Coming soon
Parkour is Mental
What is Parkour? Parkour is a sport and expressive displicine in which practitioners (called traceurs) attempt to get from one point to another in the fastest and most efficient way possible, without any assisting equipment and often while performing feats of acrobatics. The word parkour is derived from parcours du combattant, meaning obstacle course, and parkour includes running, climbing, swinging, balancing, vaulting, jumping, flipping, plyometrics, rolling and quadrupedal movement - whatever is suitable for a given situation. Parkour involves seeing one's environment in a new way, facing fears, and being mentally flexible. Parkour athletes learn to envision the potential for navigating fluidly through an environment by movement around, across, through, over and under its features.
What is Parkour therapy? It is an innovative therapeutic approach that combines the dynamic and physically engaging sport of Parkour with CBT principles, to address a variety of psychological challenges. This approach combines movement, mindfulness and overcoming physical obstacles to help individuals tackle mental and emotional barriers in a unique, experiential way. Parkour therapy is particularly effective in treating issues such as anxiety, frsutration intolerance, fears and phobias, attentional difficulties, OCD, and body image concerns. Through controlled physical activity alongside expert clinical guidance, Parkour therapy promotes change. By helping clients build mental resilience, develop problem-solving skills, improve focus, engage in personally relevant exposure therapy and gain a sense of empowerment, clients learn to face their challenges rather than running from them.
Parkour Therapy promotes change: challenge-philic, not challenge-phobic ...
When clients practice Parkour therapy they are presenting their brain with a truly novel situation! These powerful moments invite change, because when you decide to challenge yourself in a personally-relevant way through controlled movement, you build resilience and problem-solving skills. Of course succeeding in a challenge is always rewarding, and there is plenty of that in Parkour therapy; however, learning to “fail well” and cope with frustration, disappointment and adversity is also an important lesson to learn. In parkour we practice failing, so that we are resilient when it happens. Parkour therapy brings these kinds of experiences to life! Traceurs see challenge differently: they are not challenge-phobic, but rather challenge-philic, meaning they develop a fondness, an affinity or an inclination towards experiencing difficulty and adapting to new situations. Is this not the ultimate goal of exposure therapy? To face difficulty, to change the way you respond to it, and utlimately to create new learning.
In the practice of cognitive and behavioral therapy (CBT) changing the way you respond to difficulty can be a game-changer; in CBT we very much want our clients to tackle and overcome their problematic behavior cycles, in order to cope with mental or emotional barriers. The lesson that both Parkour and CBT teaches us, is that your sense of “I-can-do-it-ness”, otherwise known as self-efficacy, is a powerful agent of change. And as all traceurs and CBT enthusiasts know, behavior change is the measure of progress. Parkour is active, its behavioral; but Parkour is also mental, and is sure to help you generalize your coping skills to other areas of life.
​
If you would like to learn more about Parkour therapy contact us at CBT Fort Lauderdale drfranklin@cbtftl.com