Why I Practice Parkour.
It helps me improve. Overall.
"Back to the grindstone" is something I've been saying a lot whenever I have to get "back to work". Made me think of the origin of the phrase, and what a grindstone is.
Either way, it was a physical activity. Not a sport (that I know of), but an activity/job that required physical movements.
I've come to realize that I may always work on a computer. So 40 hours of my week (at minimum) will be spent sitting (usually). Parkour is a counter balance to that. It brings me back in touch with the physical reality, it enhances all of my sense.
So when I realized that parkour was about self improvement through movement (ha I rhymed, didn't mean to), I was thrilled. I was somebody who was originally against parkour when I was first exposed to it. Parkour scared me. For the people I knew who did it, I was worried for them whenever they said they were going out to train. After a couple years (and many lectures), I realized they rarely got injured, and if they did it was no more than any other sport.
I've never been a big fan of mainstream or major league sports. I do enjoy playing sports in general. I can find joy in watching them so I can be around friends and family who like it, but if I have the choice, you won't find me changing the channel to watch an actual SPORTS channel.
Recently, I was called for a anonymous survey about sports and entertainment. The questions were catering to major league and mainstream sports, about how much I enjoy them, how often I watch, and which ones did I "like".
I assume for many of the questions that had drop down menus of databases of sports. Thats another thing I'm not a fan of, how many freaking numbers and statistics are involved...
When they asked me "Who's currently your favorite athlete?", all I could think of were parkour athletes. I thought about naming someone in my immediate social circle that has a social media following for parkour, but then I thought bigger. Who's someone that's recognizable in the parkour community? These names came to my mind: Jessie Le Flair, Jason Paul, Tim Shieff, David Belle, Sebastien Foucan, Damien Walters. I decided to answer "Jason Paul", because well... that's who I'm currently watching on YouTube.
My favorite YouTubers change, and to be honest, there aren't too many parkour youtubers that I like (or even know of). I've known of Jesse La Flair, but almost any parkour person knows who he is... A lot of people in my parkour community still know of Jason Paul, but there's another reason why I chose him. His videos show the lifestyle of parkour, the lifestyle of a freerunner.
That just it. The lifestyle. That is why I practice parkour. I don't do it to look cool, I do it because its the closet thing to super powers... and I'm a superhero nutjob.
That, and the world now feels like a playground. And I mean. The. Whole. World. Once I started to progress, get healthier, and meet some amazing people, I couldn't imagine doing anything else.
I feel like there are more reasons why I do parkour, but that'll come out with time.
