Parkour Generations Women’s Empowerment Day

By Karen Palmer

Location: Moberly Sports Center, London England.

Parkour Generation’s Women’s Empowerment Day 7th Feb 2009 at Moberly Sports Center was a great success and for myself an appropriate time for reflection.

In the last few years Parkour Generations have been the driving force behind transforming the Parkour scene, with regular indoor and outdoor classes, workshops in the UK and throughout the world. This initiative is to encourage young women to experience Parkour, it was exciting having been part of the scene for the past few years to see potentially what could be the next generation of budding female free-runners.

As myself and the other trainers warmed up in the main hall waiting for the workshop to start the atmosphere was buzzing, the seventy or so excited young ladies between the ages of 14-19 were chatting and laughing, slightly nervously not sure what to expect. Earlier in the day when they were informed that there would be a Parkour Workshop they had squealed excitedly, however as Forrest now introduced himself in his booming voice, a hush descended on the room.

A young Parkour Generation’s trainer and friend of mind Dom casually mentioned, “Could we have imagined this several years ago, when we would travel to Edith in the early days when Forrest started teaching Parkour that we would be here teaching an all  female workshop”. Then we were the ones looking at Forrest chatting and laughing slightly nervously not sure what to expect. “Never!” I responded.

Forrest commenced his legendary warm up, a lethal combination of pain and fun, this adapted version for the young ladies was much shorter and less strenuous, but the apprehension soon gave way to sounds of shock and exclaimations that they “Can’t do that.” or ” Can’t hold it”.

After the warm up, they were divided into groups at training stations being lead by at least one trainer teaching various drills, of which the ladies in groups of about a dozen with a teacher rotated. Cat-balance, Tic tac off the wall, Slide monkey, Precision jump etc. Chris and I taught the Cat balance, in which they had to traverse along a rounded beam on all fours while balancing. As each group rotated they would look on nervously and exclaim “That’s hard.” ” I just can’t do it”. This was a completely new world for them, of strength, co-ordination, balance in a way in which they were unfamiliar and encouraging them to overcome their fear. So what if they fell, “Just start again, falling is part of life, how else can you learn,” I encouraged them. I was firm  and joked with them in equal measure. Then something started to happen as most of the ladies developed a defiance to the obstacle and started to push past their initial attitude they focused hard on achieving the balance, for many of them each time they repeated the drill they would improve, so by the end of the short session many of them were thrilled that they had been able to achieve it.

All of the Parkour Generations teachers there, Forrest, Dan, Chris, Yao, Dom, Ali, Andy are extraordinary and unique in their teaching style. Most of the young ladies I was teaching represented a diverse urban multi-cultural mix. Being a female I felt proud that I could represent Parkour Generations in this way, that they would probably be able to relate to me differently.

Many left with a new found confidence, having committed to the obstacle they had overcome their initial fear and left having surprised themselves and keen at the prospect of coming back and pushing themselves again. I know because I could see it in their eyes and that was me on my first session a few years ago and I have been coming back ever since.

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