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Pure Simplicity: The Best Path to Transcendentalism Parkour is a sport/art/discipline in which the practitioner ( traceur[male]/ traceuse[female]) has the mindset to get from point A to B in the most efficient way possible. Efficiency is subjective, however, and one must take into consideration the cost of time, energy, and the factor of risk. To achieve efficiency from point A to B, one must be able to flow throughout his or her environment uninterrupted. The practitioner must drill and train the physical part of the sport, to ensure that the practitioner can execute the movement naturally in the situation wherein it’s necessary. This is why the physical aspect of the sport draws more attention than the mental philosophy and mindset needed for it.
Today’s society is a generally bored one. They like to be impressed, and see things that look physically impossible/extremely difficult. They care more about the wow factor rather than the mentality, mindset, discipline, and philosophy behind the movements. Thus is the main reason why plenty of people have the wrong idea of what parkour is. They believe parkour and freerunning are one in the same.
Some people who call themselves traceurs can even have the incorrect viewpoint on what parkour is. They think they’re “traceurs” who train in “parkour”, but don’t know one thing about efficiency and environmental flow. They just want to be able to do impressive things themselves, to show off, or even just feel better about themselves. It’s saddening, since shifting into a true traceur’s mentality is the best method of self-improvement there is.
When your body moves in such a primal way, it feels good. It feels natural, all natural. It feels the way it should be. It feels how life was like before industry and technology began to poison our once basic world. You learn to adapt, innovate, and move primitively. Doing all this brings up a dormant survivalist instinct. However, you have to mix the primitive with the modern-day. Parkour is all about adaptation, isn’t it?
While language is what helped us “progress” as a human race, it’s all brought a great demise to us all. It’s what gives us conscious thought, and logical process. Instead of living off of instinct, we think things through and allow our minds to process things. In doing so, we allow ourselves to reach a state of boredom. Not to mention, the more and more life goes on, the more and more of our race gets infected with materialistic lifestyles. They think that money and fame, what we call success in this day and age, is what brings happiness and allows you to be content.
It’s not true. Instinctively, we are simple. We are satisfied with few things. Now, this has led the subject off of parkour, but it does tie in. Parkour becomes a lifestyle and a pastime. Sure, professional athletes get enveloped in their sport, allowing it to become their lifestyle as well, but it’s nothing near the same. The main snare is sports’ limitations. They’re always in controlled environments, with specific equipment, rules and regulations, and always have a common goal, usually to score more points than that of the opposing team. And yes, it’s better than laying around, being consumed by technology, and does awaken a primal instinct to win, compete, and dominate, but it’s a very small fraction of what parkour does to its disciples.
First of all, the equipment needed for parkour, technically, is none. As odd as it sounds, you could practice parkour utterly naked. However, society is way too overbearing to allow that to happen, and that’s okay. Like mentioned earlier, it’s all about adaptation. You have accept what you cannot change; either that which is virtually impossible, or the consequences dramatically outnumber the gain. So yes, parkour requires equipment: clothing and shoes. However, when it comes down to it, it doesn’t even count. You have to own these things anyway, no matter who you are. While some shoes may give an advantage over others and some clothing might be less restricting, it’s practically irrelevant. Once again: adaptation. You can make do with your situation and still be a great traceur. In fact, having this mentality and being able to overcome your situation already puts you on a path to being such. So, not only is there no restriction to allowing you to start practicing parkour, but it’s a pastime. It’s amazing. Because it costs basically nothing, and can occupy your time very easily, any economic status can take part in it.
Secondly, there’s the pastime aspect. Beautifully, you’re overriding a human-progression-brought-on flaw: boredom. You can go see a movie with your friends for at least six dollars per viewing, and have a great time, but you will run out of money at a certain point. Or, ironically enough, run out of time, leaving you dissatisfied once more, because you enjoy it so much and cannot continue enjoying it. However, parkour is endless. The point is to always adapt and move in the best way possible, and trains you mentally and physically. And while it can be taxing on a traceur/traceuse, it’s still fun.
The feel-good aspect is one of the main reasons you rarely see “drop outs” from parkour. Many of athletes in the conventional sports today at some point give it up. From ‘extreme’ sports like skateboarding, to age-old team/point-based sports like baseball, the majority of the athletes will leave eventually. They get stuck in a rut where they feel no improvement, the sport gets boring and monotonous, or the pressures, responsibilities, injury, time consumption, and cost become too great. There can be other reasons as well. Traceurs never get entangled in all of this, though. Improvement occurs every time you train. The goal is adaptation and progress, and never bores you. There’s no pressure because there’s no competition. The responsibilities are few to none, and just come naturally with respect for one’s own body, own species, and own environment. With the easily accessible information on parkour via the internet, one will learn very quickly about proper training regiments, being safe, correct technique, and therefore minimal injury. One can practice it on his or her own time, and more likely than not, it becomes their lives, and everything else has to fit around it. Finally, it costs virtually nothing. The best combination of positives is this: because it requires no money, and keeps you occupied, it doesn’t require one to have a high paying, time-devouring occupation. A job that’s sufficient enough to pay for necessities is all that’s needed. So, as a pastime, it can easily be classified as the best.
And while that’s good and plenty, it rarely stops there. Not after long, it becomes the traceur/traceuse’s lifestyle. The mental aspect seeps into other portions of the practitioner’s life. Simply summed up, because the practitioners are constantly looking at things with a different perspective that normal, and are formulating the most efficient way to handle the situation, they look at everything else the same way, bettering their lives.
A quick overview. A traceur is living a humble yet satisfying life. He works at a job that he enjoys, regardless of pay, since money isn’t really an obstacle. Any spare time away from working or handling necessities is devoted to practicing parkour, or strength/body training for it. In doing so, he’s constantly reaching a higher mental state as well as physical, induced by the entire philosophy of parkour itself. This affects the other parts of his life, furthering his self-improvement. It’s such a simple lifestyle, yet it’s complex how entirely satisfying it is.
Awaking primal instincts, constantly adapting, taking on a mentality of pure, one hundred percent efficiency, getting the exercise to keep the body in superb working order, not allowing the toxins of today’s lazy world to affect them, traceurs/traceuses transcend above all the rest, and ironically do so by abandoning everything that’s even the slightest bit unnecessary. By dropping nearly everything, they appear to be lowering themselves. Our silly little world doesn’t understand.
Simplicity: the greatest tool to rise above the rest
*So, here’s a message, task, and request to any and all traceurs that read this. Show the rest of the world what it’s like, take time to explain to them the truth behind it all. Let them know that youtube videos don’t represent what it’s truly about. Disillusion their ideas of ‘parkour’ just being a bunch of people climbing around. Shatter their misguided thoughts.
Finally, don’t stop there. Teach them. Train them. Allow them to enjoy the beauty that is parkour.
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