Learning to Learn and 'Useless' Techniques

Ive been thinking a lot lately about how instinctive my body is becoming in the way it responds to obstacles and movement.
Just simply assessing why I've moved a certain way.

There's the obvious ones, like a precision jump. The reason I've jumped the way I did is because I've drilled and drilled and drilled at the movements involved in jumping, therefore they consciously come from what i understand to be the correct way to move to perform a jump. For me, that's a direct link from the practice of a technique to the use of it.

This cognitive process is something that I beleive is trained, and comes from learning movements through repetition. You repeat the movements involved in jumping, then your brain knows exactly what to do when you approach a jump. Your brain is storing a 'vocabulary' of movements, which you can then call up and repeat at any time.
What's also important is that not only are you learning a movement, but you are teaching your brain to learn about these movements and their uses. When I practice a movement, I try very hard to 'record' the correct way in my brain once I do it and then the movement simply becomes a repetition of something my body and my brain understands. What I believe is also happening subconsciously are many other processes which are recording the different aspects of movement in ways I'm not conscious of. This allows my brain to recall any aspect or part of this movement and put it to use in ways I'm not even aware of.

This language and vocabulary idea is a great metaphor for what I'm trying to explain.
When you speak - sometimes you very consciously lift things from your vocabulary to use - but, more interestingly, sometimes the words just come out in ways you dont expect that creates a much more useful sentence than one you could have consciously picked from your brain. When you first learn to write you are very much regurgitating what you have been taught but as your learning and vocabulary develops so does the scope of your writing until you are using words in a more instinctive and sub-conscious manner.

The same applies with my 'vocabulary of movement.' As your movemment and repetition progresses, the way that your brain processes this changes. Your body starts to subconsciously understand these movements, and so can use it much more diversely - not just in situations where you consciously think they are useful.
What really made me notice this was a couple of movements I've adapted in the last couple of weeks, one I only discovered tonight.

At rendezvous 2 in London a few weeks ago, I did a lot of palm spins. I actually worked really hard to get them perfect in both directions. Now at the time, I was practicing it because it was something a couple of the Yamakasi guys had instructed us to do and I'm not going to argue with them! At the time DC(of team traceur) commented that he wouldnt usually train or teach this as it's not a 'useful' or efficient movement as such which I agreed with. We then carried on and it was great fun to learn and take tips from the yamakasi but to be honest I failed to see the movements use.
Then, last week I was out training precisions. I spotted a nice one off of a waist height wall and popped up onto it. It wasn't until the 3rd or 4th time I vaulted up onto the wall that I noticed instead of monkeying up and then turning round to face the jump(which I usually do), I was rotating 180 degrees on the vault and landing facing the jump. I was using part of the palm spin movement, for a completely different purpose.
My brain had stored this in my 'vocabulary' in London and found a use for it I hadn't really though of.

Last week, I was teaching in Port Glasgow. I was getting the guys to use a lot of monkey like movements and big side steps(you might have seen some of them in the parkour generations videos) in the warm up, to develop flexibility and core balance. A couple of the guys did ask how these movememnts were actually useful in a real situation and I did explain that for me their main use was for developing strength and balance - not as much for actual Parkour practice.
Then tonight I was out training with Liam, BJ and Zeno and we were working at moving over a big rock sculpture. I explored the best way for me to move over it and after a few repeats managed to make it over in one fluid movement. When I looked back and assesed how I had moved, I realised that I was using one of the big 'side monkey' steps to move over the top of the sculpture and place my feet in exactly the right place to come off. I would never have thoughtof using this - my brain simply lifted it from my 'vocabulary' and put it into practice.

These are just two examples of when movements I would not say are conventionally 'useful' have bled into my practice, because my brain has learned to subcosciously assessand call up these movements when needed.
Beause I have done so much repetition in my training, my brain is learning more about the movements than I consciously understand and it's learning to do it quickly.

Repetition of movement, ANY movement, will develop your parkour. Your brain must practice how to remember things and it will develop it's cognitive technique as well as you developing your physical.

I've discovered that every movement will teach you something, wether you think it is an effective on or not. THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING TO LEARN.

Grant