Risk and Injury

To follow up the video posted previously, here's a bit more on a subject that David talked about. Risk and injury...mostly in relation to parkour.

Every time we train, we put our bodies at risk. Why? Is it because we are drunk-on-adrenaline youngsters who find it exhilarating? Well, partly, sure. But it is also because the risk is a necessary part of the training. Not to start any debates on technical terms...but in my eyes, parkour is not a sport...the same way that martial arts is not a sport (sport karate, etc. aside). In parkour, we do not train to be better during 'games'. There is no competition, no endgame. We train for real-life situations (not going to get into the 'why' of parkour, only the training 'for what'). If we trained the exact same skills in an indoor, padded, safe gym all the time, we would not be practicing parkour...we would simply be awkward gymnasts. Similar to what David points out in the interview, to practice boxing is not the same as learning how to fight. Thus, it is the same with us. To train for real-life situations (whatever they may be), we must practice in said real life. On rails. Across gaps. On sketchy terrain. On concrete. Training a 10 ft. precision jump on flat ground is NOT the same as training a 10 ft. from between two rooftops. Half of everything is mental.

The second reason is that in parkour, risk is a necessary consequence of challenge and progress. If an artist wants to challenge his skills, he draws something intricate or something he has never drawn before. If a gamer wants a challenge, he'll set the difficulty to 'Hard'. If a philosopher wants a challenge, he'll contemplate the reason why girls are so weird. When failure happens (as it inevitably does from time to time when we challenge ourselves), the artist can crumple up his paper and start anew...the gamer can reload/respawn and try again...the philospher can smoke some pot to clear his head from the confusion. For us (not that we are exclusive in this aspect), failure means falling, breaking, etc. That's just how it goes...this is the price you pay for progress. If you are comfortable with everything you do in parkour, you are doing it wrong. Thus, this fear of injury is not something to dwell on...it can not be something you dwell on.

Obviously, 'fear' is closely related to risk and injury. Fear is the greatest ally and the greatest enemy of any parkour practitioner. Balance on this issue is key. Listening to your fear and understanding it while not letting it control you. Listening to these fears helps prevent injury, helps us understand our strengths and weaknesses, and helps us gain a better insight into who we are and our perceived notions of ourselves vs. the truth. If you can understand the difference between your mind's 'perceived notions' of what you're capable of and what you're actually capable of, then you can control it. Obviously, this control of fear (as with most aspects of parkour) has many benefits in the rest of our lives as well.
Finally, to punctuate this discussion, below is a video of the afeared almighty injury. This was shot at a university in Hsinchu. This particular wallrun is bit tricky as you have to run up and twist your body at the last moment to reach the perpendicular ledge. After a few attempts, Sona and I made it up. However, after training a bit more at that spot, someone wanted to capture said feat on video. I opted out so Sona stepped up to the plate. He was getting tired and probably didn't listen (self-admittedly) to that nagging fact and its accompanying fear enough. Thus, his right arm comes up at a bad angle and smashes into the ledge.



Got himself a nice gushing gash and bruised bone...caused quite a scene in the bathroom.
These are scars we will gladly wear, as each one reminds us of a lesson learned.