Sneaky & Greedy Monster

We often hear a voice that says, “You’re not good enough. You’re not prepared. You can't do it. You’re going to fail”, whenever we dream about achieving something. This voice, like a monstrous opponent in a wrestling match,  pushes us down and beat us to a pulp with it’s running commentary when we struggle to stand up against it. This voice in our head is called Self Doubt.

Self doubt is a sneaky and greedy monster. Sometimes, we just can’t contain it and it slips past our boundaries. When it escapes from its boundary, it starts to feed on our confidence, robs logic from our minds and steals happiness from our hearts. In return, it leaves us with fear and insecurity.

One of the common ways to fight Self doubt, is to think positively. But in most cases, it doesn’t work as it's supposed to. The more we fight, the more it fights back. But with proper understanding and self knowledge, we can use Self doubt as a stepping stone to progress in our lives and achieve our dreams.

Self doubts vs my dreams

When I was in my 1st year of Engineering, I started learning Parkour. Soon, I fell in love with it and I always look forward to going to the Park and starting my practice. During my 3rd year of college, I decided to take up Parkour as my profession. The elders in my family were quick enough to pull me back, away from my dream.

“Parkour is great but you can’t make a living out of it. As an art, Parkour is a nice hobby but its not a realistic life goal. You’ll just be another failed artist and we don’t want you to blame us in the future for not stopping you from taking this path.”
They used their life experiences as examples and made me believe that if an adult says something, it must be true. I was convinced to a point where I told myself, “Parkour is my passion but it can never become my profession. I’ll never be as good as the professionals, anyway.”

I then decided it's safe not to take up Parkour as my profession and began thinking that only a desk job would get me respect and money. But the truth is, I was afraid of what people would think and say. I was afraid that I would become a failure in life. These fears caught hold of me and took me far away from my beloved dreams.
But it didn't stop there. It started to spread like an infection. I started to question my knowledge and abilities in Parkour itself.

Later, I realised that I should question my doubts and answer them instead of beating myself up or giving up on my dreams. I realised that Self doubt was not a greedy monster. It’s just a lost animal secretly crying out for help. Just like our other emotions, Self doubt is an emotion and we should learn to understand it instead of fighting with it. Meaning, we need to understand the root cause of our insecurities and take the necessary steps to find solutions to our fears.

Understanding self doubts and finding solutions

When I first saw this spot at Varanasi, I was wondering whether I could flip over this gap. I measured the distance and tried to flip beyond the same distance on the ground level first. It was easy for me, but I kept doing it again and again to make sure that nothing can go wrong.

After spending a few hours on the ground level, I moved on to the rooftop to attempt it. But as soon as I saw the gap and the drop, I started to doubt myself. That voice in my head started to say things like “ You can’t do it”, “You are not prepared for it”, “What if something goes wrong?”
Instead of fighting it back or blindly accepting it, I decided to address all the questions first. Instead of telling myself I can’t do it, I said, “I calculated the distance and I also did the flip at ground level at a distance longer than this gap. I checked the take off and landing surfaces. I’m all prepared."

Thereafter, I started to focus on my previous successful roof gap flip. Focusing on our Successes and achievements, big or small, when we are down, will definitely help boost our confidence and help us progress. After about 2 hours of conversing with the voice in my head, I finally felt like I was all prepared. I attempted the flip with a calm mind, devoid of any doubts and fears.

Like joy, happiness, fear and sadness, self doubt is a part of human nature. It will always be there and visit us whenever we try to move out of our comfort zone and attempt to achieve something great. We need to understand that it's just a thought and not our future.

You might ask what if something goes wrong. Sure, that's a probability. But it’s not certain. But if I never try, I’d be missing an opportunity to progress.

 I’m not willing to take that risk. Are you?

Who is Parkourpaiyan?

