Dylan Baker’s two-day seminar, “Inner Mastery: Overcome Your Fears, Take Control of Your Mind, and Develop Unwavering Confidence,” happened this weekend in Denver, CO and was attended by a little over 40 dedicated athletes and parkour-nerds from all over America. It featured a full day of thoroughly researched, and carefully organized material, presented by Dylan Baker, as well as three guest athlete speakers: Max Henry, Brandon Douglass and Amos Rendao. The second day was a workshop during which attendees had the opportunity to implement the techniques discussed the day before and work closely with each of the guest athletes.
In some ways, this event was the very first of its kind: A dedicated and rigorously intellectual deconstruction of our discipline, designed with the intention of helping practitioners train their minds as effectively as their bodies. Baker has clearly put in hundreds, if not thousands of hours researching the psychology and physiology of fear, and understanding how to use neuroplasticity as a basis for pragmatic mental training. Each guest speaker brought to the table a varying perspective on fear, and how to train within and around its constraints, making the information-rich and deeply complex. Although it felt rushed at times, the depth to which the seminar delved made the $250 price tag an excellent value.
This seminar marks a turning point in the popular approach to parkour and parkour education, and we look forward to seeing more workshops and seminars of this depth and intelligence. Training the mind is a complex process that is only just becoming properly understood, and Baker has done an unbelievable job of distilling that information into a digestible format and contextualizing it for parkour practitioners.
A reasonably priced video course of the seminar will be available to the public online. Check out Parkour Dojo for more information as it becomes available.
Photos © Dana Rasmussen
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