Progress Doesn’t Always Look Like What You’ve Been Told

This isn’t about flips. It’s about fear — and what your kid does when they face it

Not every kid fits neatly into a box.

And that’s the beauty of parkour.

Here, progression doesn’t come with a score —

It comes with resilience, creativity, confidence, and the freedom to move your own way.

Most youth sports systems define “progress” in one way:

Did you win?

Are you ahead of the curve?

And if you’re not?

You’re falling behind.

That definition of progress leaves a lot of kids behind who were never meant to be measured that way in the first place.

We’ve worked with athletes who:

Spent weeks just getting the courage to try.

Found their voice mid-movement.

Failed publicly, laughed, tried again — and found freedom in that moment.

We’ve also worked with athletes who:

Picked it up on the first or second try.

Chased challenge like a heartbeat.

Pushed themselves fast, hard, and far — not out of pressure, but passion.

And we’ve worked with a whole lot of kids who land somewhere in between. 

Steady kids. Curious kids. Kids who surprise themselves one week, then stall the next. 

The kind of kids who grow in layers, not leaps.

That range? That unpredictability? That’s not a flaw in the system. 

That is the system. 

Because growth doesn’t look the same for everyone.

We don’t rush the slow ones. We don’t hold back the fast ones. 

We coach people, not just movement. 

And that means we meet each athlete exactly where they are — 

then walk (or run, or vault) beside them as they grow.

That’s progress.

It’s not always pretty. It’s rarely linear. And it never fits on a leaderboard.

But it matters.

So try this:

Instead of asking, “Are they the best?” — ask, “Do they feel safe enough to be brave?”

Instead of, “How clean was the landing?” — ask, “Did they feel seen while learning it?”

Instead of, “Are they winning?” — ask, “Are they growing?”

You’ll be surprised by what develops from there.

We built Intent Parkour because we got tired of watching great kids lose their spark inside systems that only saw their output, not their potential.

Progress doesn’t always stand on a podium. Sometimes, it's a kid walking into the gym with their head a little higher than last week.

That counts.

It more than counts. That’s everything.

If that’s the kind of growth you care about too, you’re in the right place.

JOIN OUR EMAIL LIST

Get behind the scenes as we build Arizona’s first parkour-dedicated gym. No spam. Just updates from the team building a space where kids grow

on purpose