Of course, people also asking about basic parkour techniques, which makes us happy, because it means that the sport of parkour, which has been booming for over a decade now, is continuing to grow even further.

Now, if you really want to get involved in parkour, you should really check out a parkour class. There are plenty of them about in the UK. We’re not experts here at Mpora and can only outline some basic techniques, which we don’t advice trying out without an expert helping you out or giving you tips.

If you’re looking for some entry-level information though, you’re in the right place. So, without further ado, let’s get started…

Basic Parkour Techniques: Balancing

Everything comes down to balance in parkour. Running, jumping, climbing and vaulting are all core skills of the practise, but without the right balance, you’ll never be able to really perfect them, let alone link them together.

Basic Parkour Techniques: Jumping

Precision jumping is another key feature of parkour. It’s great to get yourself along to the gym and use a jumping box to perfect your precision. Training in such a way, and moving the boxes further apart and using bigger and more challenging features will help your jumping to no end.

When you are confident with your jumping, try running jumps, making sure you stop exactly where you mean to and building from there, and then take it outdoors. This will mean that when you have to jump from wall to wall, you’ll have the confidence not to go under or overshoot.

You should also look into practising the tic-tac jump, which involves kicking off objects to reach higher objects above. This is best done outdoors, on walls, or even trees. This will prove crucial for quickly overcoming large walls and getting past features that would stop others from getting through. And you’ll feel like Super Mario.

When you’re looking to take on a gap, remember the ‘cat jump’ technique. This is useful for when a feature is too high for you to land on it on your feet. You’ll end up hanging from the wall or feature here, with your legs downwards and your toes pointed into the building, giving you the grip to climb onwards. This is incredibly dangerous of course without appropriate strength and training, so don’t try without practise from lower, safer levels.

Basic Parkour Techniques: Dropping and Landing

Dropping from a level significantly higher than your landing zone can be dangerous, and you’ll need to build up to it slowly and steadily, so that you have the confidence and technique to make sure you don’t get hurt.

So, what landing techniques do you need to know? Two-foot landings and rolling landings can both be useful, so you need to work on both, and work on knowing when to use each.

The two-foot landing can be worked on in the gym on the same boxes used for practising jumping, and also of course on pretty much any street corner.

You need to let your body come down to your legs and get your hands on the ground when landing, spreading the impact and lowering your centre of gravity. Make sure you’ve stopped completely and with stability, or else the fall could hurt.

Be sensible. Don’t climb outside of your skill level and don’t climb higher than you know you can jump down. The tic-tac wall run will serve you well here, and with good arm strength this should come naturally.

Basic Parkour Techniques: Vaulting

This is often the part of parkour that looks coolest, so obviously, you’re going to want to get it down. Vaulting over objects can give you the fluidity to your parkour looking smooth, and the best place to practise is the gym, with a beam ideally. If you don’t have that access, find a small wall and practise using that, but – yup, you guessed it – be careful!

Typically, you’ll put your nearest hand on the object to be vaulted and jump the rest of your body over, but there are various forms of vaulting, including putting both arms on the feature and taking your legs into your body as you jump through them. You normally won’t be vaulting anything over one metre – you should be tackling those kind of objects through climbing techniques – but these are great to know for when you’re out in the run.

Those are some of the basics. If you want to get involved in parkour, get expert help from the likes of Parkour UK, Parkour Generations or any of the other numerous parkour classes in the UK. They’ll guide you more than we ever could!

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