In this article, we show you Sebastian Charron. An absolute BEAST at parkour. We also show a video of what it will be like your first time, and another video with some tips and tricks on your first moves. I’ll also tell you a little bit about my experience so far just starting out.
In this first video, they go through some highlights of the monster from back a few years ago. He’s slightly better now, I wouldn’t say INSANELY better……but there are quite a few other videos out there of him crushing it. In the next video he’s a few more years into it.
If you notice, he does a lot of parkour tricks that definitely aren’t for beginners. He’s probably worked a long time on these, but this just goes to show that it is DEFINITELY possibly for you if you’re interested in trying out parkour for yourself.
In this next video, you see him a few years later in his progression. At first, I didn’t see a huge improvement…..but after watching again, I noticed he definitely has a little more balance than he did before and precision.
Also, this is a “cinematic” parkour video. One of his firsts. I actually found this off his youtube channel where he shares a few other videos but unfortunately not a lot. I’d love for him to go in depth on a training or maybe just talk about how he’s gotten so far in the sport. Regardless, super inspirational for me. Definitely shows that you can do it if you put your mind to it.
This next video is of a younger kid trying it out in a more pro environment for parkour. It’s kind of a slow video with a lot of talking and not to much really happening other than conversations between the two…….but there are a few times where he does try it out and I was honestly VERY surprised at how well he did, especially jumping up on the foam blocks. Just because you’re big does not mean you can’t do it. He does bend some of the bars though transferring from pole to pole which kind of did concern me a little bit however.
Much respect to the kid for trying, since he’s honestly already kind of in shape for being a bigger guy…….I’d imagine giving him a year or two and he would DRASTICALLY improve. Maybe not be as good as Sebastien, but I could definitely see him getting there.
In this last video we watch how to do 5 easy beginner moves.
The way these guys show how to do it, makes it seem incredibly easy. Some actually were surprisingly easy……..others. Not so much.
Now, I highly suggest you take this at your own pace. For instance, for me there’s no way I would attempt to do the wall ride…….but, the precision jump was actually very easy and I could do that over and over basically no problem.
Also, this may be obvious…….but they didn’t go over it in the video so I’m just going to say this anyways……..It’s really important you do a lot of these on smaller obstacles that aren’t that high. Thankfully in my backyard I had some small stuff I could do precision jumps on to, but If you don’t have something like that definitely go seek something out. Don’t try something insanely high unless you’re absolutely 110% positive you can handle it. If you get hurt it’s all over until you recover!
Bonus: 7 tips for starting out parkour
Make sure you have good shoes for the job.
Man, literally the first time I went out……before I even tried anything I ended up falling………all because of the shoes I was wearing. Not only were they not great shoes for running, but they weren’t tied right. I should know better as a skateboarder…..I’ve seen quite a few messed up ankles just from not wearing the proper attire……and seriously, If you’ve never had a sprained or broken ankle…….you don’t want that pain in your life. It’s horrible and takes forever to heal properly. (for some people it never does heal properly)
Always stretch and Warm Up
Of course, if you don’t then you can injure yourself pretty seriously……but that’s not the entire point of warming up. The point of warming up for me is so that you feel better and more lose when you exercise. The better you feel while exercising, the more you’re going to stick to it. Once you start stretching before every exercise you’ll want to do it everytime trust me. It’s awesome.
There are Jams and Meetup groups
Honestly, these seem like a lot of fun. Just a group where people get together and do parkour, talk parkour, and train and teach each other new tricks.
I haven’t been able to attend one yet, but I’m excited to get to go to one. Many new people on forums said they learned a lot from people at their local events.
There are Parkour Gyms, and there’s likely one around you.
Honestly, this was a big surprise to me that there was even ones in my area at all. I always considered parkour to be more of an underground thing, and not this big sport that TONS of people are doing…..turns out I was very wrong.
Not only are you likely to find a gym near you, but the gyms usually aren’t very expensive at all to train in and can be a BLAST. I haven’t gotten to go yet, but my mom has been to a ton of these gyms and they have ridiculously cool set ups and obstacles you can exercise on. Makes exercising fun and not a chore anymore.
If you don’t have one, why not set one up?
Do a little research on the clothes you should wear
What clothes people wear make a surprising impact on your parkour. It’s way to much to get into here, but people wear all sorts of different clothes depending on what type of parkour they’re doing, and the weather.
For instance, one of the more common clothing types that parkourist wear are long sleeve thicker shirts. The people who prefer these prefer them because they can prevent you from getting scraped up. This is the exact opposite of what I thought people that do parkour would want to wear. I thought that long sleeves would be more restricting and wouldn’t make it as fun to do.
A lot of it is based on opinion, but it’s good to hear what others have to say. I’d definitely suggest checking out communities and forums online. Reddit is a great place to start.
You don’t need to add height to the equation in order to practice
I said something similar to this earlier, but it’s really very important. You can start out jumping from small objects to other small objects, or better yet…..practice with lines first. (which is what a lot of experts start with)
Doing this will make you better at parkour before you even start in a way. Also, this will build up your confidence before you hit the larger jumps and save you from embarrassment and getting extremely hurt as well.
Don’t forget as well, if you’re going to be jumping from line to line. It’s still best to warm up beforehand and wear the right attire. Yes, it does seem absurd…..but you still can get hurt even if there’s not much of a fall to make. Also it gets the right habits in early to set you up for success later on.
Think about it this way, if you’ve practiced in the wrong shoes over and over, when you switch to the right ones it will feel weird when you go to do the bigger jumps…………..which in turn you might fall because you’re not used to it. You’ve basically wasted valuable practice time.
Conclusion:
Hope you enjoyed this article!!!! As a larger person myself trying to get into more sports, I want to say that I understand it’s really hard when you’re larger to get into this stuff. But, as we lose weight and build muscle all of this gets easier and easier.
Just a few years ago, I couldn’t even walk for five minutes without feeling like I was going to pass out…….now I can do an hour of cardio or a couple hours of just walking and be alright.
Everything just takes baby steps to get to the finish. The same with parkour, even if you can barely do any of the moves now……down the line things will get easier and easier and soon you’ll be able to do it no problem.
Thanks again for reading!!!! Hope you enjoyed the article!! If you feel like leaving a comment with how I can improve please do, I would love to make the blog better in any way that I can. Thanks again!!