Hi. I'm Vignesh Raghavan and I love meeting new people. Mostly because at some point during the conversation we get to share what we do for a living. And I get some of the best reactions. Confusion, wonder, fear and sometimes even anger.

What you just saw is called Parkour and I do it professionally.

Confused?

As were my parents when I dropped the bomb on them. I was in my first year of engineering when I fell in love with Parkour. And it wasn’t until my final year that I realised and told my family that I wanted to pursue it professionally. And as you might expect, my house had turned into a nuclear reactor for the next few days.

When things started to gradually settle down, they understood what I am now about to attempt to make you all understand - that Parkour is, NOT AT ALL just about climbing buildings externally and jumping on rooftops. What it is, is basically, a form of art. An art, that encourages you to explore your environment, as you explore your body and expand your limitations.

What you see here is Parkour.

But what you see here, is also Parkour.

If there’s one thing about Parkour that I can say with certainty, it’s that, no one has ever started off with jumping over rooftops or climbing big walls. In fact, the journey is rather slow. We train to condition our bodies and strengthen them to take impacts of small jumps before we move to the bigger ones. And believe it or not, most practitioners do not even want to attempt rooftop jumps. Ninety percent of Parkour training revolves around strengthening, conditioning, reflexes, flexibility, coordination and balance. It’s a discipline, that aims at making one strong and fast, while also boosting one’s mental strength and confidence along the way.

As I trained Parkour, I grew strong physically. Big surprise, right? However, what kept me glued to Parkour, was how it was challenging my mind, as much as it challenged by body. The thought process involved in attempting a movement prepares you to face any kind of obstacles in your real life. As for me, I matured as an individual. I made responsible decisions. I became more aware, conscious, patient and strong. I had control over my mind and body.

But, it wouldn't make sense if I said that everyone who trains Parkour would feel the same way as me. It impacts differently on each individual. To some, it’s about growing stronger. To some, it’s about becoming faster. To some, it’s about feeling the comfort in moving. To some, it’s about pushing their boundaries. To some, it is a way of life, and to some, an escape from life.

My friends and family saw its impact on me. They understood it had nothing to do with thrill-seeking. They grew to become by strongest support system.

The society on the other hand, could NOT have been more hostile and discouraging. Short of pelting stones at me, everything else was said and done to prevent me from pursuing my passion. I channelled by grief and anger into getting better at Parkour. When I started practicing Parkour in 2010, we were merely a bunch of friends jumping around at Nageshwara Rao Park watching Youtube videos. We enjoyed training and learnt everything the hard way. Tables started turning for us as we received offers to train Armed Forces and play roles in films. My team and I started our own Parkour training Academy. The society that thought of me as a disgrace, became proud of me.

At my lowest of times, I wanted to feel like a hero - a superhero. So I fashioned a Superhero name for myself. I called myself “Parkourpaiyan”, which, if you speak my native language - Tamil, you’d know, translates to “Parkour boy”. I started uploading videos on social media. Soon, I began receiving appreciation from the Indian Parkour community and started getting recognised as Parkourpaiyan. And in that moment, I became my own superhero.

I realised that, with a bit of encouragement, a lot of dedication and a truck-load of perseverance, we can all be superheroes. We train all kinds of Superheroes everyday.

Superheroes that are 5 years old, Superheroes that are 65 years old, Superheroes with special needs, Superhero moms, Superhero dads, Superhero lawyers And of course, Superhero Engineers.

Parkour does NOT discriminate. We are all superheroes!

As Early Men, our ancestors knew how to move around, over, under and through various obstacles. Somewhere, as jungles turned to concrete, and as technology took over, we got lazy and regular movements began to seem like difficult and impossible tricks. We’ve forgotten our own capabilities. It’s time we brought back the Early Man buried deep within us. It’s time we unleashed the inner child within us. Go out. Have child-like fun. Explore. Play. Be your own Superhero.
As the saying goes - We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old, because we stop playing!

