We come out of the box tuned for self-preservation and conformity. Not self-expression, not self-actualization, not happiness. But that’s what we want. Our genes want rock-solid, redundant systems for survival, nothing more. We want to have fun and feel good about our lives. Not the same thing!
I feel certain that I understand how to enjoy life. No mystery to me there.
The problem is balancing responsibilities. I’ve chosen this, I’ve taken on that, …sure, I swerve off the road—regularly—with things like stress-eating, rage, depression. But again, no mystery to me why that happens. I can tell from the center-line of the road when I’m heading for the ditch.
If I had a pithy solution to write here, I wouldn’t need to blog to sort out my thoughts, now would I?
What role does community involvement and accessibility play in shaping inclusive, multigenerational spaces for Parkour and movement practice?
Blake Evitt discusses the importance of partnering with your community, creating multigenerational spaces for training, as well as how he does that in his hometown of Boston. He unpacks the influence that traveling had on his training, coaching, and business, as well as his own personal growth. Blake shares his thoughts on a number of subjects, including becoming vegetarian, the ADAPT coaching qualifications, and the United States Parkour Association.
Our goal with the park was to make a multigenerational movement space, not just a place where Parkour can happen but also a place where people can explore and be comfortable.
~ Blake Evitt (3:37)
The conversation explores how Parkour can serve as a tool for creating inclusive, multigenerational community spaces. A key focus is the development of public Parkour spaces, particularly in Somerville, Boston, where Parkour generations have helped design and steward municipally funded parks. The dialogue highlights the integration of Parkour for all ages, with specific classes for children, adults, and older practitioners, ensuring accessibility and fostering a communal experience. The discussion underscores the importance of designing spaces that allow for interaction across generations and between different activities, such as skateboarding and basketball.
Blake Evitt’s personal journey through international travel and cultural exchange plays a significant role in shaping his approach to Parkour and community building. His experiences training with Parkour groups worldwide inform his leadership in Parkour Generations Americas and the growth of Parkour Generations Boston. The interview touches on Evitt’s coaching philosophy, the significance of adapting Parkour for older adults, and the broader value of Parkour as a means of personal development, community engagement, and positive social change.
Takeaways
Community-driven Parkour spaces — The creation of municipally funded Parkour parks can foster multigenerational interaction and community engagement.
Inclusivity in coaching — Offering classes for different age groups, including older adults and young children, increases accessibility and broadens participation in Parkour.
Travel as professional growth — Exposure to global Parkour communities enriches personal development and informs local initiatives and coaching practices.
Public Parkour spaces — Collaborative efforts with city governments to build Parkour spaces ensure long-term stewardship and positive community relations.
Adaptive teaching methods — Classes are designed to accommodate varying physical capabilities, promoting longevity and inclusivity in the practice.
Cultural exchange through Parkour — Hosting international events like American Rendezvous creates opportunities for idea sharing and global collaboration.
Integrating Parkour into family life — Simultaneous adult and children’s classes encourage family participation and deepen community ties.
Coaching as a refined skill — Effective Parkour coaching requires development and refinement, similar to technical Parkour skills.
The role of competition — Personal goal-setting and competition provide structure and drive for practitioners, complementing non-competitive aspects of Parkour.
Resources
Parkour Generations Boston — The Boston branch of Parkour Generations, focusing on inclusive community programs and coaching.
Parkour Generations Americas — The parent organization overseeing Parkour Generations branches in the U.S., supporting growth and community engagement.
American Rendezvous — A large international Parkour event in Boston fostering cross-cultural exchange and community building.
I’ve read far too many stories put out by “prestige” news organizations that merely amount to: “This prominent person tweeted this. These random people responded with these tweets. This person made a meme out of it.” This is literally the entire content of the article. It is paragraphs of text devoid of meaning and significance. Just hype masquerading as journalism. But consume enough of it and it can shape your world view, where you feel like something is happening, but nothing actually is.
A large part of my personal change has been driven by my changing what information I consume. There are very few things, people, or places which are able to “insert” information in front of me. The vast majority of information sources—and I’m using information here in the broadest sense—are all set up so that I access them. I access them the way I get water from the sink tap. I go to it. I act to begin the flow. I choose how much and at what rate it flows.
There’s no longer any hype coming out of my sink taps.
