Visualisation...

Ah, this is a topic close to my heart. I think visualisation is so important to parkour that I couldn’t imagine trying to study parkour without it.

It’s curious that many of these articles can make the simplest point opaque. The simplest and most direct way that we all use visualisation is in obstacle assessment. Look at a wall. Can you imagine yourself running up it? Our first reaction to any given obstacle is an automatic visualisation of ourselves – with our entire range of skills as we would perceive them – attempting to overcome the challenge. If we imagine ourselves succeeding the climb we give ourself a roadmap towards success: a sense of the technique. If cannot imagine ourselves overcoming the challenge, or worse, if we can only imagine failure, then we are far less prepared to face the challenge then we would be with a positive visualisation.

It is a useful trick of self-empowerment to imagine success. However, while a large part of visualisation is psychological, there is also an element of physical self-assessment inherent in the process. Some walls are simply too high to mesh with a realistic self-visualisation of success. Some self-projections of failure are necessary to generate useful self-protective responses such as fear and caution.

For me, visualisation is absolutely key. Watching others and the way they move gives me a sense of what I would need to achieve in order to be able to duplicate the process. By the sounds of things, this has been a first step for many of the advanced practitioners at the APA: people learn via the imitation of other peoples’ movements and the replications of useful techniques.

The problem with visualisation is that it is very seductive. Watching others, we are drawn into the beauty of good technique. Inspired, we forget our own limitations and presume that visualisation alone might be enough to carry us through. This can be embarrassing and ultimately dangerous. I’m reminded of that meme of the StarWars kid trying to imitate light-sabre wielding jedi and making a complete fool of him self. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM4O4-jT3x0) His visualisation of himself is based on his careful observation and mental absorption of the movements in his cinematic fantasy, and it is so complete that he doesn’t realise how far away it is from the reality. He thinks he’s doing it right, he can see him self doing it right… but we can see that his visualisation of self is far from reality.

On the other hand, those practicing can become too concerned with projecting a fluid image of their own movements and give up effective technique for the benefit of ‘style’. Kung-fu movies are the epitome of this. Impractical, attractive movements and athletic feats make a fight-scene elaborate and visually interesting to follow, but most of those seasoned fighters would cut their movements down to essential basics in any real physical confrontation. No real fight is ever as pretty as its choreographed counterpart.

Still… I’m going to argue that it is nearly impossible convey parkour without visualising, or visually depicting the movement. The visual is sensory. The verbal is abstract and cranial. I’d say to really understand the practices of parkour we need to see ans well as speak. That’s why I’ll be using comics in my attempts to understand parkour. It’s techniques, its practitioners and its culture.