The Reason I Do Parkour ⚠️WARNING! ⚠️ This May Shock You
I am 30 years old so why the what, who, and how made me start parkour?
Those of you know of me being through my blog, my YouTube channel gflow2882 or my TikTok account gflow207 will know that I have been practicing creative movement for a while now.
I know the title said parkour and yes parkour indeed but I like to call this creative movement meaning not just traversing obstacles but training your creative flow to be able to move your body more freely and with more creative styles.
⚠️ Warning Rant Incoming! ⚠️
I once had a troll bash me on my TikTok and they said that what I was doing was not training and to give up. They was referring to a video where I was working on creative flow. Now that I have thought about it and rather then calling them out and saying that they may be jealous and insecure I thought they have perhaps fallen into the category of the typical person seeing top 10 greatest parkour runs or watching Nick Pro where these guys have got to the level where they do double backflips and double front flips off buildings and they see my videos and call me out as amateur.
To some what ok fair enough I am not jumping off buildings or doing anything epic just yet but these stereotypical people are the people to bash somebody for not doing an amazing stunt when these people for starters know nothing of this persons life or how much time they have.
For someone like Nick Pro and many other great parkour athletes started training when they were a lot younger and they was able to master their craft with plenty of free time.
A quick insight to my everyday life ⬇️⬇️
Now before I get hate about this I did not start practicing until I was 25 years old. During this age I had my own little family a great package if you will. I had an amazing woman and four amazing children.
For all of you who have kids and a partner will know that you will have less time for yourself as family life calls and that is priority.
House work, earning income, taking the dog out, spending time with the kids, thinking or many ways to help them in life, being aware of your setbacks | bad choices and putting them right in other words setting an example, motivating the children spending time with your partner making sure he | she | they know they are loved.
Now all these are normal everyday duties and I could be the type of person who comes home after work and does nothing just watch TV and believe me sometimes I really do feel like kicking back and watching cartoons with a milkshake and a cake.
If I did then there would be nothing wrong with that as is this what most people do who are the main source of income for their family?
However its back home, grab a coffee and the chores at home begins all while trying to spend as much time with the family as possible.
Now after all of that most people will probably want to chill or sleep but if you are a high achiever then your work is still not done you also have to do work for yourself or on yourself.
For some of you this could mean working out, working on a business idea, networking with like minded people, learning a new skill, practicing a skill you are trying to master, reading or fixing things.
For me It would be to go out and practice but.
I must stay home because me and my partner have a deal that I am to bath baby Cruz, my partner will feed him and put him to bed and I will see to him every time he wakes up and this is fair right as in relationships there always has to be compromise otherwise the relationship will not work.
So that gives me a few options of what else I am trying to achieve and this is learning code and working out.
I usually work out first because at the moment I cannot stay up early hours of the morning to work out anymore.
Then after my workout Id eat while watching a soap with my partner then id go and practice creating | debugging websites and learning more efficient ways to code.
Then I will listen to an self help audiobook while sleeping.
This would usually become a cycle everyday routine ok and we all know we have setbacks too but I try to stick to this as much as possible.
⚠️ Warning Rant Over! ⚠️
So realistically on an average day I have 10 minutes each day to practice creative movement unless I finish work early and in that case I could spend a whole 30 minutes or so.
Back to the 10 minutes because that is most common this 10 minutes is taken from my break.
It takes me just under 10 minutes to walk to the park and just under 10 minutes to get back to work so I can squeeze out 10 minutes to practice repetitive things like front flips, rolls or anything that is quick.
People tell me Gary! on your break you should chill not do flips and train!
However I feel as if I have wasted 30 minutes doing nothing when I could of gave myself at least 10 minutes of practice.
As you get more older you become aware of how valuable your time is and that you must not waste time or waste as little as possible.
On my days off I am busy doing housework and home stuff, spending time with family and I usually can get out for an hour or two and usually I would take kids to the park being a weekend.
If I have my day's off during the week then time management is my friend I love to take young Kieran to school, then do housework, spend time with baby Cruz and my partner and then I would pick Kieran up from school so my partner could nap usually she takes Cruz up for his nap too.
So depending on the time I could get some creative movement done before picking young Kieran up but that's not usually the case as our dog Max like to go crazy non stop barking when I leave the house and I cannot risk him waking my partner or baby Cruz up so I take Max for a walk to pick Kieran up.
I also live in Britain so most of the year we have rain and soggy mossy grass and slippery concrete and that knocks my confidence to go out and train a little.
So do I have a lot of time to master these moves?
I may not have to most free time but I have drive, and the drive will make me succeed with enough patience and persistence I shall become my ideal self.
So now you have an insight to what my every day usually consists of now for the meat and potatoes of this blog.
Why do I do parkour and practice creative movement? well for me Its a sport but not like any other sport it is more rewarding and the adrenaline you get is real! you have no rush like you can train at your own pace and give yourself challenges to complete and when you pass your challenge the feeling you get its like nothing else.
sometimes I feel as if I am a success addict.
The thought of falling time and time again and something in you tells you that your not giving up and you keep practicing, keep failing and then boom! a move that you have been trying to do and now you have nailed it! so you keep practicing to get it looking sharp before you start experimenting with different ways of doing that move.
Its free so I do not have to pay £60 a month like you would in a martial arts dojo or a football club.
It is flexible to you can train anytime unlike most other clubs where you have to meet at a certain place at a certain time.
I do not train and practice to look cool or to look better then anyone else as to me I am just a human being and I do not class myself as above or below any other human being.
Training parkour helps with my creative vision and I am always coming up with new ways of movement or making different moves flow.
It give me hope that I can become a better athlete.
When Judgement day comes I do not want to have any regrets and I want to know I achieved a lot and I want to leave behind many hope for everyone else to know that they can indeed achieve greatness.
I also practice and document my process to inspire and motivate others as well because If I can achieve this with my hectic schedule then anyone can.
Remembering that I am just an average Joe or Gaz if you like 🤣
Its entertaining for people to see, they love seeing someone fail and refuse to give up.
When I scrub through my videos I notice people watching me and one time when I was learning the front flip this family of 4 was just watching me fail for about 15 minutes then I landed and I heard them shout well done! and clapped.
I believe it gives many people hope that they can achieve anything.
I also train because its fun! You can Imagine yourself being chased, you can imagine yourself being an assassin from assassins creed, you can give yourself time limits on your runs to help you get more faster and efficient, you can even play floor is lava and floor is lava parkour edition is like omg!!!!!! 🤪
So there you have it.
The reasons why I do parkour.
If your interested in learning or starting your parkour journey then I recommend watching videos from kyle epic Mendoza that is one of the recourses I used while learning and I still do to this day.
If you want to get into it but have excuses like...
I'm too fat.
I'm too skinny.
I'm too stupid.
I'm to old.
I'm too young.
I don't have time.
I don't have confidence in myself.
These are all myths you tell yourself and confidence Ronald is a skill you have to build yourself and in order to build that you have to take action.
