Parkour is a sport rooted in movement, creativity, and self-expression. At its core, parkour is a solo discipline—athletes challenge themselves to overcome obstacles using running, jumping, climbing, and vaulting.
Parkour focuses on personal growth, creativity, and pushing individual limits. While competing is not required to enjoy or excel in parkour, competitions can be fun and inspiring for athletes who want to connect with the community and test their skills in a new environment.
If you or your child love parkour and are curious about competitions, here's an introduction to the three main parkour competition formats: Skill, Speed, and Freestyle. These formats are based on the United States Parkour Association's official parkour competition rulebook.
1. Skill Competition: Mastering Challenges with Precision
The Skill competition format is about precision, control, and mastery of specific parkour techniques. Athletes face multiple skill challenges set up around the competition area. These challenges test their ability to complete precise moves, such as jumps, vaults, swings, and landings, within a set number of attempts or time limits.
Each challenge is judged on a pass/fail basis, and athletes earn points based on the difficulty of the skill level they complete. Skill competitions are perfect for those who enjoy mastering specific techniques and pushing the boundaries of their abilities.
Example of Skill Challenges: Landing a precision jump on a narrow beam, executing a series of vaults without touching designated off-limits areas, or completing a complex climbing sequence.
2. Speed Competition: Racing with Strategy and Control
Speed competitions focus on completing a course as quickly as possible while navigating various obstacles. This format requires athletes to be methodical, calculated, and calm as they strategically decide how to approach each challenge. There are several types of speed courses, each offering unique challenges that test an athlete’s balance, coordination, and parkour skills.
Floor-Is-Lava Courses: In these courses, athletes must avoid touching the ground, requiring them to balance on beams, bars, or other elevated obstacles. This style demands exceptional coordination and balance, as one misstep could cost valuable time.
Choose-Your-Own-Path Courses: These courses are spread out over a wide area, and athletes must visit specific locations or checkpoints in any order. Competitors have to route their own path, choosing the best course based on their unique movement style and strengths. This type emphasizes strategy and personal creativity in selecting the most efficient path to achieve the best time.
A to B Courses: These are straightforward courses where athletes start at point A and race to point B as quickly as possible. Unlike Floor-Is-Lava, the ground is not off-limits, and the main goal is to rely on explosive speed and parkour skills to navigate through obstacles swiftly. Athletes must focus on maintaining high speeds while accurately executing their parkour techniques.
Speed competitions require a balance of speed, precision, and careful planning. They highlight an athlete’s ability to think quickly, maintain control, and safely execute their skills under pressure.
3. Freestyle Competition: Showcasing Creativity and Style
Freestyle, often called "Style," is the most artistic of the parkour competition formats. In this event, athletes create and perform a run that showcases their creativity, skill, and personal flair. Freestyle is judged on a variety of criteria, including execution, composition (how well the moves flow together), and difficulty.
This format allows athletes to express themselves through their movements, making it popular among those who enjoy the creative side of parkour and freerunning. Freestyle is all about making the impossible look effortless and adding personal style to every jump, flip, and trick.
Key Judging Criteria: Creativity, difficulty of moves, smoothness of transitions, and overall composition of the run.
Why Compete? The Community Connection
While parkour is a solo sport, competitions offer a unique opportunity for athletes to connect with the larger parkour community. Competitions are exciting events where athletes can meet other passionate individuals, share techniques, and celebrate the sport together. Traveling to different gyms, like the Freedom in Motion parkour gyms in Southern California, can also be incredibly inspiring and help keep athletes motivated and creative.
Encouraging your child (or even yourself!) to participate in a parkour competition can be a fun way to experience new challenges, meet new friends, and deepen their love for the sport. Whether they’re mastering precise skills, racing through speed courses, or expressing themselves through a freestyle run, the experience of competition can be rewarding and memorable.
Remember, while competing can be a great addition to one’s parkour journey, it’s always optional. The most important thing is to keep moving, stay creative, and enjoy the process of learning parkour at your own pace!
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