COACHING GLOSSARY

A framework for understanding skill acquisition based on the interaction of three categories of constraint: the individual (physical and psychological characteristics of the practitioner), the task (rules, goals, and demands of the activity), and the environment (the physical and social context of practice). Rather than prescribing a single "correct" movement technique, the CLA proposes that functional, efficient movement emerges from the practitioner's ongoing self-organisation in response to these interacting constraints. The coach's role is to design and manipulate the constraint landscape to guide this self-organisation towards effective solutions.

In parkour coaching: The CLA is deeply natural to parkour — the discipline has always used environmental constraints (this wall, this gap, this surface) to drive development. A CLA-informed parkour coach designs problems for practitioners to solve rather than demonstrating correct technique and requiring imitation. The environment does much of the teaching; the coach curates it.

A theoretical framework that treats skilled movement as a continuous process of perception and action, inseparable from the environment in which it takes place. Skill is not a pattern stored in the brain and retrieved for execution — it is the ongoing coupling of the practitioner's perceptual system with the opportunities for action (affordances) that the environment presents. Expertise is the development of an increasingly rich and accurate ability to perceive and act on relevant affordances.

In parkour coaching: Ecological dynamics explains why parkour practitioners develop a fundamentally different perceptual relationship with urban environments. A trained traceur does not see a wall — they see a landing surface, a wall run opportunity, a balance platform. Coaching within this framework means helping practitioners develop richer environmental perception, not just better movement execution.

An affordance is an opportunity for action offered by the environment, relative to the capabilities of a specific practitioner. The same wall offers different affordances to a beginner and an expert — not because the wall changes, but because the practitioner's capabilities change what actions are genuinely available to them. Affordances are not in the environment alone, nor in the practitioner alone; they exist at the relationship between the two.

In parkour coaching: Understanding affordances helps coaches see through practitioners' eyes. A surface that affords a confident climb-up to one practitioner affords only a saut de bras to another. Task design should present environments rich in affordances at multiple levels, so practitioners of different ability can self-select appropriate challenges.

A pedagogical framework derived from ecological dynamics and the constraints-led approach. Rather than expecting linear improvement through progressive repetition of a fixed technique, nonlinear pedagogy embraces the inherent variability of movement as functional and productive. Learning is understood as the exploration and stabilisation of movement solutions, not the acquisition of a prescribed pattern. Five principles underpin NLP: representative learning design, manipulation of constraints, task simplification, informational constraints, and functional variability.

In parkour coaching: NLP validates parkour's historical practice of using environmental exploration as the primary learning mechanism. The practitioner who develops their own movement solutions in response to real obstacles develops more robust, adaptable skill than one who simply imitates a demonstrated technique.

The principle that practice environments should contain the key perceptual and action demands of the real performance context, to ensure that skills acquired in training transfer to the actual environment. Practice that removes the informational richness of the real context (e.g., drilling a technique in isolation without the environmental demands that would be present in real practice) risks producing skills that only function in controlled conditions.

In parkour coaching: Parkour is inherently representative by nature — practitioners train in and on the actual environments they will navigate. Coaches should be cautious about drills that strip away too much environmental context, as this can build fragile technique that fails when real conditions are introduced.

The capacity of a system to achieve the same outcome using structurally different means. In movement terms, degeneracy refers to the ability to solve the same motor problem using different movement patterns — a mark of adaptable, robust skill. Highly degenerate movers can reach the same landing in multiple ways, adapting to surfaces, fatigue, unexpected changes. Degeneracy is a goal of good coaching, not an inconsistency to be corrected.

In parkour coaching: A practitioner who can only execute a precision jump one way is more fragile than one who has multiple solutions available. Coaches should encourage movement variability, not demand identical replication.

An instructional approach that communicates a movement principle through a familiar comparison or image rather than detailed technical instruction. Rather than saying "flex your knees to 90 degrees and keep your hips below your shoulders on landing," a coach might say "land like you're sitting into a chair." The analogy packages a complex movement concept into a simple, actionable cue that bypasses the working memory overload of detailed technical instruction and tends to produce more durable, pressure-resistant movement patterns.

