How to build confidence in participants

There are a lot of tips and tricks to build up your own confidence when preparing for a jump or a complex free running movement. But what do you do when y

ou are the Parkour coach? You need to make your participants feel secure enough to go through the training and feel a sense of accomplishment.
I have a few pointers that can help you motivate and manage the group when dealing with first-timers in Parkour or Free running. It’s important to understand that your participants perceive danger differently and they might not have the same security in performing certain movements.

So let’s see how you can tackle these difficult problems and keep your Parkour training session running smoothly and have participants confident in their abilities.
Building confidence in participants at a Parkour workshop.
When it comes to building up confidence one very important factor is time & continuity. As it is an ongoing process to build up these skills, it’s best to have regular training sessions where you can support a group over a couple of weeks/months.
I did this with a special Training Group for girls which was held in a gym during the cold months. It was every week, 2 hours of guided training, during which the girls where encouraged to develop ideas of movement and define obstacles for themselves.
In the beginning it was almost exclusively the Trainers who defined obstacles and ways over them (Ex: “get over this box, then balance on the bench and end with a precision jump”).
Over time the girls did this more and more themselves, and the coaches stepped back and concentrated on pointing out ways to improve the participants technique and guiding newcomers. Another role of the trainers got important at this point: reflecting the experiences the participants made over time, the up and downs of training, the ways of building up a sustainable training routine, discussion about Parkour philosophy.

In spring, when the gym-time ended, we organised an outdoor girls training, in order to help them find their way outside the gym (which is again quite a challenge).
Another approach we tried was to set up an intense one-week Parkour training camp for girls. We had 5 Coaches and 15 participants (aged 15-30). Besides the Training itself, we did a short introduction to Parkour and its philosophy, as well as a Q&A Session on this topic a few days later.
Additionally we did a workshop on risk-optimization. We introduced the theory, discussed what risk is, where you find it in life and how you can cope with it, and we had a very important practical part. We built up a row of various obstacles which had to be overcome by the girls. The special thing was, that we gave them distortion-goggles which affect your sight and sense of balance. so they were forced to step back and do it really really slowly with a partner.

When everyone did it we reflected upon it, discussion the strategies of risk management which got obvious and then tried it another time, with the focus to be aware of how they approached the situation for themselves. There are several other things you can do with this setting. Like asking what’s trust, different definitions whats risky and what’s not.
Building the confidence necessary to get through a 2-hour Parkour session is a really about getting the participants to feel at home with the environment and their own body. Playing games and getting creative with the obstacles is a fast and great way to do that.
Try to think outside the box and prepare your next Parkour session for your friends. Spread the discipline!