“What would the greatest version of myself do?”

I can think of no better personal compass than that simple question. I whole-heartedly agree with its sentiment; that exploring your own concept of “greatness” is the single most important thing you can do. Each of us will come to a different answer; potentially very different answers. But, the act of honestly exploring your own conceptions, and the act of self reflection, are what will move you in a positive direction.

I had already begun embracing this idea of seeking the greatest version of myself. As part of that effort, I took up a personal Oath which clearly reflects the idea.

What is Parkour?

Thibault’s section 4 is about seeking personal greatness and striving to constantly improve. That’s clearly a “big picture” goal involving one’s entire self. But we can also use this idea of “closing the gap” to investigate our every-day description of what Parkour is.

When asked, many people say that Parkour is about “efficiency”. They say that Parkour is about “moving efficiently” or “getting from A to B efficiently.” (“Quickly” is also used.) Alternatively, there are many people who dislike the “efficiency” description. Some prefer “personal expression through movement”, “pushing the boundaries of human movement”, or even simply “freedom”. There are many alternatives to the “efficiency” description, but it is undoubtedly one of the most dominant descriptions.

Where did I stand before reading this section?

If you practice Parkour, you will be asked (and often!), “What is Parkour?” I realized I would do well to have a one-sentence answer to that question. I’ve found that people are pleasantly surprised when I have a clear, one-sentence answer. Almost everyone asks further questions and a conversation about Parkour grows naturally from there.

My one-sentence answer is: Parkour is using challenges to improve oneself.

And now?

When I read Thibault’s section 4, it struck me that Parkour is exactly about “getting from point A to point B as efficiently and quickly as possible.”

Point “A” is here; the me of today.

Point “B” is there; the me of tomorrow.

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Sunday’s class contained a block of time where we were told to set a specific goal for ourselves, and then go work on it.

There’s a particular technique that I’ve been stuck on for nearly two years. It’s completely a psychological issue. Each time a coach brings up this technique, I equivocate, and they drop me back to the progressions for the technique. But, I can do the progressions, and every coach then says, “Then just do the technique.” Usually, they manage to encourage me enough to eek out a few tentative iterations of the technique. At which point I’m all like, “Yeah! Progress! Awesome!”

And the next time the technique comes up I have the EXACT. SAME. PROBLEM. I profess inability, the coach assesses the progressions, and then coaxes me through getting the technique. Over and over and over and over and over with too many coaches, way too many times.

Nemesis: n., this technique.

So on Sunday, armed with 15 minutes of time and delusions of making progress on my own, I set off to work on my nemesis.

(Here, there would be a montage and inspirational music.)

13 minutes later I had managed to scare the crap out of myself several times, and had accomplished absolutely nothing. I’d stared at it, fiddled with variations of feet and hands, and jiggered every adjustable parameter. Basically, I spent 13 minutes trying to avoid my fear. It was exceedingly frustrating because I’ve done this countless times: Every single variation, every attempt, every change, telling myself the things coaches would say, my worries, my self-reprimands.

So I’m standing there, mentally kicking myself thinking: “Yes yes, I’ve even tried mentally kicking myself countless times before. Fine. All I have to do it screw around for two more minutes and then this can be over.”

At which point I finally had a different thought: Section 3! Resilience! How can I specifically use resilience in this situation?

Truthfully, I had no idea how to apply resilience. I tried looking at the obstacle differently. I literally laid behind the wall and looked up from where I should land. I sat astride the wall and imagined the technique from the side.

I eventually tried again and — I have no idea why anything was different — I actually made one. Then a second. And then a third. And then, in fact, 13 in a row, banging out the last few repetitions as the instructor called us back together.

NOT comfortable: Even the success freaks me out so badly that my palms are sweating days later as I type this.

NOT impressive: It’s a simple technique. The 13 I did were teeny tiny baby versions with a low obstacle, and most of them had poor landings. Worst of all, I’m not the LEAST bit certain I can do it again.

Was it resilience? Was it stubbornness? Luck? Finally just strong/flexible/whatever enough to make it? I have no clue. I was jammed so far up in my “head space” that I haven’t the slightest idea what actually happened in those last two minutes.

Do I have a point here? I’m not even sure about that. This is just a story related to section 3.

meh.

Some days, Parkour is like this; It’s not all unicorns and rainbows.

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Here Thibault draws an analogy from how one reads a book. The obvious way is to read straight through from front to back. But he points out, just as there are alternatives with a book, there are alternatives with how we view and interact with our environment.