- Parkourpaiyan

My true inspiration

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmlhappnCBg/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=vgoovvq6rwic

Sometime in 2010, I watched a movie called District B13 by David Belle . I was in awe seeing the way he performed stunts in that movie. It was something that I had never seen before in films but all the movements he performed seemed so familiar to me. Yeah, it was just like how monkeys and cats moved.

As a kid, I enjoyed climbing doors, gates and small walls in my house instead of playing games. I always wanted to move like monkeys and cats. Watching them climbing trees, jumping from one place to another gave me so much energy and inspired me move like them.

Animals are great movers because it’s their only way to survive. They hunt in order to get something to eat or escape from their predators. In order to survive, they had no choice but to develop the most powerful, fast, precise and controlled movements with only thing in mind - EFFICIENCY. Their livelihood completely depends on efficiency. They not only move efficiently, but also learn by playing (like small cats and monkeys), and develop their training methods to improve their skills.

I had a number of reasons to watch them. Even today, I enjoy watching the way animals move. By doing so, we could find a new technique, improve the ones we already use and even improve our training methods. Parkour is a human concept but animals were practicing and doing it for ages in order to survive, which is what makes them the pioneers of efficient displacements.

Open your eyes and look at animals as teachers. They have a lot of things to teach us .

FEAR IS GOOD

Here's a video of me doing a Double Kong Vault on bars.  

https://www.instagram.com/p/BlxY56whpHw/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=1m3zqctveb7lr


It literally took me one hour to commit this Double Kong. I was training alone and went through so many emotions during that hour. It was a small but tricky double kong because my legs might hit the bar above the first bar while attempting this movement. Usually when I do a double kong, I stretch out my legs completely and get into a handstand-like position after doing the first Kong. So in order to do this Kong, I needed to keep my legs tucked. I kept trying again and again, fell down a lot of times, but I couldn't do it properly. The thing was - I knew I could do this. But the fear of hitting my legs on the above bar was stopping me and I couldn't commit at all. I got upset and angry at myself because I wasn't committing to it. I started to focus on what could go wrong and how badly I could get injured. At one point, I even thought of giving up. But then I realised that my fear was taking over me and not letting me step out of my comfort zone, not letting me do something that I knew for sure I could.

I told myself I had to step out of my comfort zone and overcome that fear. If I gave up today and tried it another day, I would still face the exact same fear. I'd be at the same position, giving myself reasons to not do it. I had the strength and technique to do that movement, so I told myself I couldn't let fear stop me from doing that double kong today. I believed in my training and in myself. I closed my eyes and started to picture myself doing that Double Kong perfectly. I gained confidence and started to focus on the movement and not on falling or getting injured. I opened my eyes, took a deep breath and started running without giving myself time to let fear stop me from trying. After a lot of attempts and a lot of falling down, I did everything as I pictured and landed properly.

I was so happy and excited after landing. I felt like I had achieved something great. I then realised that that feeling of achievement, excitement and happiness I was feeling was only because I had decided to step out of my comfort zone.

Fear is a good thing. It provides a door to so many opportunities. It gives us happiness, makes us excited, teaches us to believe in ourselves, gives us the feeling of achieving something great in life and also exposes our physical and mental strength.

Fear shouldn't stop us from going for what we actually want. It shouldn't restrict us from doing what we want to do. It shouldn't stop our progression. Due to staying safely inside our comfort zones, we often forget to try new things. We should stop allowing the word "FEAR" to become scary.

Let fear into your life. Don't avoid it. Face it and learn to overcome it in a progressive way. But always remember, do one thing everyday that scares you. It can be anything. A jump that you know you can do but are scared to attempt. If you're scared of dogs, then try to make friends with your friend's or neighbour's dog. If you're someone who's scared of heights, then stand on something tall.

Face your fears and overcome them. Step out of your comfort zones and enjoy everything that fear provides. It will definitely make you a stronger and more confident person.

