Parkur coach: jumping to children helps developing, danger hiding in the use of technology

The Zagreb Parkur Club has only been a year, and it can already boast of numerous successes of children and young people who train. The attendance of the Montpellier World Cup Senior categories, the Junior Gold in the Speed, is definitely the attendance of the Speed ​​World Cup last summer, the winners are gold, silver and bronze medals and team cups in multiple age categories on last year’s first national championship of the Croatian Parkur. There is also an entry into the junior semi -finals at the 1st Stest Championship in Japan, the senior categories attended the World Cup in Japan.

The children were also brilliant at this year’s Croatian Cup, where they picked up a medal in almost every category, at which the seniors won the two World Cups to be held in May this year in Amsterdam and Montpellier. Sara Matrlja, Luka Pokupec (Senior) and Lovro Crnarić (last year’s junior gold and since this year senior) have been traveling to the World Cups to Amsterdam and Montpellier and were at the Kitakyush World Championships.

Proven Teneri

– Currently, our club has about 50 active members, which is great compared to the fact that we only exist for a year and the number of members is growing every month – says Miroslav Pecnik, the main coach and the menu, adding that the fact that the vast majority of adults still do not know what it is. If they used to hear about the parkour, then it is through videos of jumping from building to the building, which again creates a specific picture that does not describe it nearly accurately. In the younger population, this is much different because of the presence of social networks.

– If we look at the aspect of professional sport, changes in HR began to happen back a year or two, and since the beginning of last year, the Parkour has been under the nomenclature of sports as one of the branches of gymnastics. Last year, there are more and more gymnastic clubs who have a parkour in their program, and few people know that the Parkour Zagreb Club is the first original and at this point the only parkour club in HR and even in the region! – He tells us.
They pay great attention to and select coaches. First and foremost, they have to know how to work with children, have a sense of children and have to have experience in coaching parkoura.

– We have an extremely high criterion for choosing because we know what we learn our members and what kind of knowledge we want to convey further. People who know how to inspire children are important to be better people. The main coach of the Zagreb (PKZG) Parkur Club is the Croatian Parkur national team senior coach. He has 21 years of experience working with children and adults and has been training a parkour over 15 years. He is an international judge for Parkour, is a coach of fitness preparation of athletes. Assistant coaches are students of the Faculty of Kinesiology in Zagreb, and have been with us for many years as students, and now as part of the parkinger of the national team – explains Miroslav Pecnik and points out that each coach knows every child individually. They are not, he points out, from those clubs where coaches change constantly because they think it impairs quality. Children need someone who knows them, to whom they believe and who they can see. He tells his parents to support their children to be more adept, not to be afraid and let them be children.

– Nowadays, danger comes from technology, while training at the club and outside the club saves them and helps them with psychophysical development – says Miroslav, telling their parents to support their children in their happiness while jumping.

Children know where the limit is

And parents are aware that their fears often restrain their children.

– Sometimes we are a greater obstacle to them than the obstacles ahead of them and themselves. As a parent, I was scared to watch my son jump, the older he was jumping from the higher, he worked more difficult elements, every time I was scared to watch him. After a while, you get used to it and realize that there were actually no dangers all this time except the one in my parental head, which was actually unfounded because he knew his borders at all times and what he was doing – one of the parents tells us, and Miroslav supplements him to teach members to know where their borders are, to respect the environment, the place where they train, to check the obstacles.

– There are always two or three coaches in our training. The polygon passes one child at a time, and at a « heavier » point, someone always assists if there is a need for that. The fact is that there are fewer injuries on the parkourment than in some other sports. Perhaps because it works more on specific methods of developing motor skills, grinding techniques and moving boundaries step by step so that it is mentally in balance with physical – says Miroslav, emphasizing that Parkour is a mental and physical discipline. In training in the hall or outside, there are obstacles that seek to overcome and everyone sometimes comes to a moment where he thinks he cannot, which with exercise and perseverance is always transformed into: « I managed to eat! », And then this is transmitted to other aspects in life.

– Parkour is a game and as such is at its core is creative, developing a different way of thinking. Parkour is by itself an individual discipline in which you are always responsible for your actions and decisions in the end, but at the same time it greatly connects people and is extremely emphasized by friendship and support even more than in some other individual sports/disciplines. This brings us to one of the more important premises of Yamakasi groups we learned and trained with and led the workshops together is: « We Start Together, We Finish Together! » Communion is the foundation of parkour – he concludes.