Parkour

I’m standing on the roof of my gym looking down at the mats in the parking lot twenty feet below. I close my eyes to prepare for the plunge and calm my nerves, though logically, I know that I won’t miss my target. I take a deep breath, bend my knees, and dive downwards into my flip…

For three years, I’ve been training parkour and freerunning. Initially, it was just another one of the nine sports I had previously attempted, but sometime during the first few months of learning the basics, my newfound hobby became an essential piece of my life.

Before parkour, I was a relatively unathletic middle-school kid with few friends and pretty low self-esteem. While there are a number of factors that contributed to my pre-parkour self, the biggest one is my home life, or more specifically, life with my older brother. He deals with ADHD, OCD, and minor Asperger’s. Because of this, throughout our lives, my parents have spent a lot of time on him, whether taking him to therapy or constantly arguing with him. At one point the tension peaked, with a screaming match between them practically every day. I began to distance myself by developing escape methods. The most prominent were spending time on my computer playing video games, talking with strangers, or doing extra studying.

At the time, I thought I was just really good at being independent: I almost never needed help with homework, found time to meet with my friends online, and never asked for anything. Later, however, I realized that this mindset only kept me inside my comfort zone, anxious to ask for any help. I retreated further into my online friendships because it was easier than face-to-face interactions. Thus, I had finished middle school with only one good friend to show for it.

My mother had always encouraged me to focus on three things: education, fitness, and music. After quitting swim (the competition was too cutthroat), she suggested that I find another sport. I came across the parkour community and decided to try it. Initially, I approached it as I had all the other sports–set a physical goal to see if I liked it, but I soon realized that this was not just a sport. After completing my mission in landing my first backflip on a trampoline, I quickly set out to learn a plethora of new skills: B-Twist, front-half, wall-flip, cork, and, of course, backflip on concrete (I now have all of these skills!).

At first, I was slow to overcome my shyness and social anxiety: mostly talking to my coach and a couple of classmates. But eventually, teaching new people and learning from strangers became commonplace at each training session. I realized that in all the other sports, I was just participating for my mom instead of my own aspirations. However, through parkour, I began to take pride in my own athleticism, and my self-esteem and confidence quickly rose. After all, doing a backflip on command isn’t uncool.

I also discovered the kind of healthy competition I’d always been craving. When I lost in basketball, football, baseball, lacrosse, swimming, soccer, boxing, sprinting, and long jump I felt like I was less valuable. Parkour competitions (jams) have a unique atmosphere. Everyone at a jam wants everyone else to improve, and if someone is better than you, they are usually excited to teach you whatever skill or variation they invented. I finally found a sport–a community–that resonated with me.

When I look back at the shy kid talking to strangers online, I don’t even recognize him. I am happier than I have been in a long time and have a thriving friend group. And though there are still ups and downs in life, I no longer let it overwhelm me. Flipping off of buildings has taught me to relish every moment, no matter how difficult I once perceived them.