The Inaugural Art of Retreat
When I first devised the Art of Retreat, I hoped not only to provide a much needed platform for educational exchange in the parkour community but also to help heal and forge bonds of friendship between leaders across the country. The push to get it going came out of a conversation with Adam McClellan and Andy Keller during American Rendezvous, who both expressed excitement at the idea of a space where coaches could come together to share best practices, and the initial support came from the Movement Creative and my two partners Nikkie and Jesse.
A lot was working against us that first year. As a brand new event, it was hard to get buy in– I remember telling people if they could get themselves out to New Jersey, I would take care of everything else–food, housing, local transportation. We didn’t have any dedicated funding so I personally boot-strapped the event, renting out four airbnbs within a few minutes walk of my familys shore house in a sleepy little town. I researched and invited people I thought were engage in interesting research or ‘doing it best’ when it came to business. I purchased food and snacks and prepped large meal plans (and planned to play chef). Above all, I spent weeks crafting the programme, spaces, and experience.
When the weekend finally arrived almost 60 people from all over the continent flew into Newark just as Hurricane Joaquin descended upon the Jersey shore. I feared for the worst, having planned so many of the activities to be outdoors but, being forced inside, that major storm actually helped create an intimate, cozy, and community-growing experience.
The talks were hosted around kitchen tables, in living rooms and bedrooms. Hammocks were hung from rafters as people piled into the main house, pop-up playgrounds were built and rebuilt in the yard, fires were made in the garage. The step vault pledge was declared, there were lively debates around kitchen and coffee tables, people were thrown from the deck, strummed guitars, and danced in the rain.
The weekend was chaotic– and it was alive.
I look back to this first year as one of my absolute favorite versions of this event. Maybe it was the moody weather forcing us all to confront one another and connect, maybe it was the co-creative attitude people brought to the spaces they held, or maybe it was simply realizing that so many incredible things can be created when we find ways to come together and play.
“Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” – Diane Ackerman
from her book Deep Play
“All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course. Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc, are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart.” – Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens
“I think kids know what we’re talking about here. I think they experience shared transcendence a lot more often than we adults do – or let on to. We adults make it too hard on ourselves. We think have to win. And we forget that it’s not about winning at all after all – it’s really actually about playing well together. We forget that we are, in fact, the ones making the rules here. We forget that together, just us players, we make it even more fun.” – Bernard DeKoven
“These moments of coliberation, of shared transcendence, like a moment in a well-played game or well-acted play, like moments of harmony, love, resonance with each other – these are the moments we use to measure a well-lived life. And, for those of us who willing to play, these moments are ours.
“Coliberation – A shared transcendence of personal limitations, of our understanding of our own capabilities; a sudden, momentary transformation of our awareness of the connections between ourselves, each other, and the world we find each other in.
A shared transcendence: Something we experience in certain moments of making love, of playing with children and animals, standing in a storm together, floating in the ocean together, listening to and making music together, watching a movie together; walking in the woods or on a mountain, eating a meal, reading a book, playing a game together….
of personal limitations, of our understanding of our own capabilities: An unsustainable union where distinctions between self and community, mind and body – between whatever separates us from each other, the environment in which we discover each other – are set aside.
...a sudden, momentary transformation of our awareness of the connections between ourselves, each other, and the world we find each other in: Sudden, momentary and unsustainable because we must ultimately return to ourselves, to “minding the store.”
Sudden, momentary, unsustainable, spontaneous, undefining, transforming.
We return changed, not the same person we were – our understanding of who and what we can become, our very selves, our relationships – redefined. “
Read more about CoLiberation from Bernard DeKoven
M: On Measuring Athletic Success
Success is not measured in terms of team, or wins. Success is measured by how much the individual enjoys the experience.
- In the football model the individual trains diligently and receives instructions from the coaches, and the reward is in the teams victory, if it should have one, and in the discipline the individual receives.
