What Does A.D.A.P.T. Stand For?
A.D.A.P.T. (Art du Déplacement And Parkour Teaching) Qualifications is internationally recognised as offering coaching certifications for parkour. We work closely with accrediting bodies, parkour communities and sports coaching authorities around the world to create the highest standard of coach education possible and to provide the industry benchmark for parkour instruction.
Coaching is a powerful tool for helping people unlock their potential and achieve their goals, and we believe it is therefore also a powerful responsibility. We believe everyone should earn the right to coach, through study, practice and experience. Simply being capable at performing a discipline does not automatically mean one is capable of teaching that discipline to others. Coaching is a science, an art and a skill in its own right.
Since inception in 2008 the A.D.A.P.T. network has spread around the world, creating an incredibly high standard of excellence for the coaching of parkour. We are proud of the thousands of incredible coaches who have engaged with the education pathway and then gone on to teach many more people in communities on every continent.
A.D.A.P.T. certified coaches enjoy a number of benefits, including an international network of like-minded peers and support from larger parkour organisations when working with local government officials and administrators.
The ADAPT methods and standards were created by the original and most experienced coaches of the discipline, and are constantly being refined and updated with the latest coaching science while also maintaining the spirit, values and principles of the discipline. It represents a set of coaching standards with which practitioners can learn how to pass on the fundamental principles, methods and values of the art accurately, safely and competently.
Recognised on the European Qualifications Framework as well as by the American Council of Exercise (ACE), National Academy Of Sports Medicine (NASM), CPD Standards in the UK, and government sports authorities such as Unione Italiana Sport Per tutti Nazionale and Sport England, A.D.A.P.T. is delivered worldwide to support and develop thousands of professional coaches.
What Does Parkour Stand For?
The first name for the discipline, born in France in the 1980s, was Art du Deplacement; best translated in English as the Art of Movement. Over time other names were used to describe it, including Parkour – derived from the French parcours, meaning ‘route’ or ‘course’ – and later Freerunning. However, the name has never been as important as the methods and spirit of practise which remain at its core today.
Parkour focuses on developing the fundamental attributes required for movement, which include balance, strength, dynamism, endurance, precision, spatial awareness and creative vision. It is a way of training one’s body and mind in order to be as completely functional, effective and capable as possible in navigating any terrain or environment one encounters and a way of thinking based on rigorous self-discipline, autonomous action and self-will. Parkour movements include running, jumping, climbing, crawling, swinging and vaulting.
Beyond this simple explanation, however, parkour is a discipline of self-improvement on all levels, an art that reveals to the practitioner his or her own physical and mental limits and simultaneously offers a method to surpass them.
