COACHING INSIGHTS

Interview with Andrea Murgia ( @dree23_murgia)

We’re really excited to introduced Coach Andrea Murgia to our regular roster, as he takes on Wednesday nights at PKGen London. If you haven’t met him yet, here’s a brief history and some of his thoughts on training and approaches to life.

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When did your parkour journey begin?

I started parkour when I was 17 in 2007, when I watched David Belle defy physics with his movement in District 13. I watched the movie and was shocked that this was possible. From there I discovered the Yamakasi, Cyril Raffaelli – they were bringing martial arts into it, Phosky, the Galician Urban Project guys for the flow. They were my first big inspirations.

Where did you start your training?

I grew up on the island of Sardegna, Italy and my friends and I created our team – Crank Monkeys. We were our own coaches. We learned on the street, through videos on the internet; watching Storror or Cyril Raffaelli. As people started to see and appreciate what we were doing, we began creating jams and bring in others who were curious about parkour. We spread the word basically.

When did you start coaching?

After two years we were doing workshops and school events and we started to look around for gyms that might be interested in us running some classes. It’s quite funny really, my first class was in a very small gym where there was literally no parkour equipment. We created obstacles from nothing; boxing bags and stacks of boxing pads.

What brings you the most joy as a coach?

One of my biggest joys is seeing the transformation in people; how they think about themselves and their capabilities before and after the jump. Seeing people discovering what their body and mind are capable of is very exciting. I love seeing people moving in their own flow, combining the basics that I’ve taught them in a class with new elements that are distinctly “them”. It’s beautiful to see new practitioners discovering their individual flavour and style.

What has parkour taught you?

One of the greatest lessons I’ve received through parkour is to not take things for granted, to not be controlled by my thoughts and emotions and to be prepared for anything that can happen in my life. Adaptability.

And I understand that if there is a problem, it can be resolved. One of the best lessons is trust. To trust myself – trust my gut and know that I can achieve what I want. The resilience and determination that parkour has given me has been crucial in my journey.

Parkour made me think about who I really want to be in this world and what I want to stand for. It makes me analyse how I can be the best version of myself. In order to show up as who I want to be, I need to be present. I need to be aware and focused. Parkour asks these things of you and helps you to train these skills for everyday life. My training helps me to be in touch with myself and my emotions and brings a lot of willingness to be the best version of myself.

Then you add to that the strong community; the sense of family and working together, treating others as I’d like to be treated myself. There’s so many great values in there.

Images – Courtesy of Donald Dalziel