Martial Arts and its benefits on Parkour

By Stuart Palmer

The idea of martial arts in everyone’s eyes is Bruce Lee or Karate Kid for instance many people only heard of kung fu because it was brought into the media world by Bruce Lee but before then the closest thing you could find to martial arts being used in media was in the Far East used in Peking opera. Even before Peking opera was brought to the stages of the eastern world there was martial arts only used by cults or religions even, for example the shoalin monks discovered wing chun kung fu to defend themselves against muggers and thieves in the woods as they would travel to there temples after they had been to the city, wing chun then became more than just a defense mechanism to them it was more a way of life, a discipline and a way for them to condition there bodies and mind to be one width there surroundings, which is what we traceurs, believe Parkour to be, a discipline to let us be one with our environment whether it would be a natural surrounding such as trees, hills, rocks and/or mountains or an urban man made environment , we would find a way to condition our bodies to over come and be one adapt as if it were to these obstacles we find in our way every day in our life to get to our destination in the most efficient way possible.

As an experienced martial artist in the Ancient art of Tae Kwon Do and Wing Chun Kung Fu, I have found martial arts has contemplated extremely good to help me progress and be compatible to the art of Parkour for many reasons such as, well in the strength compartment it really toned me up got me stronger to be able to lift much more than my own body weight seen as I was training with men , In flexibility we have a series of stretches we have to do e.g. side splits, front splits and many others not just legs but arms, back every part of the body really, so before I even began Parkour my body was ready to take on most movements in Parkour. Confidence, Parkour wise its given me the confidence to actually try things what I think are out of my limits but not what I believe that are out of my limits so I will go that extra inch to complete a movement over my ability wise and then work more on the technique to increase the flow to make it crisp and clean.
So basically I am saying Martial Arts can benefit a Traceur so much or even a new comer to the world of Parkour, Parkour and martial arts as so relatively close to each other because they both were there to do the same to a person and all martial arts and Parkour follow similar philosophies. In this article I am not saying go out and join a martial arts club im just saying how it could help, also there are many other things to take up to increase your abilities in Parkour such as a form of dancing, gymnastics or cheerleading etc. so if you want extra help maybe think about taking one of these up.