In parkour coaching: Analogy learning is particularly well-suited to parkour because the discipline's performance context (real environments, real risk) demands that movement is automatic rather than consciously managed. Analogies that reference environmental interactions ("reach for the wall like you're trying to grab the top in your first step") are especially effective.

The finding that while augmented feedback (external information provided by the coach) improves performance during the practice session in which it is given, too much or too frequent feedback can actually reduce long-term skill retention and transfer. Practitioners become dependent on external feedback and fail to develop their own intrinsic feedback systems. The hypothesis implies that coaches should fade feedback frequency as skill develops, encouraging practitioners to self-evaluate rather than wait for coach correction.

In parkour coaching: A practitioner who can only land well when a coach is watching and commenting has not yet internalised the skill. The goal is self-sufficient movement. Coaches should routinely ask "what did you feel?" before offering their own observation, developing practitioners' proprioceptive awareness.

A coaching approach in which the coach directly communicates the technical details of how a movement should be performed — describing body position, sequence of actions, joint angles, and so on. Can be effective for introducing new movements and for correcting specific technical errors. However, extensive explicit instruction can overload working memory and lead to "paralysis by analysis" — the conscious monitoring of movement that disrupts the fluency of well-established skills.

In parkour coaching: Explicit instruction might be useful  for targeted technical corrections, at times. As the movement develops, coaches should transition towards analogy, questioning, and task manipulation to allow the practitioner's movement to become more implicit and durable.

Coaching that facilitates skill development without directly stating the technical rules of the movement — through task design, analogies, discovery, and questions. Implicit learning produces movement knowledge that is stored in non-declarative memory, making it more robust under pressure and less susceptible to the reinvestment of conscious attention. The practitioner develops the skill by solving problems, not by following instructions.

In parkour coaching: "Can you find a way to get from this wall to that ledge without touching the floor?" is an implicit instructional task. The coach has set the problem; the practitioner develops the solution. This is closer to how the discipline's founders actually learned, and it produces practitioners who can think for themselves in unfamiliar environments.

The use of purposeful questions to guide practitioners towards their own understanding, rather than providing answers directly. Effective coaching questions promote reflection, self-evaluation, and problem-solving. Questions are categorised by type: open (elicit broad reflection), closed (confirm specific understanding), probing (deepen an existing response), and leading (guide towards a predetermined answer — the least effective category in skill development contexts).

In parkour coaching: "What happened when your foot left the edge?" is a better question than "you took off at the wrong angle." The practitioner who can identify and articulate what went wrong has developed something far more durable than a practitioner who was simply corrected.

Temporary support structures — physical, verbal, or environmental — provided by the coach to enable a practitioner to perform or understand something beyond their current independent capability, with the intention of progressively removing that support as capability develops. The scaffolding concept is closely linked to Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development: the space between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with appropriate support.

In parkour coaching: Physical spotting is a form of scaffolding — the coach provides temporary support to allow a practitioner to experience a movement safely before they can execute it independently. The scaffold should always be planned for removal, not maintained indefinitely.

The developmental space between what a learner can currently achieve independently and what they can achieve with support from a more capable practitioner. Learning occurs most productively when the challenge is within this zone — not so easy that it requires no stretch, not so difficult that failure is certain without support. The coach's role is to identify where each practitioner's ZPD currently is and to pitch tasks accordingly.

In parkour coaching: A task that is trivial produces boredom and no development. A task that is overwhelming produces anxiety and no development. A task at the edge of genuine capability — the next real step — produces both challenge and growth. The discipline's progression framework exists to keep practitioners in this zone.

The practice of adapting the content, process, or environment of a coaching session to meet the needs of practitioners at different levels of ability, experience, or readiness. Effective differentiation means that all participants are working at an appropriate level of challenge simultaneously, not waiting for others to catch up or being bypassed by tasks set for a different level.

