Parkour and Neuroplasticity

Our Rise-N-Lead internship helps individuals develop confidence in leadership through helping them learn to guide their thoughts. We understand that a huge part of coaching is having the courage to step up and lead someone else. This is why we help our interns learn to guide their thoughts. The first step in helping an adolescent learn to guide their thoughts is helping them become aware of what is actually going on in their head. Often an individual does something and doesn't realize why they did it. Our Internship is designed to help interns guide their awareness to what is going on in their head so they can then take control instead of being held captive by their thoughts.  The second step we work on in guiding thoughts is teaching the interns how to choose thoughts that would promote confidence and positive results. This is a small shift that produces immense results. Once an intern learns to do this in a coaching setting they can take these skills and apply them to any other area they are struggling with low confidence in!

The Corpus Callosum becomes stronger when it is used. Because of how the brain processes, motor activities call on the Corpus Callosum to be activated. When we add strategic cross lateral movements, we ask the Corpus Callosum to work even more! The more the Corpus Callosum is asked to work, the more neuro pathways the brain creates. The more neuro pathways in a Corpus Callosum means a stronger connection between right and left brain. This helps give a child stronger full logic reasoning skills and helps their brain develop more fully. Every stage of development is critical in a child, but there is no time like early childhood when the brain is rapidly growing and developing. The lack of stimulation at this age can create lasting negative impacts for a child through all their life.

Our Parkour program focuses on the mindset of "Fit to be Useful". This concept means we are seeking to get better (mentally and physically) so we can help others. When we focus on becoming better with altruistic motives, it removes the focus from "Am I good enough?", "Is the other kid better than me?", and "Did I win?". This is why we do not focus on comparison or competition. When we do have tasks and there is an element of racing or competition it is presented in the atmosphere of seeking to become better and using the push to help us do our best, not to help us figure out who is the best. Too often kids are weighed down by the stress to perform and be good enough. Removing this element frees a child to relax. Sometimes a child has already automated a stressful response to any situation that asks the question "Am I good enough". They often bring this mindset with them to parkour. The beautiful thing about the mind is neuro pathways that aren't used do not continue to be strengthened. So if a child comes to parkour with an automatic stressful reaction and fear of being good enough, participating in an environment which repetitively asks them to fire another thought process of "How can I help others" helps to reduce the strength of their old automatic thought of "Am I good enough?".  Depending on the kids age and how solid their automatic response of stress and fear of being good enough is in their brain, this can be a long journey or a quick switch. Our coaches are trained to spot negative mindsets and help a child rewire how they talk and eventually how their brain processes.

Our Early Childhood program helps young developing brains interact with challenges in a positive environment. This builds a foundation of seeing challenge as good. As a child accomplishes hard things they have never done before, this builds a foundation of proof to the child that "I can do hard things and I can be successful even when I don't get it on the first try." I will never forget my daughter's face the first time as an early 1 year old when she stepped up on a 4-inch block all by herself. Her hands when in the air and she celebrated a brand new accomplishment. The shear joy on her face was contagious. This is what our program is all about, creating wins for the child to build confidence and positive self-esteem. This lays a foundation for how they will interact with challenges for the rest of their life!

Often the way to breakthrough and freedom is through the challenge, not avoidance of the challenge. The very thing that can bring release is often that ONE THING we just really, really want to avoid.  When talking about stress this often looks like a person wants to avoid what makes them feel stressed so they avoid leaning into the stress. They just know they feel stressed and they wish they weren't, but that's the extent of their understanding.  However, the exact opposite is true. Breakthrough from stress comes when we are willing to get uncomfortable and understand why our brain is finding a certain situation stressful. Why is our brain interpreting something as a need for adrenaline release? Uncovering this answer is the key to breakthrough from stress. Because our brains want to keep us safe the process of finding the answer to why our brain finds a certain situation stressful is not as easy as it seems. Our brains want us to stay safe and that means if we normally get stressed in a situation then continuing to get stressed is "safe". This is why patience and time is important.  In our Parkour Programs we gradually chip at the root answer to "what is causing my stress" with unintrusive and playful ways. When coaches start shifting the view point of challenge, failure and progress, it allows thoughts to begin surfacing in a child. It allows comments to start coming out. It allows awareness to start being drawn to the brain and what it is doing to trigger negative responses that often bring stress. In our internship we dive in more deeply to awareness of thoughts. With older teens I, Hannah, offer a one-on-one Neuro Coaching program to dive head on to stressful thoughts and what is causing them. There is a scientific process that allows us to quickly rewire the brain to trigger less stress within 67 days!

Our Early Childhood program focuses on helping children as young as 12 months old and as old as 4 years old create neuro pathways that will help them for the rest of their life. As we introduce movements a child may not have been exposed to yet, this helps them create new neuro pathways in their brain with all the coordination, problem solving, and vestibular input the new movement requires. By introducing new movements a child now has new ideas in their mind and can explore movement more creatively on their own at home. A toddler only knows about things they are exposed to. By exposing them young to new movements we create extra movement "files" in their brains and give them the foundation to explore more.

Stress causes a reflex reaction that triggers the eyes to "move peripherally so they can take in as much of environment as possible." (Smart Moves, Hannaford). This means if a child finds school stressful (common among children with dyslexia) their body will trigger a response that makes it even harder to focus and track the words on the page. Helping a child reduce stress and learn to control their emotions in stressful situations is a powerful tool to support students with dyslexia and other learning difficulties. Parkour helps children interact with situations that could be seen as stressful in a positive environment. Walking on a rail or taking a jump you have not done before can spike fear and trigger stress in a child. This gives the coach a wonderful opportunity to walk the child through focusing, deep breathing, and logical thinking skills that will help lead them to overcoming the physical task at hand. This does two things 1) builds proof in the child's mind that they are capable and that they can do hard things and be successful and 2) gives the child a fun environment to practice controlling their fear, stress, and emotions which builds a foundation that can be pulled from in other less exciting environments like school and learning to read.

The mind and body are not two separate things that develop on their own. They are two very connected elements that play a vital and intertwined role in the development of a child. A strong body creates a healthy environment for a mind to thrive and grow.  As a child moves and plays and learns new physical skills their brain creates neuro pathways that allows their mind to learn more academically. As a child runs and raises their heart rate they increase their cardio vascular health which helps their body provide enough oxygen to the brain so it can process mentally. Hannaford shares in Smart Moves that "A coordinated series of movements produces increased neurotrophins (natural neural growth factors) and a greater number of connections among neurons." This means with movement the brain can actually be stimulated to create new growth and more connections. We can give our children tools for developing more mentally and academically by helping them lay a ground work of neural growth through movement. Supporting our kids academically is closely tied to supporting them physically.