Peace.

Parkourpaiyan

Understanding and overcoming failure

You only fail when you fail to get up after you fall. We are all familiar with this strong and common quote. We come across failure at some point in our lives and it is impossible to not face it, especially in Parkour. Some people limit their progression because they are scared of failure. They simply don't try a jump because they are afraid to fall. They always think about the consequences of failure. There are so many excuses a person can find in order to not try something new and progress - fear of getting hurt, fear of embarrassing yourself and fear of losing what we already know to name a few. Some do try, but when they face failure after a few attempts, they accept defeat and give up. And the worst part about failure is that it leaves a mark. It becomes a frightful experience and the fear of it paralyses us and makes us unable to try again.

So how can you overcome fear and achieve your goal if you let it slow your progression down or even stop you from trying again? After working so hard to achieve your goal, if you come face to face with your fear, what do you do? Do you stop? Or do you work towards overcoming it?

The reason why many people don't progress after a point is because they get tired of failing after making several attempts. They even start believing that the saying 'try and try until you succeed’ is exaggerated and the one who came up with it didn’t know what it feels like to fail.

That's precisely where the problem starts. They fail to understand that simply trying and trying harder every time leads us nowhere. One must have the passion and desire to achieve what they want. They must be ready to put in more hard work to achieve it and  understand what exactly made them fail and work towards correcting it or getting better at it.

I want to narrate a small incident that happened to me recently. At the park where I usually train, I saw  a few small round tables and I decided to do a Kong vault on one table and Side Roll on the one next to it. I asked one of my student's to shoot a video of me doing those movements. I was over confident that those two movements were quite simple and that I would be able to do them with no trouble. When I attempted them, I couldn't roll on the second table properly and I kept falling down. After so many attempts I got too frustrated and started making mistakes and injured myself.

The fear of getting injured made me stop trying. This fear and overconfidence didn't even allow me to ask myself,”why am not able to roll properly?” and “where am I doing the mistake?”. I accepted failure by convincing myself that the table was too low for me to roll and that's why I was falling.

But the guy who was filming me focused on my mistake and he came to me and said “Anna (brother), you're jumping up and out after the Kong vault and that's why you're not able to roll. Try to roll on the bench without jumping. I think you'll get it.” I did it as he said and I was able to land properly, which made me realise that I had failed to focus on my mistake and I was trying over and over  again without really understanding what had to be done to achieve it.

I face failure every single day during my training and it teaches me a new lesson every time.

So guys, never give up and keep trying till you succeed, but also remember to focus on your mistakes and work towards correcting them. Don't let the fear stop you from moving forward or from achieving your goals.

It takes time to understand what Parkour has to teach but with patience, a lot can be learnt.

Parkourpaiyan

Parkour / Freerunning is not Gymnastics

Lately on social media, there is an ongoing dispute about FIG’s (International Federation of Gymnastics) claim on Parkour / Freerunning. All the Traceurs and Traceuses across the globe are standing against FIG and don’t want them to take over Parkour / Freerunning.  

A lot of my friends and non practitioners ask me why we (Traceurs / Traceuses) are against the FIG when this art could get a lot of exposure through the FIG, why we don’t want Parkour / Freerunning to become an Olympic sport. 

Even a few practitioners have no idea what's actually going on. So I want to explain to my friends and fellow practitioners about this issue.

Why are we against the FIG?

The FIG is the governing body of competitive Gymnastics. They have the authority and control over the format of the sport (Gymnastics), governing rules and regulations etc. They now want to create a sport using the essence of Parkour / Freerunning and bring in the values of Gymnastics.  This will remove the very nature of Parkour / Freerunning - facing the real world obstacles, and it will make it an indoor only sport, by replacing the obstacles with simple structures and by defining rules and regulations and by standardizing it.

So, why are we against this?

Before answering this question, I want to explain the difference between Parkour and Freerunning. Even though they look the same, they are completely different and have their own unique techniques.