In parkour coaching: "Use this wall to practise your passe-muraille — take it to a height that genuinely challenges you" is inherently differentiated; each practitioner self-selects their appropriate level. Coaches should design tasks that allow this natural differentiation wherever possible.

Physical support provided by a coach to guide or protect a practitioner through a movement. In parkour coaching, spotting is used to help practitioners experience movements safely before they can execute them independently, to provide confidence at height, or to correct trajectory in a specific technical component. Spotting is a scaffold — it should be purposeful, minimal, and planned for removal. A practitioner who requires spotting for every attempt is not yet ready for the movement independently.

The process by which movement skills are acquired, refined, and retained through practice and experience. Motor learning is distinguished from motor performance: performance refers to temporary changes in movement quality during a practice session, while learning refers to persistent, durable changes that are retained over time and transfer to new contexts. A practitioner can perform well during a session (aided by coaching, warm environments, familiar tasks) without having genuinely learned — the test is retention and transfer.

The total mental demand placed on a learner's working memory during a learning task. Working memory has limited capacity; when cognitive load exceeds that capacity — through complex instructions, multiple simultaneous demands, or high anxiety — learning and performance deteriorate. Coaches should be attentive to how much cognitive load their instructions and task designs impose, particularly on beginners and in high-risk contexts where anxiety already consumes significant mental resources.

In parkour coaching: A practitioner trying to remember five technical cues while standing at height in a new environment is cognitively overloaded. Reduce the instruction to one clear cue or analogy and allow the movement to be the focus. Analogies are particularly effective because they package complex movement information into a low-load form.

Information the practitioner receives from within their own body about the quality and outcome of a movement — through proprioception (sense of joint position and movement), kinaesthesia (sense of movement force and velocity), and the visual and auditory consequences of the movement itself. Intrinsic feedback is always available and does not require the coach to provide it. Developing a practitioner's ability to use their intrinsic feedback effectively is one of the most important long-term goals of coaching.

External information about movement quality or outcome provided by the coach, video analysis, or other external source — supplementing the practitioner's intrinsic feedback. Divided into knowledge of performance (KP: information about the movement process itself — "your hips dropped on take-off") and knowledge of results (KR: information about the movement outcome — "you landed short"). Both are useful at different stages of learning and for different coaching purposes, and both should be used judiciously in line with the guidance hypothesis.

The finding that practising multiple skills in a varied or random order (high contextual interference) produces worse performance during practice than blocked practice of a single skill, but produces significantly better long-term retention and transfer. Varied practice forces the learner to re-solve the movement problem on each attempt, producing more durable learning even though the process is harder. Coaches should resist optimising for in-session performance at the expense of long-term development.

In parkour coaching: Drilling a single vault repeatedly until it looks polished produces different outcomes than moving between multiple vaults across varied obstacles. The latter is more demanding but produces more adaptable practitioners.

The principle that practising a skill across varied conditions — different surfaces, distances, heights, approach angles, environments — produces more adaptable and robust movement than practising under identical conditions each time. Variability builds the generalised motor program for a skill, rather than a highly specific version that only functions in one context.

Practice conditions that slow or impair performance during a session but produce superior long-term retention and transfer — because they make the learning process more effortful and demanding. Examples include spacing practice sessions (rather than massing them), varying practice conditions, reducing augmented feedback frequency, and interleaving different skills. The counterintuitive implication: making practice easier in the short term often makes learning worse in the long term.

The tendency to consciously monitor and control movement that has become (or should have become) automatic — often triggered by anxiety, pressure, or self-consciousness. Reinvestment disrupts the fluid execution of well-learned skills, producing the "paralysis by analysis" phenomenon. It is particularly relevant in high-stakes performance contexts and explains why technique that seems solid in training can break down under real-world conditions or pressure.

In parkour coaching: A practitioner who was making a jump confidently begins to think about their foot placement and falls apart. This is reinvestment. The solution is not more technical instruction but more genuine automaticity — the movement must be drilled enough that it does not require conscious attention under pressure. Reducing reinvestment tendency is one of the strongest arguments for analogy learning and implicit coaching approaches.

