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

Why do I do parkour?

Today after conducting a really fun parkour session at the park I returned with a mindset to do some

training at home. I couldn't train at the park with others as I was busy instructing and helping them. I returned home, took a short break, had something to drink and started to warm up outside my house and I heard a voice from behind "Why do you do parkour?"

I quickly turned back to find out who it was. It was my mom standing a few feet behind me with a confused face. With the same confused face, she then threw a few more questions at me. "Why do you always do it? You train in the mornings, evenings and sometimes at night also. Whenever you get time, you do it, no matter where you are. What makes it so special and why are you so obsessed with it?"

I was surprised by those questions because I have been doing parkour for more than 7 years now and no one has ever asked me such questions. But I was in the middle of my training and I didn't want to answer her questions then because I knew it would definitely take a long time to make her understand, which I didn't want to do during my training. So, in a sarcastic way, I replied to her, “Since I have been doing it for more than 7 years, it's hard to remember why I started doing it”. She gave me a weird look and turned away and continued with her work.  

               

After training for two hours, I went to her and said, “Now I remember. Sit, let me explain”. The following is how our conversation went after that.

Me: “What was your question again?”

Mom: “Why do you do parkour? What is so special about it?”

Me: “To me, parkour is just a natural thing to do. We're meant to be moving around and exploring the environment, exploring our bodies. So instead of going to a gym and lifting weights, I prefer moving around, climbing and jumping on things. It makes me feel free when compared to a regimented training. There's also a lot of mental challenges involved in Parkour. It's not just about whether my body is able to do it and whether I can focus and concentrate while trying to jump from one place to another but it's about a jump with something slightly different, like the landing area or landing a bit farther than my usual jumps or feeling tired while attempting that jump etc. All those things make it harder and there's always a mental battle going on during the training. I might just stand for 10 - 20 mins looking at the obstacle thinking about how to jump, what to do when I’m mid-air, when and how to land, what the possibilities of getting hurt are, how to make sure not to get hurt and how to land a jump safely. Something about having that mental battle feels really good, when I'm there fighting with my own mind where one part of me says, “I want to do this” and another says “I can't do it”, it helps me to get mentally strong and improves my confidence. I keep encouraging myself that I can do it and not to give up because of fear.

There is a whole range of benefits in parkour. Physically, it's good for me not just because I'm active and moving but it also does a lot of things that other sports or exercises don't.  Parkour helps me use all my muscles and joints at the same time and helps keep my entire body strong, mobile and flexible.

It also makes me think about what I'm doing. There are always different movement patterns. Sometimes, I need to experiment and create a new movement for a particular wall that I need to climb over and that has me thinking ‘what if my right leg goes here first?’, ‘how do I jump?’, ‘how and where should I place my hand?’, ‘which leg do I place down?’, ‘how can I get my feet through so that I don't have to push only with my shoulders or lead with my hips?’ and all those sorts of little things. And then there is a mental side of Parkour where I get to be playful, explore and be creative since there are no set rules. I can do whatever I want, go where I want, find my own challenges and solve them by myself. I like to jump a lot whereas some people like to swing, some like to climb and it's all part of this exploration.

Parkour is so special because it's totally different to each individual and there's no competition. When I train alone, it's just the environment and me and I always find some way to win my mental battles and complete a jump properly. But I also like to train with my friends because it's fun. When I train in a group, we all share ideas, encourage each other, and it's really good to help others and make them do something they are afraid to do. When I train with kids, it's more like playing together. Training doesn't need to be structured and that's what makes it special.

The reason why I would be doing parkour for a long time is the variety within it. It's not a strictly set discipline. I can do all sorts of things and always find new and different challenges. Sometimes it's strength, sometimes its speed and there's always the creativity aspect, which means that I can always come up with new and different movements"

After explaining to my mom for more than 10 mins, she said "Okay" and left the place. I'm not sure whether she understood what I said but she was showing interest, listening to everything and I'm happy that she asked me those questions and gave me an opportunity to analyse and explain why it is so special to me.

So now it's your turn to tell me why you do parkour! Go on :)

Parkourpaiyan

This is not parkour

I’m sure there are hundreds of blogs that define parkour.  I’m just trying to explain what it is to someone who finds it interesting and wants to learn this art.

First, let me explain what it is not.

7 years ago one of my friends showed me a video of a guy doing different kinds of flips, huge jumps from one building to another and dropping from great heights. As a nonpractitioner, I saw parkour as a sport where you run, jump, flip, climb, balance on higher surfaces and do things that people, especially our moms, tell us not to do.  I was so attracted to that and even before the video got over, I decided to learn it. It took me almost a year to understand that parkour is not just about jumping around and doing dangerous stunts.

So what is it not?

•    Parkour is not a ‘Dare devil stunt’. 

•    It’s not a competitive sport.

•    It’s not an activity that damages public property, done by reckless youths.

What is parkour?

Parkour is a discipline that will develop physical and mental strength, agility, spatial awareness, and balance. There is no set of rules, no strict path to follow, no age limit, no gender and no need of special types of equipment to practice. It can be practiced anywhere and at any time.  It does require a great deal of dedication, a good understanding of your body and it's needs.

This art was revealed to the world during the early 90's by a group of guys from France who called themselves ‘ The Yamakasi’. They started practicing this art in the streets of Lisses to become physically and mentally strong, test and push their limit every day and to get from one point to another in the fastest and most efficient way using their own body. To move comfortably in their environment without getting injured, they developed many movements.

