The Power of Parkour & Other Pursuits.
{Photo via pinterest}
By Katherine Smith.
Okay, so I’ve never actually tried proper parkour, but I want to!
I think that everyone should.
I watched an awe-inspiring parkour documentary recently, and was captivated by the philosophy behind running freely through the environment around you.
It begins…
“We were hunters and foragers. The frontier was everywhere. We were bounded only by the earth and the ocean and the sky. Today, we go about our business, unencumbered by the frontier. Society guides us.
It gives us permission to drive on roads, to stop at red lights and go on green, but something’s not right. It often feels as if something is missing. As if the life that society has allowed isn’t quite enough.
We spend so much time planning for the future it seems we’re forgetting how to live in the moment, how to feel a deep and profound satisfaction with life. It was this feeling that led us to watch people in cities, trying to understand what guides them.
They typically did the same three things: Walk, sit and shop… Inner peace? Happiness, by just playing with your environment? No equipment to buy or no rules to follow? No walking, sitting or shopping required — just simple movement? That’s the key to inner peace and happiness? Really?”
These guys are on to something. As children, we have a natural curiosity about the world around us, we learn through exploring the environment that surrounds us in a way that is not restricted by rules that people, who think they know better, make up. We learn by trying and testing and failing and falling.
Then at some point, we think we have it figured out, and go and get jobs in offices. We allow ourselves to be boxed in.
We become boxed in by our houses, our rooms, our windows, our doors, our cars, our workspaces and the type of thinking that prevents us from breaking free. We are shut in and so we shut down.
There are boxes everywhere until we finally find ourselves in a box that we won’t find our way out of, buried deep in the ground. Life becomes a tale of containment instead of contentment.
Something magical happens when we move and breathe and be in our bodies. We forget all about straight lines, straightness and staying on the straight and narrow. We find a connection to something else, something outside of the system, that simply wasn’t designed to be put in a box.
It occurred to me that parkour, Yoga, surfing and skiing (and probably a multitude of other disciplines I haven’t thought to mention) have an awful lot in common.
Parkour is the art of moving through one’s environment as efficiently as possible, through continuous movement, flowing around and over obstacles that block your path, using only your own body. It requires strength, focus and determination.
Yoga is the practice of uniting body, mind and spirit through breath and movements that remove the physical, mental, emotional and energetic blocks which prevent us from seeing things as they really are and living our best life. It requires strength, focus and determination.
Surfing is a sacred dance with the sea. It requires… okay, you get it.
Skiing is skimming over where land meets sky and learning to fly.
Each demands that we master body and mind.
Each demands that we break out of the box and have the courage to go our own way, because remaining bound by social confines and norms will simply not get us over the wall/standing on our hands/riding a wave/sliding down a treacherously icy mountain at high speed with a couple of skinny sticks strapped to our feet.
We must be prepared to look outside of the box and think for ourselves, creatively. Our practice becomes boldly and playfully straying off the path (physically and metaphorically) so that we might return to a place of natural curiosity that came so easily when we were kids, all without expectation or judgment.
This is a call — to express ourselves freely and explode the structures that keep us in the box, making the environment our canvas, body and mind our art.
“To describe externals, you become a scientist. To describe experience, you become an artist.” ~ Timothy Leary
We have to be willing to let go and confront our fears, think fast and take decisive action. Hesitation will only find us blistered, bloody and toothless on the floor.
Life is carefully choreographed so that we cannot ever really know where the path leads; after all, everything is always in a state of flux. We start things, but rarely can we say with absolute certainty where we’ll end up. But like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, our choices and actions slot together perfectly.
If we pay close enough attention, stay open, and cultivate the awareness and courage to learn our lessons, we’ll be delivered to the insights that inform the next step.
Trying and being willing to fail while accepting the outcome is key to many spiritual teachings. Fucking up is a part of the process. Do, experience, learn, integrate. Try again!
The Bhagavad Gita teaches us to take action without attachment to the result. It reminds us that no matter how painful or pleasurable something appears, this is only an understanding that comes from our own thoughts and perceptions.
It is merely an interpretation of what might be real, based on our own worldview and experiences. So we must have the faith, courage and determination to hold steady in the pursuit of our own truth.
Patanjali tells us that the path to success can be found in the consistency of effort, over a long time, without interruption and performed with devotion — all without attachment to the result, the path in this context being Yoga. Success? Atman (unity with the supreme soul) and Ananda (bliss) through Moksha (liberation).
You see, the more we practice pushing our boundaries, the more of our potential we’re able to unleash. We discover our limits, then we explode and transcend them. After all, challenge is one of the most potent paths to transformation.
Just remember: the things that don’t come easy present the greatest opportunities for growth.
“Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what? It’s probably worth it.” ~ Alex Garland, The Beach
With these practices and pastimes, we are taking chances. Romancing risk. Dicing with death even. But, pushing alone isn’t enough.
We are opening ourselves up to the unknown and entering into a dance with the divine; it is an act of sweet surrender that allows us to experience an unparalleled sense of freedom. We experience something close to bliss.
Why? Because when we are out there in the wilderness, it’s just you, your body and your breath — your intuition and your intention harmonizing with the energy and the elements around you.
The experience is so intense that the mind goes silent. We are absorbed in our own peaceful presence and find ourselves in a place beyond the mind, where we are simply doing, going, flowing.
Gandhi said, “Happiness is when your body, thoughts and actions are in harmony.”
Nature is profoundly unpredictable. Our task is to respectfully discover it, tune in, spin and glide and ride it as a way of integrating it into ourselves until we become one with it in the moment. Alert. Infinite. Alive.
So that’s why I think everyone should learn parkour (or practice Yoga or surf or ski).
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*****
Katherine is a global nomad, a free spirit, a wild warrior yogi on a quest for her own truth. She is part of a new generation of women who are wild, wise, authentic and free. She has chosen to dismiss what society has dictated and instead pursue her own destiny. She is a devoted student of yoga with a travel addiction, a yoga teacher, an Ayurvedic chef, a life coach, a self-confessed foodie and an adrenaline junkie, with a healthy thirst for margaritas and moving her body in rhythm with a banging bassline. Besides writing two cookbooks, she is also the co-pilot of ‘Rebel Yogis’ who specialize in running yoga retreats and adventures in inspiring locations worldwide, and ‘Satya Creative’ — a brand development agency. She writes at Wild’n’Whole, a blog dedicated to inspiring change in you, through yoga, nourishment and unchained, unapologetic flourishing fabulousness and fun, so you too can live a luscious, luminous life of plenty. You could contact Katherine via her website.
{body + thoughts + actions = happiness}
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