- In parkour, skateboarding, or rollerblading the focus is not on competition, so the goal is not to win, and the concept of training becomes obsolete. The reward is in the enjoyment the individual derives from the act of skating and in the camaraderie of the lifestyle.
2014.10.04 On Parkour & Saying No
When teaching Parkour, you shouldn’t just be teaching your students when to say ‘Yes’ to a jump, but also, when to say ‘No.’. True mastery isn’t being able to take every jump, but being able to know when you need to say no, not today.
Adults, Playgrounds, and The City: Where can we play?
I think we all agree when it comes to the importance of play and movement, especially for children. However, it frequently seems that children are the only ones allowed to indulge, and that as a society we not only have forgotten its value to teens, adults, and seniors but resist it. We verbally dismiss and label it as unproductive, self-indulgent, and immature, tell others to ‘quit playing around and get back to work, to ‘grow up’, and communicate a story that play is inappropriate.
Yet for those of us who dare to play, we are rewarded with some incredible benefits. Beyond the obvious increase in physical fitness & health, you also will find that stress levels drop, our learning and memory is more complete, social interactions become easier, and our ability grows to see opportunities in places we would otherwise have overlooked.
Play contributes deeply to our development as individuals, regardless of what age.
While we could deeply examine ways our resistance to play manifest in societal behaviors, I’d like to just scrape the surface of the story being told by the built world.
New York City alone is home to hundreds of children’s playgrounds–adventure and imagination playgrounds, modern designs, interactive sculptures, nature inspired, wood constructions, loose parts, prefab structures, and more.
The city seems to be devoted to designing, building, and renovating places to play… for children. In every city there are hundreds of playgrounds and public spaces, but how many are open to adult and teen play?
In Central Park alone there are 21 designated playgrounds. Of those 21, a grand total of 0 are designed for teenagers or adults, and most go a step further to display signage barring use. (There is ‘fitness equipment’ available for use, but we’ll get into that in a second.)
Teens and adults could try to creatively re-purpose these youth playgrounds for their own purpose and play, but at their own risk–social and civil. Considered a nuisance to parents-they’ll be met with dirty looks and an of concerns for the safety of the children. Considered a danger by the city, they will be ushered out by rangers and possibly even ticketed. Signs are posted, fences are built. Boundaries pop up around play.
The built world is literally telling us that play is not for the rest of us.
Of course, we are living today in what could be considered the renaissance of Play. And the City has taken notice of the importance of getting up and out on your feet (2). There are a growing number of campaigns, programs, and facilities to assist adults in cultivating an active, healthy lifestyle.
However, a gym is not the same thing as a public playground, and does not offer the same set of complex benefits. Those four walls keep a lot of people and experiences out of the equation, and unable to participate.
Outdoor Gym ≠ Playground
In 2012 NYC opened its first official ‘adult playground’ and has plans to build two dozen more by the end of 2014 (3). This is a great start.
However, calling these spaces playgrounds is a gross exaggeration. Playgrounds are spaces that require creativity and imagination, storytelling and social negotiation, problem solving and exploration – and these ‘adult playgrounds’ lack all of that… because they are just outdoor gyms. Gyms come complete with rules and regulations, signs and directions, notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, expectations around achievement and behaviors. There is little creative thinking required and social interaction is avoidable.
While there is the benefit of improving economic access to a socially permissive space for physical activity (and that it smells significantly better than a box gym), so much is still lost and missing. Not to mention that the story being told about movement for adults is one of prescription and conformity.
(I will note that there has been some effort made to provide spaces for teens, but mostly in the realm of skateboarding-contingent upon the signature of a waiver and specific equipment requirements. There also was a recent project to build a playground for teens in Hudson Yards, but no others that I could find slated for construction. )
All spaces considered, there is no deny the unacceptable and near complete lack of opportunity for teenagers and adults to engage in free, unstructured, social, creative movement play.
What Next?