Parkour movements involve running, jumping, climbing, dropping, vaulting, rolling, balancing and quadrupedal movement. Apart from these movements, a major part of the training is spent in conditioning and strengthening of the body.  Conditioning and strength training serve as an Armor to the body and protect it from injuries even during falls. 

Parkour is an excellent opportunity to learn more about yourself by constantly challenging and pushing yourself beyond your own limits. It teaches you what your possibilities are and helps you realise what you want to achieve.

Parkour is a safe and careful training, months of repetition, slow progression in skill and strength, overcoming fear, and finding and pushing your real limits. People only see the result of many years of intense parkour training in a few minutes of a video and they totally fail to realize the years of effort they put in to make that one video.

One question that always arises in many people's minds after watching parkour videos or talking to practitioners is -

What are the benefits of doing parkour?

The personal benefits I enjoy by practicing this art are boundless. Apart from getting fit and healthy, it helped me meet a lot of people and the friendships formed can last a lifetime. It increased my level of confidence and gave me the vision to see the world in a different way.

It may look and sound easy, being good at parkour takes dedication, discipline, and practice. Traceurs and Traceuses (those who practice parkour) have worked hard for a number of years to perfect their fitness and technique. But this dedication never stops. Parkour is a constant work in progress.

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

Parkourpaiyan

Strength training Vs Cardio

Hi. I’m a parkour practitioner and trainer from Chennai. I have been helping people achieve their fitness goals through parkour training. A number of people join my classes to lose fat in a short period of time. Most of them express that they want to do ONLY cardio workouts and they respond with a big NO when I ask them to do strength training workouts.  One of the biggest misconceptions about cardio workout is that it keeps you in that 'Fat Burning Zone' and burns all the fat magically. It is true to a certain extent since typical cardio workouts like jogging and running utilise the energy system known as the aerobic energy. The source for the aerobic energy is Glucose which is stored as glycogen, Fatty acids which are stored as triglycerides in the muscle and Oxygen. When cardio workouts are performed, fat stored in the form of Fatty acids is used for energy.

So yeah, theoretically it makes perfect sense. But in application, we can see that cardio workouts are not as effective as they are believed to be. Especially, the low intensity cardio workouts like walking and jogging make low usage of energy, which means, in order to burn significant amount of calories, one has to do cardio workout for an hour or longer. People these days DO NOT have the time to do only cardio for more than one hour everyday. And doing cardio alone, without strengthening the muscles, will lead to injuries. I’ll talk about that in detail later.

Strength training, on the other hand, is very effective to burn calories. It allow us to burn calories at a faster rate, as it engages the larger and stronger, Type 2 muscles, which are much more energy-demanding than Type 1 muscle fibres that are used during cardio training. Intense strength training is so exhausting to the body that it will still burn calories even after the training is done. This state is known as EPOC.

E - Excess

P - Post exercise

O - Oxygen

C – Consumption

Studies have proven that the after-burn from the strength training burns 75kcal or 33% more than the cardio training in the immediate 24hrs after the workout. Burning 33% more calories might not seem like it makes much of a difference but in strength training, more calories are burnt in less time. Some studies say that the after-burn continues even 48hrs post-workout. And the best part is that, 80% of  calories that are burnt during strength training comes directly from the FAT.

People want to burn fat in order to stay strong, fit and in a good shape. By doing strength training, you’re not only burning fat in a short period but also building strong muscles. In order to build muscles and achieve the shape you've always wanted, your body has to send strong stimulus to the brain to activate the hormones involved in muscle building. Such stimulus is best provided from strength training and not so much from cardio training. In fact, cardio training generates so low a stimulus that your body doesn’t  even prioritize on keeping the Type 2 fibre. Meaning, as you lose weight and fat by doing cardio, you will also lose muscle mass at the same time. This type of weight loss will make you weak and prone to injuries.  With strength training, you will lose fat as a result of the after-burn effect and you will preserve or even build muscle along the way.

Strength training will definitely burn fat effectively but it is also important that you do the type of training that is best for it. It is not necessary that you have to lift weights in order to build strength and burn fat at the same time. The best type of exercises for fat burning are those which comprise of heavy compound movements which involve more muscle groups at the same time, such as, Pull-ups, Weighted Push-ups, Jump squats, Muscle-ups etc. The more the muscles are engaged, the more the calories are burnt. It also should focus on an intensity that will have you reaching muscular failure in 10 – 15 reps. This allows you to engage all the muscle fibers (Type 1, Type 2A and Type 2B), which will generate a greater metabolic demand, which, again, burns calories and improves muscle growth. Speaking from my experience, calisthenics training is one of the best to train multiple muscle groups simultaneously. You should also keep in mind the fact that the rest you give your body between the workouts should be minimum, so that you will push to your maximum effort and burn the maximum calories possible while pushing the muscles to its maximum limit.

I’m not trying to say that cardio workouts are not at all necessary. It does have its own benefits. It helps in building endurance and to have a healthy heart which will help you stay away from cardiac problems which most of the Indians are suffering from.

I personally don’t enjoy typical cardio workouts like running because I get bored after a certain point. My parkour training itself is a good high intensity cardio workout because it involves a lot of running, sprinting and jumping to move from one point to another.

If you're someone who wants to get into shape, build or maintain muscle mass and burn fat at the same time, I would suggest that you follow a proper strength training routine and a good diet plan.

Train hard and smart.

Parkourpaiyan.