14+ years ago I started this blog. For many months it was basically my way of posting photos, which were also posted to a particular social platform. After about a year, I started posting more quoted stuff, and including the URL. There’s a little feature in WordPress (which powers this site) that if you drop a bare URL into a post, it will be auto-improved to be a clickable link when the post is displayed. So I took advantage of that and dropped bare URLs into thousands of posts.
Fast forward over a decade and obviously link rot is happening. So I’m changing to use page titles, and linking to the URLs. That way, when the link rots, at least a reader can see the title of where it used to go.
How does one navigate and sustain motivation through personal and professional challenges in long-term creative and athletic pursuits, while balancing innovation, personal growth, and community impact?
René Scavington joins Craig to discuss the evolution of parkour, his new film and his ongoing quest for innovation and wonder.
I feel like if I’m trying to do bigger jumps, there’s a smaller window of time because I’m eventually going to tip off in power output. But flips and other freestyle type moves, I feel like I can age with those a little better. […] I think if we’re going to expect anything out of me, I would say it might be more of that. In the future, just trying to be a bit more playful— A bit more loose. And I think that was harder to do in the early days of parkour. I think scenes and communities were a little meaner.
~ René Scavington 24:27
René gravitates around the evolution and nuances of parkour, revealing his perspectives and experiences within the discipline. He touches on experimentation, highlighting its growing acceptance over time. He notes the shift from a past where trying odd moves or playful variations was met with disdain, contrasting it with the current atmosphere where experimentation is often embraced and sometimes even celebrated.
René goes into his personal journey and the meticulous, relentless dedication he embodies in his practice. The conversation reveals the essence of René’s movement captured in his forthcoming film, Resilient. René speaks candidly about his 20-year commitment to parkour, and about his attitude despite the challenges. His discusses his relentless pursuit of certain flips, acknowledging the struggle to balance his progression in flips alongside the continuous advancements in parkour techniques.
Takeaways
Evolution of experimentation — The shift in the parkour community’s attitude toward experimentation.
Relentless dedication — René’s 20-year commitment to parkour reflects his focused and persistent nature.
Resilient — René’s explains the motivations and vision that went into his forthcoming film.
Enduring wonder and curiosity — René shares his perpetual sense of wonder and curiosity, finding inspiration in envisioning new possibilities and an enduring passion for the discipline’s potential.
https://www.sportparkourleague.com Sport Parkour League was founded with the mission of creating an engaging competitive platform for parkour athletes that remains true to the culture.
Suppose I wanted to give something up, but I’m completely baffled by how to decide which thing. I’m not talking about needing to give something up. I mean: This is all nice, and I’d like to have less. It turns out I spend a lot of time thinking about what to give up, and how to give it up. And who would I be once that thing that I do ceased. And why am I still making the mistake of identifying who I am as what I do? (I run, but I am not a runner.) Most of the answers I’ve found to, “what to give up and how?” come from visualization exercises. I know in fact that I will eventually give it all up. Suddenly, it’s no longer about “if”, but more simply “when”. If next decade is fine, why not next year? …why not right now?
To change a habit – whether you’re starting a new habit or quitting an old one – you have to let go of something really important to you. This is why most people struggle with habit change – it’s not easy to let go of your sacred cows.
As always Babauta’s thoughts and perspective inspire me to pause, breath, relax. We do need space, because without space when are we comfortable simply being? I now often find I do have such space. Although my urge remains to fill the spaces up with doing, not-breathing, grasping— Therefore I continue, slowly. breathing. relaxing. visualizing. being.
Ours is the age of criticism. Religion and law try to escape from criticism, religion by saying that it is divine and law by showing that it is powerful. But some suspicions arise from this escape, because we can respect only those things which stand up in free and public trial.
It would be wrong for anything to stand between you and attaining goodness—as a rational being and a citizen. Anything at all: the applaus of the crowd, high office, wealth, or self-indulgence. All of them might seem to be compatible with it—for a while. But suddenly they control us and sweep us away.
This isn’t an intention. It’s a recap of what someone wants to get done, but it does not serve the function of engaging others in a way that will lead to action.
AM I LIKELY TO “ACT” OR “REACT” TO A TASK? — Seek the reason for the task so that it may motivate me to proper action. Otherwise, determine how to eliminate or avoid the task entirely. Do or do not; there is no try.
2 minutes: Pause life. Read. Think. Resume life.
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Arrived in the middle? Visit the first post, Where to begin? (The entire series is available to download as a PDF ebook.)
What I love about Ernie Pyle (and Bill Mauldin) is that they were indefatigable champions for the man on the ground. The WWII infantryman was part of a breed we don’t have any more—the citizen-soldier. Like the Greek farmer-hoplite who took down his spear and breastplate from above the fireplace and marched off to defend his city, the American citizen-soldier had no fondness for war, yearned only to get it over with and get home—but he answered the call and delivered, as Ernie Pyle did and as he describes so eloquently in the passage below.
You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy does not reserve a plot for weeds.
When I put together a chart of per capita energy consumption since 1820 for a post back in 2012, there was a strange “flat spot” in the period between 1920 and 1940. When we look at the underlying data, we see that coal production was starting to decline in some of the major coal producing parts of the world at that time. From the point of view of people living at the time, the situation might have looked very much like peak energy consumption, at least on a per capita basis.
One of my rules-of-thumb is to thoroughly read everything written my Gail Tverberg.
Years ago, I found a web site called The Oil Drum which was a collecton of superlative thinkers all writing about things related to petroleum. Actually, it still IS a superlative collection, because they’ve left it up as-is to be an archive.
I got only the tiniest glimpse of Texas, but had a terrif time! Thanks to my hosts, #texaswinterjam9, and all my friends new and old! …also beat Andy to IAH by a mile :P
Half-way to Houston… currently racing Andy Keller (who I dropped at the San Antonio airport ~7) to Houston. #oneIfByLand #twoIfByPlane also, Texas speed “limits” for the win #chevy
While I was in Boston, my schedule shifted and I did my planned-for-Saturday workout on Friday. When I got home to my desk and looked over the bigger picture, I realized that shift enables me to pull the “3,000 reps milestone” workout forward so it falls exactly in the middle of the year — on day 183.
Just-completed week is filled in, and next week is laid out. A few really neat things are coming up in the next two weeks:
Monday: I finally get the slightest back-down on pullup counts since I started really working on them over 3 months ago. 80, drops down to 75 :P At the same time, everything else goes up to 60 reps. 60 bar-precisions is going to be so nice after having to crank out 85 for a few days (to bank rep’s) before I went to Boston.
Saturday: Another increment of activities, and the final back-down of pullups.
All of which is working toward a very special milestone that’s coming up in two weeks. :D For next few months I’ll be settling into a regular pattern of ‘work, rest, work, rest, rest’ with a regular +5-reps across the board as I work to build up the total numbers. All across the board, the “running rate needed” numbers is about 40, or 80 every-other day; So I’m still behind the pace I need to finish on time, but now I’m really getting close. The medium term goal is to do 100 rep’s of everything, and run that out to the end of the challenge.
The second way of living is the opposite: eat simple food in moderation, enjoy the Internet but with limits so that we can focus on important work, get away from TV and computers once in awhile to enjoy nature and being active and exercising, shopping less and having less possessions, finding focus and being mindful. It’s not that we don’t indulge in the treats of the first way, but we do it with a little restraint, and consciousness.
It’s worth the effort, because being awake means we’re not missing life as we walk through it. Being awake means we’re conscious of what’s going on inside us, as it happens, and so can make more conscious choices rather than acting on our impulses all the time.