Parkour is a discipline of training to overcome any obstacles in your path / life, using your body and mind - Whether it's a physical obstacle that is in your way or a mental obstacle that is not allowing you to achieve what you want and is preventing you from moving forward. Parkour is all about moving efficiently.

Freerunning is the addition of creative movements to Parkour. It is about moving in style and exercising one's freedom of expression through movement. So, Freerunning can include many arts like Gymnastics, Martial arts, Dancing, Tumbling etc...

I’ve been training both Parkour and Freerunning for 7 years now. I enjoy doing both. Both these forms of art don't have any set of rules, they can be practiced anywhere and by anyone. Age, weight, height and gender don't matter at all and that's what makes them special and that, in my opinion, is the main reason why people fall in love with these arts.

Whatever it is that I train, call it Parkour or Freerunning or anything else, I do it only because it allows me to move freely as I want. I personally feel that there shouldn't be any standardization or rules on how to perform a movement in order to get as many points as possible. We (Parkour / Freerunning practitioners) never wanted to be better than someone else. Our goal is always to be better than who we were yesterday. That is the spirit of this art and that's what holds us together.

The main reason why we don't want Parkour / Freerunning to be standardized is the variety within it. It's not a strictly set discipline. We can do various sorts of things as we want. Sometimes it’s strength, sometimes it’s speed and there's always the creativity aspect, which means that we can always come up with a new and different movement.

Whenever I train my students, I keep telling them that there's no such thing as the right or wrong way to do a movement.  You can move in your own, comfortable way and with a little creativity, the possibilities of overcoming an obstacle are endless. This is what training is all about. Finding your own limit and training to overcome it and be better than you were yesterday, not to get better than someone else.

I'm really worried that kids and adults in the future will start training Parkour / Freerunning just to compete with each other, win a Gold medal and to be the World Champions. I'm also worried that it will completely kill the friendliness of this art if it turns into a competitive sport. Parkour / Freerunning is a relatively new art and it has only just started growing slowly and getting exposure through social media. Practitioners come up with new movements and modified versions of existing movements everyday and encourage the entire community to learn them. Parkour is a friendly sport where we encourage, share ideas and help each other do something that we are afraid to even try.

There is no such thing as losing in this art. Everybody is a winner and a champion and that's because we compete with ourselves and not with others. We progress everyday, we get better everyday, we win against our own selves and we become champions that way. So there is absolutely zero possibility of giving up in this art. We learn new things, we fail and we learn from our mistakes and try it again. We take our own time, progress slowly and keep trying again and again, till we master a movement. There is no pressure in learning the movement before someone else does or before the date of a competition.

When it becomes a competitive sport, the true essence of this art will be completely lost. People will start comparing themselves with others, competing with others, and they will start giving up when they don't win despite several attempts. I know a lot of people who were into athletics once but have quit because they hadn't been able to win and become champions. Parkour is not meant to be competitive. Parkour is meant to be friendly and encouraging. Parkour is meant to be motivational. It is meant to help you figure yourself out, figure out the best way to approach something, the best way around an obstacle, how to overcome your fears. Let us not allow it to be torn apart. Let us not allow it to be stripped of its spirit. Let us keep Parkour safe.

Nevertheless, no matter what happens, no one can stop me from doing what I love to do and sharing the wonderful things I have learned from this art.

#WEARENOTGYMNASTICS

- Parkourpaiyan

What is whey protein?

