We have just had the pleasure of introducing Parkour to Education Students at the University of Queensland. Over the past two weeks we took a group of students through a variety of training methods and techniques, allowing them to explore Parkour as an alternative method of movement for Physical Education teaching. The response was fantastic, with many students showing interest in furthering their training in our regular classes.
On Saturday 28th August we are launching our weekly Basics and First Timers class. To celebrate, we are running a free trial class for a limited number of students. To secure yourself a space in this class, follow the link to the bookings page in the Basics or First Timers class information at www.brisbaneparkour.com.au Bookings are open now and will fill up fast!
Brisbane has just hosted its first intensive 2 day Parkour instruction seminar. On the 11th and 18th of July, 11 instructors and trainee instructors gathered together to explore the world of Parkour teaching. Topics ranged from warm-ups to philosophy, first-timers’ classes to partnered/assisted movement, anatomy, nutrition, technique breakdowns and more… The final day included a Methode Naturelle session that included swimming, water rescue, quadrupedie, rock-hopping, barefoot running, balance, climbing, fireman’s carry and defense. Parkour Spirit!
Many thanks to all those who participated in and contributed to the event.
A two day instructor training seminar will be hosted in Brisbane CBD on the 11th and 18th of July. The session is free and open to all those who have previously participated in instructor training. For more info go to www.brisbaneparkour.com.au
Hey guys. Just a quick update. We’ve just received positive notice of a funding application we submitted earlier this month. Recently Queensland Health have spent money increasing facilities and usability of four parks in the Townsville West area. They then wanted to have a series of ‘come and try’ activities to entice the local population back into the parks and being active again.
We put forward a proposal to run monthly girls only sessions where the young women will be strongly encouraged to bring their mother, aunt or other female role model/support person to train with them. We are hoping to give local girls the basic skills and get them feeling confident enough to join in with our regular groups as this is something that’s been raised by participants before.
This has been successful, and even better they want us to find a strong female to get involved in the facilitation alongside myself and Hartley which will be a great opportunity to possibly also skill up a female youth worker. So… starting next month we’ll be doing monthly sessions on a Saturday morning rotating through four parks over four months. Can’t wait, will post more info as I have it.
Other good news is it looks like the currently funded weekly Get Active in Parks (GAP) program will be refunded for another 12 months. This has been a very successful program and it’s great to see that recognised.
All is well up here. Massive week the other week with National Youth Week and YOUTHFEST. We set up the obstacle course and had about 700 youth (12-25) go through the course over four days. Three of those days were mainly high school students who were bussed in and the greatest thing was that out of a choice of four or five different events/activities 95% of them chose to come to our station. It was also great to see so many volunteers come and help us out and some of our regulars step up and put in some hard work.
>We’re experiencing a bit of an explosion as far as school interest in our programs goes. The YEP (Youth Exploring Potential) program is now running in four different schools. Mostly we’re running specialty groups with 6-8 young people and a support teacher, however one of the schools last term requested that we run a leadership focused program for their entire year six group. They have three and a half classes of year six kids and it’s been a massive project but heaps of fun and the teachers, principal and students all love it. After the first week all of the kids have now taken to exploring Parkour for their projects and assignments. They’ve spent time doing research online with their teachers and everything.
I’ve put in 4 funding applications to continue and/or grow programs in my service area.
We’re starting to plan for the Winter School Holiday period, looking at visiting some new parks/areas and promoting our programs and Parkour more widely. The school holiday programs always get good support from council and are included in their School Holiday Program Guide which is mass produced and sent out to every school in the region.
On a personal note I’m currently in discussion with Dan from Parkour Generations regarding the Mobile Parkour equipment and am hoping that it won’t be too long before we see one (or many) in Australia.
Ohh, and my wife’s pregnant with our second child.
So yeah, pretty hectic at the moment. Trying to make sure I have time to train personally, though that gets tricky. Great having John Bourne back in TSV at the moment and doing some training with him…
Want to start off by saying well done Canberra on completing the 10,000 push-up challenge, we smashed it through and had a great time doing it.
We are now starting on a 48 hours of plank challenge spread over the month, lets see how far we get!
In other news, Canberra classes have had a great start to the year with our first two classes running very successfully. Everyone involved had a great time and we received great feedback from students.
Hope to see more of you next class!
Eliot.
Every year in February close to 500 venturers (senior Scouts aged between 14 and 18) travel to Lardner Park, Drouin, a 70 minute drive east of Melbourne, to engage in an action packed weekend were they go Scuba Diving, 4WDing, Water Skiing and much more. Following the adventure theme, the APA was invited to run its first class with Scouts Victoria and Victorian Venturers.
The venturers were given an initial brief about Parkour followed by a dynamic warm up routine. Being only a one hour class, the instructors had to utilise their time wisely, and much of the class was dedicated to vaulting and balancing. But, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t enough time for Strength and Conditioning. There always time for SnC…
As the students crawled away from the session, the overall vibe confirmed that training Parkour was most definitely an adventure. The APA received a lot of positive feedback and it was good to see some familiar faces at this event, and we look forward to running further classes in the near future. - Tony Tsay
Following a successful first class, the second apa ran class for newcastle will be held on the 13th of march 2010.
Further details can be found here http://forum.parkour.asn.au/index.php?topic=3643.msg43726#msg43726
Over the last two weeks, instructors in Brisbane have been delivering introductory Parkour workshops to over 120 Human Movements students at Queensland University of Technology (Kelvin Grove). The workshops are part of an initiative to expose upcoming Physical Education teachers to alternative movement disciplines to be used in schools. The workshops focused on giving the students a holistic view of Parkour practice and its physical and mental benefits. Feedback has been extremely positive and there is already talk of expanding the delivery next year!