Social conditioning may have convinced you that sacrificing your happiness to maintain a certain bank balance, to send timely payments to corporations to which you’re indebted, or to pay for someone else’s needs and expenses is the proper way to live. Perhaps your parents played a role in this conditioning as well, teaching you the importance of being responsible and holding down stable employment.
There’s a lot of value to the idea of, “and now that you are moving, you can steer.” Lots of metaphors here: A ship’s rudder doesn’t work unless the ship is moving; A car cannot turn around unless it is moving; etc. But there’s a vastly bigger picture that, “you can steer,” will never reveal.
It doesn’t matter how fast I’m “moving” or how well I “steer” if I’m on the wrong eff’in continent.
Steve often writes phoofy new-age mumbo jumbo stuff that I can’t even read. Why do I keep reading [you might ask]? Filter bubble. Perspective. Articles like this one which challenge the reader to wipe off the entire board and consider redrawing the plate tectonics.
What does it mean to make movement more accessible and inclusive for everyone, regardless of background or athletic ability?
In this episode Cordelia Storm unpacks her thoughts about accessibility, the effects of a gym on a community, and her motivation for learning flips. She delves into her personal journey, as well as her relationship with competition. Cordelia mentions her documentary project, and finishes by tackling the concepts of gender, age, and representation in the parkour space.
In that moment I realized that my voice did matter. Now what? From then on, that just became a big passion— to have people love movement, love feeling their bodies, and like playing.
~ Cordelia Storm (30:55)
The conversation centers on the transformative power of parkour, not just as a physical discipline but as a tool for personal growth, inclusivity, and empowerment. Cordelia Storm shares her journey into parkour, starting from a background in theater and video games, and how the practice helped her overcome personal struggles, including bulimia. A large part of the discussion revolves around how parkour promotes accessibility and how Cordelia works to make movement available to a wider audience. She highlights how parkour shifted her relationship with her body, turning exercise from a punitive activity into a joyful and empowering experience.
Another key topic explored is the emotional impact of losing a community gym and how it challenged the parkour community to adapt and rebuild. Cordelia discusses the importance of outdoor classes and fostering micro-communities within them to maintain connection and continuity. The conversation also touches on gender representation in parkour, the evolving nature of competition, and the broader social and cultural implications of making movement inclusive. Cordelia’s passion for flips and overcoming fear is used as a metaphor for confronting personal barriers, showing how physical challenges in parkour mirror deeper internal struggles and victories.
Takeaways
Losing a community gym — The closure of Parkour Visions’ physical gym space profoundly affected the local community, forcing adaptations in teaching and community building.
Empowering coaches — Building smaller community hubs within classes strengthens the overall parkour community even in the absence of a central gym.
Flips as self-overcoming — Flips in parkour symbolize confronting personal fears and limitations, reflecting broader themes of self-growth and perseverance.
Movement for healing — Parkour provided Cordelia with a path to body acceptance and a healthier self-image after struggling with bulimia.
Representation in parkour — Having visible female athletes and coaches plays a crucial role in encouraging more women to participate in parkour.
The value of competition — Competitions offer opportunities for growth, but can initially feel intimidating and exclusionary, requiring a shift in mindset.
Accessible movement — Parkour needs to be reimagined beyond elite skills, making even basic movements relatable to those new to the discipline.
Emotional vulnerability — Parkour offers men and women spaces to explore vulnerability and overcome ego, fostering deeper emotional intelligence.
Resources
Parkour Visions — The gym and organization where Cordelia started parkour and continues to teach.
Art of Retreat — A parkour leadership gathering frequently referenced in the conversation.
Movement Creative — A community-focused parkour organization associated with Caitlin Pontrella.
The problem with holistic, all-consuming burnout is that there’s no solution to it. You can’t optimize it to make it end faster. You can’t see it coming like a cold and start taking the burnout-prevention version of Airborne. The best way to treat it is to first acknowledge it for what it is — not a passing ailment, but a chronic disease — and to understand its roots and its parameters. That’s why people I talked to felt such relief reading the “mental load” cartoon, and why reading Harris’s book felt so cathartic for me: They don’t excuse why we behave and feel the way we do. They just describe those feelings and behaviors — and the larger systems of capitalism and patriarchy that contribute to them — accurately.
I was startled (or perhaps proud?) to notice this seems to be the first thing I’ve ever linked to on Buzzfeed. I was also startled to realize this article makes a lot of great points about burnout.
It doesn’t have any suggestions about how to recover. But it does point out the key observation that you cannot optimize your way out of burnout. Been there. Done that. Am there. Doing that.