This morning started off like any other. Wake up, drink my healthy home-made, organic protein drink, work out, have breakfast, go to work, the usual. Little did I know that I would have the pleasure of speaking to an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. To my surprise, I received his phone call out of the blue. We were excited to catch up on old times, discuss our current lives, jobs and a lot of other things that are not quite relevant to the instant topic of discussion. So let me cut straight to the relevant portion of our conversation. When I asked him what he was up to besides work, he responded that he had started going to a Gym to build his muscles. I was shocked on hearing that because he used to be that guy who didn't want to do any kind of workout even by mistake. In the beginning, I thought he was kidding. So I started asking him questions like what his Gym was called, how much they charged, where it was, etc. The way he answered my questions made me believe that he was not bluffing, but that didn't stop me from questioning him. I wanted to make sure that he didn't take the shortcut blinded by his desire for building muscles. So I asked him if his trainer had advised him to take any fat-burners or steroids. He said, “No, but they have asked me to take Whey protein”. I felt relieved because 90% of the Gyms in my city advise their clients to take fat-burners and steroids to get quick results and I didn't want my friend to put rubbish like that in his body. I have noticed that most people take them because they want to take the SHORTCUT and they expect QUICK RESULTS.

The next question I shot at him was, “What Whey are you taking?” because I wanted to know whether he knew what was going inside his body and whether it was good or bad for him; or if he was taking it simply because his trainer had advised him to take it. As expected, he didn't have a clue what Whey was. He had no idea if it was Whey concentrate or isolate. He said his trainer had given him a big box of supplement and asked him to take it and he was following that. I then started explaining to him what Whey protein was and what made it special. But he didn't have time to continue the conversation because he was speaking from his office. So he asked me to explain and send it as an e-mail and he told me that he would read about it when he got the time. So I figured, why not blog about it instead so a greater number of people can benefit from the information I provide?

Before I share my knowledge about Whey protein, I want to make it abundantly clear that I'm not any kind of Nutritionist or Scholar in respect of Diet supplements. I'm only hereby sharing the knowledge that I gained either from somebody or from a book or the internet.

So, what is Whey protein?

It is a type of protein that is naturally found in milk.  When mixed with Rennet, milk gets separated into 2 constituents.

1. Whey in its liquid form.

2. Left over that is often used to make cheese and casein.

The liquid Whey is then pasteurized and dried out to create that powdery product that we commonly see on supplement store shelves, “WHEY”.

What is in Whey that makes it so special?

Obviously, protein. And it also contains amino acids that contain

• Glutamine    
• Tyrosine    
• Arginine    
• Lysine    
• Glycine    
• Phenylalanine    
• Aspartic acid

In terms of building muscles, it also contains BCAA.

B - Branches

C - Chain

A - Amino

A - Acids

BCAA is largely comprised of Leucine. When our body is paired with weight training, it improves Muscle Protein Synthesis. Containing about 3g of Leucine per serving, Whey protein definitely improves muscle growth. The following amino acids in Whey form a large peptide which serves more health benefits.

• Immunoglobins    
• Lactoferrin

These 2 improve the immune system as well as have anti - cancer and anti - aging effects.

Is Whey 100% protein?

No, Whey is basically a dairy source. It naturally contains Fat and sugar Lactose. But there are several processes which can separate protein from fat and lactose. The problem is, some of the most intense separation processes like

• Ion exchange &
• Hydrolysate

tend to denature the protein, losing its added health benefits. This is done merely for the sake of making it predominantly protein and to make it easier to digest.

What are the types of Whey?

1. Whey concentrate
2. Whey isolate

Whey concentrate has 80% Protein and the rest of it is Fat and Lactose. Lactose serves as an energy source. People who are not Lactose intolerant can take Whey concentrate.

Whey isolate is generally prescribed for those who are lactose intolerant. It has 90% Protein with limited denaturation and little or no Lactose. Both these powders will have added flavor, which means, it contains added sugar.

Should I take Whey protein?

It totally depends on the diet you follow. If you are someone who wants to lose weight and gain muscles, then Whey Protein might help you. But if you're getting enough Protein from your regular diet, you don't need to depend on any Protein supplement.

Feel free to share your thoughts on Whey Protein in the comments below and also tell me why you do/don't take Whey protein.

Parkourpaiyan