Parkour is viewed for the most part as I feel in the US, a shell of what it is meant to be, apk spread it mostly as a physical fitness activity, which I kind of feel is the consensus of what the majority feel. I hope we all(the core) understand that this is not how it was meant to be, how parkour is a mental philosophy even moreso than physical a physical discipline, and that you can say that you understand, but saying and truly understanding are something completely different.
I want TXPK to spread the true understanding of parkour, 80% mental, efficiency, the philosophy of it, not treating it as a physical activity first, then mental second, its the opposite of what it was meant to be. If anything the physical manifestation of what how we train as parkour is our form of meditation, but maybe thats extreme to say, just a notion I've thought about recently. sure I don't have proof that perhaps its physicality is its majority but I definitely don't feel you can grow with that mentality. I want us to differ ourselves from it just being a physical discipline, it isn't its a far cry from that. Sure you do have to stress conditioning, incremental progression and these things, but what after that? you get physically stronger and you learn the movements, what the idea of parkour is, but if you don't experience it, live it, or try and become it you waste what you've created or instilled in someone for nothing, sure they may be happier for it, more healthy physically, but focusing on the physical body solely mutes the mental, eventually diminishing it into something like a dead flower, instead of having it blossom along with your body. Action without philosophy, means nothing; to be, and to last. Simple saying with a deeper meaning. What use is muscle if there isn't a tangible, useful thought behind it?
I know I've been affected by parkour through every fiber of my entire being, efficiency, control, awareness is ingrained in me, I get extremely self conscious of myself when I'm not doing the most efficient thing when its needed, almost how someone with stage fright becomes brutally aware of the crowd. This is how much parkour is a part of me, it is me, its in me, I feel it, I'm always aware of what my body is doing, but this is all thanks to my mind. I don't just think, oh time to go training, get in parkour mode, no I try and always be in that mode, that mindset. You can be practicing Parkour without ever moving a muscle, and I don't mean imagining yourself moving through the environment(though there is nothing wrong with that). We preach how much the mindset is what parkour is, not the movements, but I feel we've slacked a ton in that and that not a lot of us even practice in that way. We need to stray from selling the shell of parkour I feel and offering what it for what it is.
This is how I feel, I'd like to hear your guys input, and if something doesn't make sense just ask me to elaborate and I'd do the best I can, I know this is definitely very much a rambling rant of sorts. Maybe what I feel is not parkour anymore but who knows. its what I feel and the only way I can describe it. its how i feel it should be.