The deliberate construction of practice tasks by manipulating the individual, task, or environmental constraints to channel practitioners towards specific movement solutions or qualities. The coach acts as a designer rather than (or as well as) an instructor — engineering the learning environment so that the desired movement emerges from the practitioner's engagement with it, rather than being directly prescribed.

The principle that physical adaptation requires progressive increases in training load — in intensity, volume, complexity, or demand — beyond current capability. Without progressive overload, adaptation plateaus; with too much, injury or burnout results. In parkour coaching this applies to movement demands (height, distance, technical complexity, duration, speed) and must always be balanced against the individual's current readiness.

A structured preparatory phase at the beginning of a session, designed to raise core temperature, increase blood flow to working muscles, mobilise relevant joints, and begin patterning the movement demands of the session at low intensity. In parkour, an effective warm-up addresses the specific demands of the planned session — ankle, knee, hip, wrist, and shoulder mobility are typically prioritised — and transitions practitioners psychologically into the session. The warm-up is a coaching tool, not an administrative box to tick.

A structured closing phase designed to progressively reduce intensity, address post-exercise recovery, and provide space for reflection on the session. Typically includes light movement, stretching of the primary working muscles, and a debrief or questioning sequence. The cool-down is also the primary opportunity to consolidate learning from the session — what practitioners understood and can articulate is a strong indicator of what they have genuinely learned.

A written plan outlining the objectives, structure, content, and progressions of a coaching session. A session plan is both a planning tool (forcing the coach to think through the session's educational logic in advance) and a legal document (evidence that the session was structured with participant safety and appropriate progressions in mind). The session plan is a starting point — coaches adapt it in real time — but the thinking it represents is non-negotiable.

The continuous, real-time process of identifying and responding to hazards and changing conditions throughout a coaching session — as distinct from the written risk assessment conducted before the session begins. Dynamic risk assessment is an active cognitive habit maintained throughout every session: reading the environment for new hazards, monitoring participant fatigue and emotional state, adapting task demands in response to what is observed. It cannot be delegated or turned off.

The number of participants for which a coach is responsible during a session. ADAPT's standards set maximum ratios of 1:15 in indoor or private outdoor environments and 1:8 in outdoor public spaces. These are hard limits, not guidelines. Coaches must reduce ratios further when working with children, when practising at height, or in any context that demands closer individual attention. See the Coaching Standards page for full ratio guidance.

Ongoing assessment that informs the coaching process in real time — used to identify where each practitioner is, what they need next, and how the session should adapt. Formative assessment is not a formal test; it is the continuous, attentive observation and interpretation of practitioner behaviour that characterises effective coaching. Every coaching session is a formative assessment event, whether or not the coach treats it as one.

Assessment conducted at the end of a learning period to determine whether a practitioner has met a defined standard of competency. In ADAPT's framework, the written assessment paper, the micro-teach observation, and the supervised coaching sessions are all forms of summative assessment. Summative assessments produce a result (pass/refer), whereas formative assessments produce guidance for ongoing development.

A defined standard of performance that a practitioner must demonstrate to be considered qualified at a given level. ADAPT's assessments are competency-based: the question is not "how good is this candidate compared to others?" but "does this candidate meet the defined standard?" Competency frameworks describe what a qualified practitioner should be able to do, not what the best practitioners look like.

A short, assessed coaching demonstration in which a candidate coaches a small group for a defined period, observed and evaluated against ADAPT's competency criteria. The micro-teach assesses the candidate's ability to plan, deliver, communicate, manage a group, apply progressions, and respond to participants in real time. It is not a performance of coaching knowledge but a demonstration of coaching practice.

The post-course coaching sessions that ADAPT Level 1 candidates must complete under the observation of a certified Level 2 or Level 3 Coach, as a requirement for certification. Supervised hours provide the bridge between course learning and independent practice: they create a structured context in which candidates can apply their knowledge under professional oversight, receive formative feedback, and demonstrate readiness for certification.

