add some variable movement to your practice. If you’re going to, say, play golf or be a runner you should also try and do other forms of movement that will balance out the imbalances that your specialised sport is creating.”
As to whether parkour will ever become an Olympic competition – probably not in the short term, although it is certainly one to watch. Not that this matters a jot to most children. For them, this is supercharged fun – free-moving and playful tests that build both confidence and a greater understanding of their body’s amazing capabilities. For that reason alone, parkour is a brilliant addition to the sports roster.
Parkcour Generations parkourgenerations.com
Further reading: Healthy competition
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