Now, I know here many will say that NYC has so much open park space. But in reality, in a Park your options are to walk on this path or that one, or to sit on a bench, in the shade or the sun, or to buy a vendor hot dog & people watch. There are tons of bike paths if you’re able to afford a bike, or you could throw a ball in the field, if you’re allowed on the grass, and only as long as you don’t disturb your neighbors. Any deviation from ‘normWhat next?al’ behavior will still be met with the social kickback we talked about above.
We need physical spaces complete with policy and permissions that permit play.
Thus with the lack of options it should be no surprise to hear that in NYC more than 1/2 the adult population is either overweight or obese(4)(5), especially when compounded with the fact that many of the opportunities that are available to get moving are too expensive, difficult, competitive, or, to put it plainly, not a whole lot of fun.
A sustainable, healthy lifestyle needs to be more than gym workouts, expensive specialty classes, and competitive team sports. We don’t need more gyms and classes in our city; we need more playful infrastructure and community spaces to support play across all ages. We need spaces that are complex, inter-generational, and flexible, that allow adults & teenagers to develop and explore their own open-ended challenges. Colorful. Social. Open to chaos, exploration, creation. A place that is safe, welcoming, accessible, and fun.
We need to stop looking at play as a distraction or diversion from reality, but rather as an integral element of our continual, healthful development. We need to design the places we live to support living a life in play.
CITATIONS
1 “§1-05 Regulated Uses.”New York Parks & Recreation. NYCDPR. Web. 20 Mar 2014. <http://www.nycgovparks.org/rules/section-1-05>.
2 “Priority Area: Physical Activity and Nutrition.”New York State Department of Health. Web. 20 Mar 2014. https://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/prevention_agenda/physical_activity_and_nutrition/
3 “New York Introduces Its First Adult Playground.”New York Times. Winnie Hu. Web. 20 Mar 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/nyregion/new-york-introduces-its-first-adult-playground.html?pagewanted=all
4 “Obesity.”New York City Department of Health. Web. 20 Mar 2014. http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/living/obesity.shtml
5 “BRFSS Brief: Overweight and Obesity, NYS Adults 2011.”New York State Department of Health. Web. 20 Mar 2014.http://www.health.ny.gov/statistics/brfss/reports/docs/1304_overweight_and_obesity.pdf
Rethinking Exercise: From Work to Play Through Parkour→
Below is the a rough transcription of a talk delivered at The Feast in 2013.
Can we have a heart to heart for a second? Exercise can suck! I’m sure many of you agree that getting fit and staying there can be a pretty tedious task. Running on the treadmill for hours can be mind-numbing, as can strapping into exercise machines, and lifting weights…over and over, day in and day out, all in the name of meeting some unrealistic standard of beauty…
When approached like that, yes, fitness is absurd. When we are forced to do such repetitive and simple movements, that sometimes are so physically enjoyable, of course we just zone out, stop paying attention, and try to just get through it. We find ourselves counting down the minutes, the seconds, until we can leave the gym and just go home!
We miss out on all the joy movement has to offer. and to me–that’s whats absurd.
The human body was designed to move, and designed to enjoy movement. Our ancestors ran through trees, climbed over rocks, and play games. Movement was a defining part of life. And somehow over the last century we’ve redefined it as a chore–no more important than doing the dishes or taking out the trash or mowing the lawn, if you’re lucky enough to have one!
So I’m here today to change the way you think about exercise–to give you an alternative to the fancy gym memberships, expensive equipment, and ultra competitive team sports. I’m here to give you a tool that can turn the hard work of exercise in to play… and that tool is Parkour.
Parkour is a discipline focused on natural human movements. Movements such as crawling [action] balancing [action] jumping [action] swinging [action] and vaulting [action] Beyond the movement, Parkour is a discipline of overcoming obstacles, both mental and physical. You can be both creative and critical. You learn the difference between good risk and bad, and how to cope with the uncertainties in your life. You can begin to understand your capabilities and where your limits lie.
Lessons from Parkour
I’m sure at least a few of you are wondering–How can the practice of Parkour teach you these things? Well–lets take a closer look:
1. You can first practice Parkour in its safest form–by staying low to the ground and focusing on control, patience, and building an understanding of your body in space.