The ongoing process of maintaining and developing professional knowledge, skills, and competence throughout a coaching career. CPD includes formal courses and qualifications, but also reflective practice, peer observation, reading, attending events, and any structured engagement with new knowledge or practice. ADAPT's CPD programme provides structured post-certification development across coaching science, specialist populations, and discipline-specific topics.

The deliberate, structured process of examining one's own practice — what happened, why it happened, what it means, and what to do differently. Schön distinguished reflection-in-action (real-time adjustment during practice) from reflection-on-action (structured review after the event). Both are essential to coaching development. The coach who does not reflect does not learn from experience — they simply repeat it.

The French terms for a male or female parkour practitioner. Derived from tracer - to trace a path - which was used by the second formal collective of parkour practitioners under David Belle, who took the name Les Tracers. A traceur is not simply someone who performs parkour techniques; historically the term has implied a certain philosophical relationship with the practice — someone who approaches movement as a method of self-development rather than a performance for others. The distinction matters in the context of ADAPT's teaching philosophy.

The original name for the discipline, developed in Lisses and Évry by the Yamakasi group in the 1990s. Translates as "the Art of Displacement." Considered by many within the global community to be the most philosophically complete name for the practice — it encompasses all forms of movement without prioritising any particular technique or aesthetic. ADAPT's name directly honours this lineage: Art du Déplacement And Parkour Teaching.

The motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding that enables a person to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities throughout life. Physical literacy is not athletic performance — it is the fundamental human capacity to move through the world capably, intelligently, and with confidence. It is an educational goal as much as a physical one. ADAPT's entire qualification framework is oriented towards building physical literacy, not just teaching parkour techniques.

The physical education movement founded by Georges Hébert, based on developing the full range of natural human movement capacities — walking, running, jumping, climbing, balancing, throwing, lifting, swimming — through training in natural or natural-style environments. Hébert's philosophy that "être fort pour être utile" (to be strong in order to be useful) is directly echoed in parkour's emphasis on utility over spectacle. Raymond Belle's military training drew from this lineage, making Hébertisme a direct ancestor of parkour.

"To be strong in order to be useful." Hébert's foundational maxim, adopted as a guiding value by the parkour community and by ADAPT. It frames physical development not as an end in itself — not for aesthetics, records, or performance — but as a means of genuine capability in the world. This principle is the philosophical root of parkour's resistance to spectacle and its orientation towards practical movement quality.

Bruce Lee's martial concept: not a style or system, but a guiding principle of functionality — absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is your own. Frequently cited in parkour philosophy as a parallel concept: parkour is not defined by its techniques but by the principle that movement should be as functional as possible for the practitioner's actual goals. The analogy is not superficial; it reflects a genuine alignment in the underlying philosophy of how skill should be developed and applied.

A practitioner who has developed the self-awareness, self-assessment capability, and physical competence to direct their own movement practice without ongoing external instruction. The development of autonomous movers is an explicit goal of ADAPT's coaching framework — the ideal outcome of good coaching is a practitioner who no longer needs the coach. This stands in deliberate contrast to coaching approaches that create dependency on external validation and constant instruction.

The belief that abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work — as distinct from a fixed mindset (the belief that abilities are innate and unchangeable). Practitioners with a growth mindset treat challenges as opportunities, persevere in the face of difficulty, and see effort as the path to mastery. Parkour's structure of progressive, earned development is inherently growth-mindset-aligned. Coaches who praise effort and process rather than outcome are building growth mindset culture.

A person's belief in their own capability to perform a specific task or achieve a specific goal. Self-efficacy is not global confidence — it is task-specific. A practitioner can have high self-efficacy for saut de précision and low self-efficacy for wall runs. Self-efficacy is one of the strongest predictors of performance, persistence, and willingness to attempt challenging tasks. Coaches build self-efficacy through achievable progression, genuine mastery experiences, and honest positive reinforcement.