I have heard it said before that “parkour is about overcoming obstacles, such as fear” but have only recently began to understand its meaning.
The other day at a jam, everyone was doing this cat leap. It looked fun and was quite impressive. Having watched everyone else do it successfully, I was going to give it a try. However, the very thought seemed to make me frightened. I wasn’t sure why, after all, the worst that could happen would be that I slipped and didn’t quite reach it. For a while I was considering not doing it at all but it just seemed stupid. Everyone else was doing it. So I did.
The first time I tried it, I chickened out at last minute and ended up landing nowhere near where I wanted to. But that was to be expected. It was my first time trying it and I was hesitant. The second time I was still quite hesitant but I still went for it. Afterwards, I realised that that was a bad idea. Due to the fact that I didn’t quite throw myself at it, I didn’t quite reach the top of the wall and my feet ended up rebounding off at an awkward ankle, bending my foot back. It was then that I realised that I was actually a lot safer to just go for it instead of being too careful.
Fortunately I came out of it okay and on my third go, I decided that I needed a new technique. So what I did was look away from the wall, and what I was about to do, and just ran. Then, in the last second, I looked up at the wall and I felt my hands grab the top, leaving me able to climbed up.
It was an incredible feeling, I had done it. It wasn’t because I had proved to everyone else that I could do it, or because they were congratulating me, rather it was because I had overcome my own obstacle.