Me and Parkour...

Why do I train Parkour?

I've been asking myself a lot recently - Why do I train Parkour? Well, there isn't one set answer as to why I train Parkour. Firstly because my reasons always seem to change. Secondly because there is so much I get from Parkour - there are so many reasons to train.

Now I understand that many people train Parkour for different reasons. There are people who just train Parkour for the thrill and may move onto another 'hobby' in a couple of years time. And I know that there are others who train Parkour in hope of much more. For example, Blane has told me that he doesn't want to regret not seeing/doing things when he is older because of 'barriers' placed in his way unless I am very much mistaken.

My reasons are different to his. I train Parkour for fun. I am sure there are a lot of other people who train for these reasons but don't want to say it. The greatest part of Parkour is the sense of achievement you get from a hard weekend of training or a set goal that has been accomplished. Is this not fun? I'm not going to pretend that Parkour 'is my life'. I don't like it when I hear other people saying that. For me, there is a lifestyle that comes with training Parkour and taking the discipline seriously. However, I believe that there is more to life than Parkour.

Parkour is a great thing because it can give you the motivation and confidence to complete other tasks in everyday life. I believe that Parkour is a huge chunk of me, but not me entirely. It has changed me an incredible amount. The main changes in myself have been psychological and emotional. These changes have helped me to achieve things I would never have achieved before. This is why Parkour is such a huge part of me.

In life, I believe that we should try/do/accomplish/see/meet as many different kinds of things/people/places as possible. We are only here for a lifetime and have an infinite amount of things to see and do! If a person devotes his/her life to Parkour completely, they are not living their life to the fullest. However, this is just my opinion. There are things in life I haven't done/had yet. I believe that Parkour is something that has stopped me from doing these things.

I hope this has explained why I don't believe 'Parkour is me'. There is so much more in life and I hope people can realise that. Have fun with it, train hard, stay out of trouble, let it improve yourself as a person but don't let it take over your life - you're only here for a short time.



What do I want in life?

While this is a Parkour blog, I feel that this is a good place to talk about what I want in life.

There are many things I'd like to see and do. Mostly, I would like to visit a 3rd world country and spend time there helping other, more unfortunate people. I hope to do this in between college and university. (I'd better start planning really). I have been thinking about it quite a lot and have decided I would like to spend 6 months in a poorer country doing voluntary work, and 6 months travelling. I would like very much to visit New Zealand and Japan especially. This is likely to be something I would do on my own. There is so much more for me to see than Leicester!

When I have finished University, I would like to complete the 'Marathon Des Sables'. A race across the Sahara Desert over a time period of 6 days. I saw this on Newsround (haha) about a year ago and decided I needed to do this. That is a long term goal though. In 2008 I hope to do some charity events - If anyone has any original ideas let me know!

Just so you all know, I got into the college I hoped for and am doing Sport and PE and Biology in hope of doing Sports Science at Loughborough University. I have wanted to pursue a career in sport my entire life so I'm really looking forward to starting college next week.

Now you all know where I am at with Parkour and life, I'm gonna end my ramble here.

Have fun everyone x