At worst, we apply a supernatural explanation to the whole show, because otherwise we’d have to recognize intelligence as a natural extension of the things that happen on a barren, unattended planet. For some reason we often insist nature couldn’t be that interesting or potent on its own. There has to be a super nature, to keep nature in its rightful, humble place. It makes us feel special I guess, maybe that’s why we don’t give nature the credit. We’re special either way, but we don’t need special rules to explain how we’re here. For that matter, we don’t necessarily need to explain ourselves to ourselves at all. Whatever happened, we got intelligent at some point, and that’s great. It’s okay to wonder aloud exactly how it happened, but clearly it did.
Monism has never made sense to me. It’s interesting and I’ve spent a significant amount of time turning over its various flavors trying to understand others’ points of view. But, “that’s interesting,” is as far as I get.
When I face reality—thinking through mental models, comparing them to my personal experiences, talking to other people and listening to their experiences—I simply don’t see any deep mystery in life. Certainly, I see mind-bogglingly-huge expanses of things which are unknown (by me or anyone,) but that simply makes me more excited and more curious!
What confuses me is that the majority of people think differently, and I spend a lot of time talking to people as I try to understand how they think. I have only one point of view. I’m deeply fascinated by the universe around me and, in particular, by the conversations that come from me saying, “What does that bit of reality over there look like from your point of view?”
What role should competition and commercialization play in shaping the future of Parkour?
Mark Toorock shares his thoughts on the commercialization of parkour, FIG and competitions, as well as the direction parkour is headed. He also opens up about his personal goals for parkour, raising the socially acceptable age of play, and how he sees himself within the community. Mark wraps up by discussing the power of parkour to benefit all people.
The thing for me about Parkour is, if I can make one person that used to walk with their head down, walk with their head up, that’s the change in the world. We don’t change the world, we change a person.
~ Mark Toorock (32:32)
The conversation explores the evolving landscape of Parkour, focusing on commercialization, competition, and the community’s shifting mindset. Mark Toorock reflects on the initial resistance within the Parkour community to monetization and contrasts it with the growing acceptance as practitioners age and recognize the need to sustain their passion financially. The discussion highlights the complexity of maintaining Parkour’s spirit while enabling financial opportunities, drawing parallels to artists who monetize their craft without compromising authenticity.
Competition is another critical focus, with Mark advocating for a non-competitive foundation in Parkour while embracing competitions based on Parkour movements. He stresses that competition need not undermine the spirit of Parkour and can coexist with a community-driven, collaborative ethos. The conversation touches on the potential risks of external organizations, like the International Gymnastics Federation, attempting to control Parkour competitions and the broader implications for public perception. Additionally, Mark emphasizes the importance of maintaining play as a socially acceptable activity for adults, advocating for a culture that values lifelong movement and exploration.
Takeaways
Commercialization of Parkour — The community’s initial aversion to making money from Parkour has shifted as practitioners recognize the need to sustain their involvement.
Parkour as a Profession — Many who once resisted monetization now seek ways to make Parkour their career, reflecting personal growth and practical needs.
Competition and Parkour — Parkour can remain non-competitive at its core while allowing competitions to highlight athleticism and skill.
Dual Nature of Competitions — Competitions can coexist with the collaborative, non-competitive practice of Parkour without diminishing the community spirit.
External Influence — There is concern over outside organizations, like FIG, attempting to co-opt Parkour for profit or recognition, which could misrepresent the practice.
Cultural Impact — Parkour’s visibility and public perception could change significantly through organized competitions at national and international levels.
Parkour for All Ages — The practice spans generations, with both young children and seniors benefiting from participation.
Social Norms and Play — Mark’s mission is to normalize play for adults, challenging societal norms that discourage play as people age.
Inclusivity in Parkour — Parkour creates a space where background, age, and social differences dissolve, fostering unity and shared experience.
Resources
American Parkour — The organization founded by Mark Toorock, dedicated to promoting Parkour through training, events, and education.
Urban Freeflow — One of the foundational Parkour organizations co-founded by Mark Toorock, contributing to Parkour’s spread globally.
