Parkour - What to Expect

[CathedralHugger]

Parkour as an extracurricular is a new concept for me. My DS loved the taster and signed up for the term, but I have no idea what to expect.

Is this going to be a long term thing, or do kids tend to get bored after a while? Are there exams, certificates and competitions? Will there be broken bones? Is my son going to randomly Parkour around the school playground and get expelled? Am I over thinking? 😅

My son did parkour until just recently but has given it up at nearly 17. He started when he was about 13. The class he did was fairly low key - he just did one a week and they had internal certificates but they were more more along the lines of well done for turning up, trying, being polite and your parents not canceling the DD rather than taken seriously. They had the odd internal competition that parents were invited to but it wasn’t taken very seriously.
He became friendly through the class with a boy who did some scary jumping around car parks type stunts that he showed me on video which did really worry me but they seemed to grow out of it and were never that into parkour ‘in the wild’.
I think it was a nice friendly class and good exercise but most of the kids didn’t seem to take it much further.
Maybe other organizations are a bit more structured and competitive though.

Thanks @Pottingup ! "Low key" sounds ideal for my DS, but I'll prepare for the potential long-haul, as your son stuck with it for years. Very glad to hear that he didn't get into "wild" parkour - I hope my DS can be that sensible!