When and why you began parkour:
Jackson began Parkour around 2004/2005; his initial foray into training involved a lot of somersaults and tricks. Back then it was difficult to find credible information about parkour and the most popular online forum at the time did not promote a healthy approach to training (either physically or mentally). Eventually, Jackson ended up on ‘parkour.net’ and was shown “the way” and given advice on how to train to make the body useful and strong. When he first started to train this new way, he nearly gave up due to how difficult some of the techniques were. After finding success with this new method of training, Jackson’s reasons for training changed. He now looks at parkour as training for life; he wants his body to be a tool that he’s able to use to help his family and the wider community. Jackson trains for himself and enjoys the creative release that playing around with movements can bring. Jackson does parkour because he wants to better at parkour.

When and why you began coaching:
Jackson was approached to coach two children after a parkour demonstration he organised and took part in with the local YMCA. Jackson was initially very reluctant. He had a background in coaching martial arts and had been coaching solidly for a couple of years. He really wanted to do parkour for himself. Jackson knew that if he started coaching, he’d start to have to focus on others’ training and their improvement. Jackson did start coaching these children and after a few weeks had two more children attend. The numbers started to rise and all of a sudden Jackson was coaching 20 children. It was then that Jackson started to receive enquiries from adults, so an adult class was started and that also grew to have a large following. Those original children who Jackson started to coach are now coaches themselves. It makes him proud to see the skill level that they’ve achieved and how competent they’ve become at coaching.

Where do you coach?
Jackson currently coaches at Dorchester YMCA, Weymouth Sports Centre and The Parkour Project: Poole.

Future ambitions:
Jackson’s ambition is to see where Train Hard can go. We have a fantastic team and Jackson believes that we are capable of huge things. He would like to see more people moving, and see our coaches applying a knowledgeable and detailed approach to their coaching; taking each individual’s needs into account. On a personal level, Jackson wants to push what he’s capable of, help his partner achieve her goals and introduce his son to a healthy way of training that will allow him to achieve his potential.