I’ve said many times – this isn’t my idea but I’ve forgotten where I picked it up – that one aspect of Parkour is realizing that the obstacle IS the path. Things in the environment which once were “obstacles” become “options.” Things which others would never consider interacting with draw my attention and suggest ways to interact. As my curiosity developed, I literally began to see my environment differently.

Aside: One of my favorite Parkour jokes is that I’ve converted my ADD from “Attention Deficit Disorded” to “Art Du Déplacement”. (That’s the French name for what we call Parkour.) But I’ve subsequently been diagnosed with late onset “Obstacle Attraction Disorder” (OAD).

Here, there is a railing. Why, really, may I not walk upon it? Many of the reasons for staying off are internal: I may fall; I have poor balance; I’m afraid. The rest of the reasons are based on other people’s internal fears projected out into the environment: People think, “I may fall, therefore you may fall.” And so we encounter people yelling, “Get down from there you’ll hurt yourself!”

Aside: Here’s my opinion on liability issues. Railings, as an example, are clearly not intended to be walked on. So I’m implicitly accepting the risk of my falling off the railing. Further, I’m also implicitly accepting the responsibility to repair the railing if I break it.

Through Parkour, I slowly discovered all of these internal reasons which I’d never noticed, let alone attempted to address, which were holding me back! Not simply holding me back in the context of some particular obstacle. (After all, I could simply walk around that wall!) But rather, all those internal reasons were holding me back in the context of my entire life. I realized that climbing stairs was no longer trivial. Touching my toes was no longer trivial. Climb a tree? …no more. Live a full life, sleep well, run? Nope, nope, nope. As a human being, I have a birthright to move (with a hat tip to Ido Portal), and to interact physically with my environment.

(Spoiler: I also have a birthright to interact physically with my fellow humans, but that’s another section in Thibault’s book.)

So Thibault’s section 2 seems trivial at first glance, but actually speaks to a very deep, and fundamentally important idea.

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As I expected, I pretty much forgot about this project once I was on my way to class. So this is just my looking back at my experiences in class through the lens of this first section of the book. (I’m betting this is what’s going to happen another 89 times.)

I’m not going to pick apart every moment from class; I’ll just go over a few that come immediately to mind:

Balancing at height – We started practicing purposely bailing off a low rail and worked up to some climb-over tasks in a playground. Eventually we worked up to a “find something that’s high enough to be moderately uncomfortable” level of individual balancing. I headed for a 7-foot high long bar (like where swings would hang. sorta.) and struggled my way up onto the bar — that was a challenge in and of itself. So I definitely went straight at something that was challenging — falling from standing on a 7-foot bar is not trivial. I down-graded though after falling, because climbing up multiple times wasn’t worth the little bit of balancing I was managing.

Balancing on a rail – We were working with partners. We ended up mostly taking turns challenging each other. Try this, try this variation, etc making it increasingly difficult. At one point, I quietly headed off to the side for a rail to work on a sequence of variations. (Off to the side so as not to be a distracting, apparent-show-off.) So again here, definitely operating in the mind set where “the obstacle is the path”.

QM exercise – We ended with a laps challenge. For me, 3 laps of QM around a small-ish basketball court, followed by a running lap around the school. I pushed this really hard and it was here that I think the mind set really paid off . . .

In a discussion with Tracy after class, I came up with the idea that I seem to be using this mind set as a “razor”; An immediate yes/no testing tool. Your mind is busy with a stream of thoughts as you grind you way through hard work. In hindsight, I realize I was fast-processing everything with this combination of the mindset and a dash of stoicism. “Caution, quad nearly cramping,” is something I can affect; pause and unload that leg, or stretch it, or slow down. “Ow, stone in my hand,” shake it off when next I lift that hand. “I want to quit,” what? no, that’s not going to move me forward towards my goal. “How is [other student] still going so fast,” ignore that I cannot affect that. So it seems to have been just this long (long LONG) series of thoughts. Sometimes I’m certain I wasn’t finished with one thought before another preempted it; Which is fine, the really important stuff will preempt silly thoughts about a cool drink of water.

So it was nice to come away believing that I’m already applying this mind set in a big way.

Light bulb

But wait a second, here’s a new [for me] thought: This mind set also means there’s a difference between “stopping” and “quiting”, even though outwardly they look identical to an observer. I can STOP for the RIGHT reason, or QUIT for the WRONG reason. Stop before an actual cramp, verus quit because I’m demoralized. That’s another facet of using this mind set as a “razor”.

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