A stretch of sky, a garden wall overhung by green branches, a strong horse, a handsome dog, a group of children, a beautiful face — why should we be willing to be robbed of all this? Whoever has acquired the knack can in the space of a block see precious things without losing a minute’s time… All things have their vivid aspects, even the uninteresting or ugly; one must only want to see.
What steps can be taken to normalize play and movement for adults in public spaces?
Caitlin Pontrella discusses the Movement Creative, explaining its goals and vision beyond simply teaching parkour. She unpacks her thoughts on the concept of play, how it relates to parkour, and the benefits of both play and risk. Caitlin wraps up by sharing her insights into starting new projects and how to involve your community.
Risk gives you choice, and it gives you opportunity to explore and challenge yourself.
~ Caitlin Pontrella (5:17)
The conversation centers on the concept of normalizing play for adults and making public spaces more engaging. Caitlin Pontrella discusses her work with the Movement Creative, a social enterprise aimed at fostering creativity, movement, and education. Projects like “movement snacks” provide subtle invitations for play in public spaces, aiming to remove the stigma associated with adult play while promoting accessibility and inclusivity. This shift can lead to a cultural transformation, encouraging adults to view movement as a natural, joyful part of life.
Topics also include the importance of risk in play, the concept of Parkour vision, and how it changes perceptions of urban environments. Caitlin emphasizes the value of partnerships and community engagement when implementing ideas to enhance public spaces. She shares examples of playful initiatives, such as “mice on Main,” which successfully create a sense of wonder and interaction within cities. The conversation underscores the transformative potential of play and movement to enrich personal and communal experiences.
Happy, healthy and successful people, like the mature tree, have grown deep roots in the important areas of their life. They have, over time and a great number of small actions, built habits that are so fixed, that no one would even try to challenge them.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu
Seeing Gen Y as “heroic” may seem like quite a stretch to some. But as Howe pointed out in my interview with him, “Remember that no one said anything about the GIs being the Greatest Generation until the very end of the last fourth turning.” No one thought the last Hero generation was anything special at the time either; it was only in retrospect, after they had fully risen to the challenge of their age, that they were venerated.
Those of us living in the United States have enshrined in our founding documents the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, a concept that has older roots in European philosophers such as John Locke. These documents, of course, provide not the slightest bit of instruction about how to embark upon this pursuit, wisely leaving this conundrum to the individual and the communities to which he or she belongs.
These days, cues on living a virtuous life are virtually absent from school or popular culture. And there are thousands of other stimuli vying for your attention. What this means is that you can’t hope to accidentally bump into cues every day that will help you remember the things that are most important to you. Instead, you have to purposefully plan for your regular exposure to those cues. You do this by regularly reading your scriptures, or personal manifesto, or books on philosophy and development, and doing other things which continually pull up all your past feelings and insights into the man you want to be, bringing them to bear on your present challenges.
The linked article is rather long and covers a wide variety of sources and ideas — some I’d venture most “modern” people won’t be interested in. But, the thread running through this is very real.
It’s not just something you practice when you’re learning something — though dropping the “expert’s mind” and seeing the learning as a beginner is an important practice in learning. It’s something you can practice every single moment of the day (if you can remember to do so).
This is pretty common. Thinking isn’t the problem, but the struggle comes when we’re constantly spinning stories in our heads and getting caught up in them.
We love these flawed superheroes, because it makes them relatable, vulnerable, and REAL. It gives them an identity; as readers of comics or viewers of a movie, we get to look inside these people and know that they feel real pain too, and we see parts of ourselves in them. … Why, then, don’t we do this with our real-life heroes and ourselves?
If you’re not strong enough or flexible enough to do the things you love, you absolutely need to spend time working on that. But for well-rounded physical performance–not to mention the ability to apply the strength, mobility, and conditioning you’re building–it’s important to work on your motor control and coordination as well.
Flexibility/range-of-motion, strength, and coordination are the big three components of healthy movement [in my opinion]. This is a great article about coordination, complex motor skills, and (inadvertently) helps explain a lot of why I love Parkour.