Testing parkour

I am not saying that they are massive high pressure situations. But don't you think that training with someone chasing you, or trying to beat a time adds a little more incentive? Because in a real emergency performance matters. You can be a nice guy, with great philosophy and so on but in an emergency, whatever it is, it matters whether you get where your going on time, or get away from your pursuer.

Training like this forces you to work with the skill you have, teaches you that if you don't push past an obstacle you will be caught/late, that failure matters. Granted you will only gain a small advantage but it's better than nothing and what is the alternative?



I don't understand what you mean by the above quote. You seem to be saying that attaching any importance to beating a time or not being caught will somehow make you a nervous wreck. Put it in perspective. If you fail to make a jump you may feel frustrated but it doesn't stop you from trying again and when you achieve it you can't help but feel a little sense of accomplishment. Same with beating a time or not getting caught.

Besides I thought the whole point of parkour (physically, I am not interested in discussing philosophy) was the rapid and efficient passing of obstacles. How can actually training this be bad for your parkour?

Personally, no, training with someone chasing me does not add more incentive. I do not feel frustrated if I do not do a movement perfectly or get caught in a friendly chase, and I do not feel a sense of accomplishment if I do a perfect move or succeed in escaping or beating a time. These things do not mean anything to me. I know they are hugely unimportant, and I want to concentrate on the things that are important. How do you compare a bruise to a heart attack, or frustration over an inch of a jump to a lifetime of starvation, torture and misery, without realising that the minor setbacks we experience every day are meaningless in the grand scheme of things?
I know I can get all the motivation I need from within myself, in my goals and desires, and so I do not find it useful to use motivations that aren't my own internal ones. If I did use other motivations, it would make it more difficult for me to do what I want to do and achieve what I want to achieve, with things that do matter. I practice parkour because I want to determine my own life, I value my freedom of thought and action.

Your experience of being chased by a friend is not what tells you that it is important to escape from someone who is trying to kill you. Your desire to live tells you that it is important. There is no more direct connection with your fundamental desires than the one you have in an emergency situation, and no stronger feeling. The more in touch with your desires you are before the emergency, the more you will understand the intense feelings in an emergency situation and be able to fit your thoughts and feelings together. If you are not in touch with your desires beforehand, the emotions of an emergency will come as a surprise and your feelings will contradict your thoughts, leading to confusion.
By comparison to someone who has an accurate perspective on life, people who are attached to mundane things are nervous wrecks, because of this conflict between feelings and thoughts.

The whole point of parkour is development of your whole self. 'Point' means goal, and goals are a philosophical concept. Passing physical obstacles effectively is part of the method, it is not the goal. There is always a reason why you are passing the obstacle.

Describing parkour as passing obstacles quickly and efficiently is like describing brain surgery as being making holes in people's skulls. It is not the whole of it. Training using trivial motivations can be likened to accessing the brain with a sledge hammer. It is one way to get past the difficulty of the skull, but it is going to cause more problems than it solves with the process as a whole. You need to consider the whole aim, the ultimate goal, not just the problem immediately in front of you.

If you all really want to train for an emergency situation, then get yourself into one. There are many ways to do this! You can try going around town and assaulting people then running and lots of other stuff!

I think that training by having a friend chase you doesnt add incentive but it does help ALITTLE to show how an emergency situation would be, because, despite stress/emotions, a few things are the same in both. 10. You dont want to be caught. 2). In order to not be caught you must move quickly and efficiently. and to do this you would have had to 3). Drill. By drill i mean doing the movement the way you'd normally drill and also drill by having to move quickly (Because someone is chasing you or you just want to go fast.)

So i dont really have much more to say, that was just my 2 cents