I think working with anyone who’s a brilliant creative can at times be a rollercoaster. Working with any other human other than yourself can be a rollercoaster, because they’re not you, so, you know… their reactions to things are going to be different than yours. But I think that’s part of the adventure. You talked to me about One Love, you talked to me about the telethon, and now you’re talking to me about clients. My response is the same: Life is not ever going to be content. Life is never going to be normal. For the rest of your life you’re on a journey that has ups and downs and ups and downs, it is a roller coaster that never ends. Until one day you close your eyes and you’re off the roller coaster. And I think for me, I just want to be on as many different journey’s as possible, so at least if I’m on a roller coaster, there’s a new zigzag and a turn that I didn’t know about before.
In this interview titled, Bringing Light to Darkness, Cal and Scooter have a wide ranging discussion of the challenges Scooter faced in 2017 and the lessons he learned. I’m a big fan of Cal’s work generally. Although this is one of his earlier podcasts, it’s a gold mine.
It’s time to stop blaming our surroundings and start taking responsibility. While no workplace is perfect, it turns out that our gravest challenges are a lot more primal and personal. Our individual practices ultimately determine what we do and how well we do it. Specifically, it’s our routine (or lack thereof), our capacity to work proactively rather than reactively, and our ability to systematically optimize our work habits over time that determine our ability to make ideas happen.
Routine is great. Routine guides me to channel my pensive morning moods into reflecting on what I want to accomplish that day. Routine suggests that I create spaces which enable certain types of work. Routine saves me time by streamlining the vast majority of my chores. Routine ensures I make progress on the long-term projects that seem insurmountable at the beginning. Routine forces me to make time to encounter new ideas.
But rigidity won’t do. Sometimes I want to break free.
For the first time in all of time, men have seen the Earth. Seen it not as continents or oceans from the little distance of a hundred miles or two or three, but seen it from the depths of space; seen it whole and round and beautiful and small… To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold—brothers who know that they are truly brothers.
The linked article is about Carl Sagan’s, Pale Blue Dot, but the quote is from a less well-known poet, Archibald MacLeish. He wrote an essay titled, Riders on the Earth, which appeared in The New York Times on Christmas Day, 1968.
I am well aware that this blog is a long sequence of my ideas which are inspired by others’. There’s a reason I lead with the link to the seed from which each idea germinated.
I recall exactly when, and where, I was when I had the idea to restart blogging. (Aside: Another reason I love my long-standing habit of journaling is the ability to look up things like this to audit my memory.) I cannot imagine where I would be today—frankly, there’s no chance I would have gotten to where I am today—if I hadn’t started this place to unpack my thoughts.
What motivates someone to push beyond personal limits in dance, Parkour, and other movement disciplines to achieve mastery?
Emily Tung shares her journey and goals in both breaking and parkour, as well as the differences between those two practices and communities. She also discusses her diverse movement practices, from stunt work, contortion, to pole dancing, as well as her lesser known skills in puppetry. Emily finishes by unpacking her thoughts on coaching, unsolicited advice, and speaking up for yourself.
For me then, it’s not about what is the correct or right way. It’s, what is your goal? And what’s your body like? And what can I do, and what applies best, and I have to decide that I have to be strong about that. I think that was another plateau. I had it back in my old life where I always listened to exactly what I was told.
~ Emily Tung (56:13)
The conversation explores how committing to ambitious goals reshapes personal habits, training, and overall lifestyle. Emily recounts how a decision to pursue world-level breakdancing battles triggered a broader transformation, leading to better nutrition, rest, and learning from mentors. This commitment highlighted the importance of focus and intentionality in practice, contrasting with periods of stagnant growth when goals were less defined.
The discussion also touches on the cross-disciplinary nature of movement arts, showing how Parkour, dance, and martial arts influence each other. Emily reflects on how Parkour provided a sense of community and freedom not always found in the dance world, fostering creativity and resilience. The journey through stunt work, puppetry, and contortion further illustrates the diverse ways movement disciplines intersect, shaping not just physical skills but also mental perspectives and personal identity.
Takeaways
The value of clear goals — Committing to ambitious targets reshapes training, habits, and lifestyle.
The importance of mentorship — Seeking knowledge from those already on the path accelerates growth and insight.
Cross-disciplinary learning — Parkour, dance, and martial arts inform and enhance each other, enriching overall movement capacity.
Community impact — Parkour provides acceptance and connection, contrasting with more judgmental environments in dance.
Injury prevention — Understanding progressions and conditioning transforms how to train sustainably and avoid long-term damage.
Stunt work insights — Success in stunts relies on spatial awareness, timing, and the ability to “sell” movements realistically.
Adaptability in movement — Flexibility and contortion expand creative possibilities in Parkour and dance.
