I threw my computer down, looked at Graham, and simply said, “I don’t care anymore!”
I repeated this several times, got up, and just started pacing. I was supposed to be excited, at least, what I was doing was supposedly exciting. I was typing up my course schedule for the new Rochester Parkour gym – kids classes, teen classes, adult beginners, adult intermediates, women’s classes, on and on and on. And yet, the longer I looked at this multi-colored chart, the more stressed and irritated I became. This was wrong. Why? It’s not me.
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t stand structure. I see the restriction of time as something to rebel against, not conform with, as everything in me says that we as a culture wrongfully attempt to micro-manage way too much of our lives. And yet, I love teaching parkour! I love the look of anxious frustration and the smile of fulfillment. I need that in my life for it to feel complete.
But the teaching I do is different than others. That’s what I realized. I love teaching parkour, on Saturdays, in Manhattan Square Park (or High Falls or wherever in Rochester) with Rochester Parkour. I’ve never had a curriculum because a curriculum is structure. It is an attempt to make the role of teacher easier by allowing the preparation work to happen before the actual class. Sometimes this is useful for safety reasons, but considering our track record over the last 4 years, I’m not worried. Teaching for me is as much parkour as playing tag is: I react based on the student as the man being chased reacts to his pursuer. It’s a push and pull game that is constantly evolving and adapting instantly. It flows like a conversation, something I’ve learned through my time as a personal trainer as something that cannot have predetermined talking points because it feels fake.
This is what makes Rochester Parkour so amazing. There are no students and no instructors there on Saturdays, merely people moving and flowing and creating conversations of multiple forms. If there is structure, you would never know, and I suppose an appropriate critique to what I’m saying is that good structure is one that goes unnoticed.
I was upset not at the structure, but at myself that day for not realizing that I was simply attempting to follow the path already defined by others out there. Primal Fitness has its path as Parkour Visions has theirs, as APEX and Urban Evolution theirs. And while they are physical representations of paths to success, they are not the only paths. I have chosen a different one.
I see these other gyms very much like martial arts studios. Some of them have curriculums, most of them spend significant portions of time teaching classes. This is good because they have followed their community’s culture. It works for them. So when I plug their algorithm into Rochester Parkour, I get an error, because Rochester Parkour does not function like a martial arts studio; we function like a rock climbing gym. The openness is what separates us, and thus, has guided my vision for the new gym.
My vision for the Rochester Parkour gym involves this openness and involves the preservation of everything previously mentioned that makes us great. I do not want the conversations to change because of the new setting, I want them to grow more in-depth because of it.
Rochester Parkour will stay open the way it has been in the past and will function based on our model:
1. Openness
2. Fluid instruction
3. Positive atmosphere
4. Encouraged creativity
The gym will bias open gyms as its main form of teaching, by way of supervisors: members already a part of the community who are not just great athlete’s, but great instructors, who pass on the values of Rochester Parkour. Supervisors will always be in the gym during open hours available for questions, direct guidance (one to one or one to a few instruction), or indirect guidance (instruction by example). Teaching will happen in a flexible fashion as it has been for the past 4 years. This will continue to allow the conversation of movement and instruction to evolve with the creative bursts, rather than the creative bursts coming from the guided or predetermined structure for that moment. Classes will be held, but will be biased to beginners and those looking to stay within the confines of that structure.
The role of the supervisors gives people an added incentive to become great athletes, great instructors, and great community members. I like these people. I WANT these people in the gym and I will find methods to make this so.
Fluidity and flexibility is ultimately what I want. I want to put people in an environment that is open to both beginners and experts. I want a space that will allow you to be creative when you have a spark of intelligence (or silliness). I want a space that teaches play, with the understanding that play is different for everyone. We don’t try to define play, we simply adapt to another person’s understanding of play and guide them there.
I don’t teach fun; I allow fun to be expressed and then mold it before tossing it back into the air and letting it fly. I don’t teach parkour; I allow parkour to be expressed and then shape that understanding keeping in mind the individual. I want an army of individuals, not an army of one.