2. With time, you can advance and begin setting yourself isolated challenges that are either more physically demanding, which requires a deeper understanding of your abilities, or more mentally demanding, forcing you to face fear and trust in yourself
3. Alternatively you can utilize dynamic movements and focus either on: (a) building greater efficiency, which forces you to problem solve and quickly resolve a path over under through or (b) fluidity, which gives you space to be creative and innovative with your body.
4. You can even just opt to practice Parkour through games, which lets you to think less on the technique and focus more on just enjoying movement.
The list goes on. There is no right or wrong in Parkour, for utlimately you set the rules. We have no standards of success or gold medals to win. You need only to come out and try your hardest. Because in Parkour we celebrate effort over achievement. It doesnt matter if you cant balance your first day or jump. Maybe you wont be able to get up and over your second try or third. Inevitably you will fall but you will also learn to get back up and to try again. This is because you are not working to be better than everyone else but better than yourself.
And therein lies the first, and most important thing you need to know about Parkour, and movement in general, and that is–that there is no barrier of entry. There is no such thing as being too old, or too weak, being too busy or not good enough!
But I dont expect you to completely believe me when I say fitness can be fun, especially after 5 short minutes. As Buckminster Fuller once said that “If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool the use of which will lead them to new ways of thinking.”
So, after a short demonstration by members of our community, I’d like to invite you all over to play, and, perhaps, pick up that tool that will change the way you think about fitness and yourself.
WANT MORE?
Familiarity vs Mastery: Break the “I Know” Mindset
It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”— Epictetus
Want to know the biggest block to growth? These two words:
“I know”
I constantly encounter this phrase from students in the classes I teach, especially where we work on our foundational movements. I hear it from fellow coaches when discussing how to improve class experience. I hear it from myself, even, as I receive critique and feedback about the things I need to work on, and see it sometimes in my practice as I avoid working certain skills.
In some cases it’s because we think we know better, in others its because we think we know more, and sometimes it’s because we think we know enough. And while this I Know mindset might block out unuseful, unsolicited advice, it also makes us blind and deaf to information that might actually help us grow.
The I Know mindset most commonly emerges in places where we long to appear competent, superior, or one of the group. It feeds on our fear of failure and shame, as well as our resistance to critique and lack of humility. It grows in our lack of self-awareness. And it kills any hope for achieving mastery–in your movement, work, and life.
Familiarity vs Mastery
The I Know Mindset is wild.
During class yesterday we worked on our jumping. As I began reviewing good form and walking through the lesson, one student pointed out that we learned jumping last week and that they wanted to learn something new. In response, I began setting up a number of different challenges. I walked over to a rail and asked-can you jump to this and land without falling? I pointed to the steps – can you jump up these steps, 2,3,4 at a time all the way to the top without stopping? Jump and land while ducking? Jump with one leg? Precisely?
It’s easy to confuse familiarity with mastery. My student understood the fundamental elements of jumping but lacked the ability to masterfully deploy his skills across a number of situations. His ‘I Know’ mindset limited his vision.
‘I know’ is often a declaration that we are superior to practice, that we have completed the circle, that there is nothing left to learn from the knowledge we already have.
Yes, developing brand new skills can be very exciting. It expands language, reveals new challenges, and, without doubt, can assist in helping overcome tougher physical, intellectual, and motivational plateaus.
But, if you are to truly master your movement or mind and achieve life-long, sustainable physical and mental fitness, you must be consistently developing both laterally and deeply. It requires coming from a place of constant inquiry and the rejection of the ‘I Know’. It requires constantly seeking out how to see differently, do better, create new things with old tools.
The work on our minds and bodies only completes when life completes.
Do Better
Ask Yourself: Where in your life are you saying “I Know?” What triggers it (desire to belong, to appear competent, boredom, etc)?
Find new places to test out old skills, new people to talk through established beliefs. Try different approaches, even if you think your approach is better.Take your skills and practice in a new location