The challenge of unsolicited advice — Navigating unwanted input from less experienced peers requires tact and boundary-setting.
Resources
Brooklyn Zoo Gym — Training facility where the guest developed contortion and Parkour skills.
This is an interesting way to look at societal changes. Since there is no “we”—there is no aggregate, thing which is “the society as a whole” which can feel embarrassed—the only “we” which can be embarrassed is me, the individual.
…and since this blog is about me, I should talk about what embarrasses me. But instead, I’m interested in unpacking the source of my embarrassment:
When my actions and thoughts disagree with what I know is right.
Despite the laudatory efforts of scientists to ferret out patterns in human behavior, I continue to be struck by the impact of single individuals, or of small groups, working against the odds. As scholars, we cannot and should not sweep these instances under the investigative rug. We should bear in mind anthropologist Margaret Mead’s famous injunction: ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. It is the only thing that ever has.’
There so many ways that you can see this in human societies: The crowd of non-helpers all assuming someone else will help, the herds on social media who are only listening to refute, and the oceans of sarcasm to gain temporary attention.
But there are always a few—surely you’ve spotted them in your life?—who are inspiring. Perk up your ears. Who’s efforts call to you? Are you helping them?
Better yet, what calls to you? Are you thoughtful? Are you committed?
But there’s a reason we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece: it’s that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth in this rise and fall here [indicates blackboard]. The truth is, we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is. And if I die — God forbid — I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, ‘Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?’
First, note that by “shapes” he literally means figures, graphs—drawings of the shape of the story.
Second, although I’m unsure wether or not I’m “old,” I am sure that I’m starting to get some perspective. A few posts back I was talking about there being a horizon-of-self: Once my experiences are far enough in the past, I lose any true sense of who that self was. Vonnegut’s point—to me anyway—drives home the fact that I don’t even truly know who I am right now.
I’m not sure how to describe this—other than to say it’s a pretty short read.
I’m definitely sure I’ve no idea how to pull-quote it.
I was just having a discussion about the AI Singularity, and then this fell into my lap. Is it going to be paper-clip optimizers, or benevolent beings?
Selling, I’ve grown to understand, is more urgent, more important, and, in its own sweet way, more beautiful than we realize. The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness. It has helped our species evolve, lifted our living standards, and enhanced our daily lives. The capacity to sell isn’t some unnatural adaptation to the merciless world of commerce. It is part of who we are.
I believe in a very clear definition of “trade:” An exchange of value in which all parties are left better off; That is to say, trade is notzero-sum.
I believe it’s unnecessary to talk about “good” trade. That “good” is superfluous since any trade that isn’t “good” wouldn’t be trade. (It would be deception, cohersion, etc.)
What is the balance between explicit instruction and fostering natural play in effective teaching methods?
Examining the contrasts between structured education and natural play in learning.
The takeaway I want to give to people and the question I want them to ask themselves is, which parts of my class are actually effective? And which parts of my class am I doing out of habit?
~ John ‘Hedge’ Hall (6:50)
The conversation centers on teaching methods, particularly in the context of Parkour coaching. Two critiques of education are explored: a Neo-Marxist view, which critiques traditional teaching as overly authoritative and facts-based, and a libertarian perspective emphasizing the importance of natural play and minimizing intervention. These frameworks guide a discussion about creating self-aware, critical thinkers while respecting the natural role of play in learning.
The surprising discovery is that explicit instruction, often seen as unappealing or overly rigid, is highly effective for establishing foundational understanding. This enables learners to engage in problem-solving and develop complex skills more effectively. The dialogue also addresses how nervousness in new students impacts learning and the importance of clear, actionable cues during instruction.
Takeaways
Explicit instruction — Foundational teaching through clear and structured guidance significantly enhances student learning outcomes.
Natural play — Recognizing play as a natural and critical form of education, especially for children, and balancing it with structured instruction.
First-class experiences — Highlighting the importance of designing initial learning experiences to build confidence and engagement.
Critical awareness — Fostering self-critical thinking and the ability to question systems as key educational goals.
Rote learning — Revisiting rote learning as a misunderstood but powerful tool for building essential skills.
Habitual teaching — Questioning and assessing habitual teaching practices to ensure their effectiveness.
Intervention limits — Exploring when and how much intervention is beneficial in the learning process.
Resources
Access Parkour — A Parkour coaching organization focused on accessible training programs.