A Questionnaire About Parkour

Earlier today, a friend of mine posted a questionnaire on Parkour Indonesia Forum. He said that a student from University of Nantes (France) asked him for a help to forward the questionnaire. I've answered it all and I guess it's quite worth to be shared on my blog. So, happy reading!

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How did you learn about parkour?
I watched Yamakasi when I was on high school.

How did you start training parkour?
I seek for information regarding Parkour community in Jakarta and started to train with them.

What were your motivations at the time?
I'm seeking for awesomeness and I think it's cool if I can jump around like that.

Why are you practising parkour now?
I want to be useful for myself and the others in any condition by train a good physics and mental.

What are you getting out from parkour? in the physical and mental aspect?
Physical: I'm absolutely stronger and fitter than myself a year ago.
Mental: I'm getting more creative in seeing things and I've trained to think fast.

Has parkour changed things in your life?
Yes, parkour teaches me to be discipline in every aspects, my toughts, my decisions, my timekeeping.

Could you please resume your apprenticeship / learning process?
I'll summarize it all, at first, I realize that I'm just trained "the cool things" from parkour such as vaults, etc.. And I seek from some reference about training and other practicioners also suggest me to build a good physical strength first before I executed those moves.. Now I realized that all we need is the progress and our body is different one and each other, everybody have got their own progress and capabitilities.. It's not about jumping here and there, but it's how you train your body and your mind to approach a new environment without wasting so much time in adapting at it.

During your apprenticeship / learning process, have you been advised by more experience tracers? if yes, through what time of media (eg. internet, msn, forums, parkourday)?
Yes, I've been advised through forums, messengers, facebook and even some training sessions that attended by guest traceurs from overseas.

Are you advising or teaching less experienced tracers than you?
Yes, I think it's every traceur's responsibility to spread what we've got from Parkour in the right way.

What is your definition of parkour?
Parkour is a discipline that let everyone to express their creative mind and also strengthen their body in a less boring way. It's not about comparing yourself with one and another, but it's about comparing yourself with yourself in a year ago, a month ago, a week ago, or even yesterday. So it's all about progression.

From your experience, what is the first thing to learn if you want to start training Parkour? Why?
Absolutely we have to make sure that we understand what is Parkour. I mean the philosophy behind it. I'm almost sure that the most magnetic thing of Parkour is the cool jumps. But you'll get to a point where you're bored of doing all of that stuffs because it's just like a to-do-list that you've done. With the philosophy and a good understanding of Parkour, you'll be enjoying what you've done even what you're doing is just a repetitions.

From your experience, is it better to learn parkour with others or on your own? Why?
I think it's better to learn with others since you can share with the others what you've trained and what they've trained. You can get corrected and you probably could correct the others as well. In some conditions, it's also easier to get motivated if you train with the others.

From your experience, is it better to train a movement always at the same location or different locations? Why?
I'll pick to train in different locations. Why? Because by training in more different locations, we'll trained to do adaptation and we're absolutely need it if we're suddenly get into an emergency conditions. But training at the same location could also help us develop our creative mind, we'll explore it all until we'll reach a condition where we should get another location to train. :)

Do parkour days or other tracers meetings/jams contribute to the understanding of the discipline?
Absolutely!

When you are alone in front of an obstacle, how do you react?
I'll think and imagine how I approach it.

What are your methods or techniques to overcome your fears when standing in front of a scary jump?
If I think my body is ready to do that, I'll take one (or more) deep breath before I jump.

Have you ever done a jump or other movement knowing you would not succeed it? if yes could you describe it? what were your reactions and feelings afterwards?
Yes, I've done a gap jump some time in the past, I'm just curious because the others could do it. I've got no idea how to do the take off and do the landing well at that time. I run, I jump, and BANG, when I'm still in the air, I realized that I didn't jump quite far and it'll be a bad landing and rolling. I landed and rolled badly, but thank God I didn't get injured at all. Since that, I realized that I should train more and more to make myself ready to do that again.

Have you ever fallen? if yes, what was the impact of that fall in your mind?
Yes. When I fall, it's usually because I lost focus and I insisted to keep training even my body told me not to. Sometimes my mind will tell me, "you're almost there, keep trying!", and sometimes it tells me, "okay, you're done with it, you're alrady exhausted". So it's more like how we react when our body scream to us.

Have you ever done parkour videos? if yes, are they on the internet?
Yep, I've done some parkour videos and they're on the internet.

Does making videos was part of your motivation for training parkour? (don't lie noob)
Nope. I'm not really into showing a show reel or sampler or some other stuffs like that. When I make a video, I prefer to show them how I (and the others) trained so it'll be less show off-ing and more informative.

Has video of others helped your motivations or determination for training parkour?
Yes! I love the documentaries! :)

If you had to summarise parkour in a few words, which one would it be? (1 to 3 words max)
PROGRESS.