Lack of imagination is the only obstacle.

After nearly a year off regular Parkour training and 6 months off blogging I found myself feeling that I have misunderstood the whole point of this Parkour lark entirely. I think in light of this and after the last post there needs a wee afterword.

Right now I feel like im waiting. Waiting to not mind that when I see Parkour, and wonder at what an amazing feat of human intention it, that I have stopped being part of it, not mind that I didn't find a way to carry on, or to accept that I took a good decision to stop.

Recently I watched the You Tube video of Rendevous when Annty is translating a question and answer moment...the point was made ' you must know why you practise because you put yourself in danger '. I think this is a really good point that can be overlooked when your high as kite and feeding off the adrenaline of a good training period. In my position of not training right now I turned the question around to ask 'you have to know why you don't train?'. And to that there is no good answer.

It makes no sense to continue spending time on Parkour training when I'm so very busy with things I love, spending money on training when money can be a struggle, spending energy when at times I can feel exhausted, nor does it make sense to take these risks when I have more than I could have wished for around me. It makes no sense when your highest ideal is freedom and biggest source of happiness is feeling physically free, able, strong and healthy to risk disabling yourself with a broken bone, a broken back, or potentially a permanent loss of function.

But this rationality itself is nonsensical and fits with nothing I value in this world. I'd much rather hug a tree, wave some incense not to mention write an overly emotional blog:.). Yep, im only rational when i'm terrified.

Last years blog started with a question about commitment and the research of it through training in Parkour. Commitment is a decision you take, correct?; a promise you make and then fulfill so that your word means something. By putting a timeframe on it e.g 'I will train and blog for a year' you put a safety net around the decision to uphold your behaviour, you live with it, you have a way out....and your word still means something as you only promised a year.

But its not this. The commitment was a reaction to something you value, in truth much more about committing to yourself than to anything outside of you, not about doing what you say but living what you value. Many things come and go but that feeling of insight and connection doesn't really, it seems you just lose sight of it because when you return it is just as and where you left it. A commitment is nothing unless you stick with it even when it makes absolutely no sense, no sense at all. I wondered if it was a question of faith and then I saw Daniel Ilabaca's 'Choose not to Fall' (which is really worth seeing) and decided that it was. Not a faith in God in the way I see it but that there is more to this world than it seems and more potential in people, in yourself, than you can imagine.

To live up to true Parkour spirit would take much longer than a years trial period, more like a lifetime. I couldn't carry on training in the way I was but that doesn't mean I have to stop. Who cares if someone else wouldnt call it 'proper Parkour' or even very good Parkour. If I want to be strong and be free of the envirnoment, or maybe freed by it, I imagine it would require a shift away from an obsession with improving and achieving and toward and more gentle but unfaltering persistence in not giving up. In finding a way to just keep going, lack of imagination is the only obstacle.