Why We Do What We Do -- Knowledge Criss-Cross -- Parkour and Internet Marketing

It was Daniel Ilabaca’s video that pushed me to try parkour, which I ended up embodying, until today. Watch it here.

It has always been a wonder for me. Why we do what we do.

The Parkour Days
I was not good at all. The number of injuries I sustained is not few and it’s funny how I always end up in the hospital, subjected to the scolding of both my doctor and my friends. Back then, parkour wasn’t considered an art. Just being childishly stupid.

To be honest, I started parkour because I once dreamed to become a ninja. You know, the kind of dreams we had when we were kids where we’ll jump around and pretend that we are superheroes. In my case, I wanted to be a ninja.

So I became one. Not in the literal sense, but just in the movements aspect.

I first learned how to roll. I spent an entire week jumping from high places to the ground and then rolling to break the fall. Then I started to fly. Vaulting (all kinds) until the movements become second nature. My favorite was the double kong vault.

I practiced day and night, almost everyday. I’ll go after school before I went to my part-time job. After work, I’ll go back to my spot again and practice so I can acquaint my movements even during the night. Whenever I’m not doing parkour, I’m thinking and dreaming about it.

Once I mastered the vault (and a bunch of other movements e.g. tic tac, cat leap, parallel jumps, etc.), I began flowing. Flow is where you link all your movements until it becomes as liquid as possible with very short delays. After all, parkour is traveling at your fastest speed from point A to point B by getting through, under, or over obstacles.

Featured Runner
At that time, I was a frequenter at a parkour forum. I seldom post but every Saturday, I jam with the guys and we all run together.

About 2 Saturdays doing runs together with the founder, they want me to become one of their featured runners. It’s a title where you’ll get exclusive privileges in the forum, you get to join the forum events where they run for brands and they get paid or get free stuff.

I was surprised, really. I never know the guy and frankly, I didn’t like him (kind of an elitist) and everyone else on their ‘featured runners’ group never really liked me.

The catch? You need to be a freerunner.

If you do parkour exclusively, you are called a traceur. I believe it’s French for ‘bullet’. If you add the showing off factor to your runs (flips, tricks, etc.), you will then be called a freerunner. That’s how I understood it.

So basically, they were asking me to learn flips and other tricks before I can join. After some negotiation, I declined.

The Lessons Taken
Aside from a few biz dev jobs here and there, I don’t do anything else nowadays but internet marketing. It’s funny because I graduated with a degree VERY FAR from what I currently do and no matter how good it is to have on paper, it doesn’t help me one bit.

Same with parkour, I think the most important part in building a certain skillset is CONSTANT PRACTICE. There’s nothing magical about it. No special knowledge required.

Whenever I’m not doing IM, I practice making internet marketing layouts. Strategies on how to attack the marketing side of a certain business. I practice on different niches.

I learned a lot of SEO and practiced it with some of my clients’ websites and my own creations. Though until now, I still don’t get what a site map is, how social bookmarking can be effective (I think it’s kind of stupid), and how in the hell am I going to keep up with the changes of algo by Google. Given that I don’t know shit about SEO 6 months ago.

And right now, I’m practicing writing and hopefully, it’s acceptable.

Just like parkour, we practice IM in a wilderness, a random place where anything can happen. Whoever told you that IM is constant and that it has a defined process and that he can predict what will happen is either touched in the head or just plainly shitting you.

More than the reaction we’ll have, what’s more important is our mindset. Our ability to not crack under pressure. The total domination over the instinctive feeling of fear of the unknown drilled onto us by millions of years of evolution.

Our brain is hardwired to be afraid of obstacles. It’s always seeking the path to pleasure. And it is your job to shut it up so you won’t hear its whining and you can get back to work.

The main point I’m driving is why we do what we do. And that’s also the reason why I didn’t want to become a featured runner.

It is because I started parkour for practicality. The discipline is for me go from one point to another without being afraid of the obstacles because I have the confidence to go through them. I didn’t want to taint it with unneeded flips and tricks just to be ‘cool’.

In essence, I ONLY do parkour because that’s what I BELIEVE in.

I see a lot of MASTERS and GURUS nowadays. People telling other people what to do, what not to do, not in a suggestive way, but in a tone that seems like they’ve carved out the sure path.

Well, just like in parkour, you can NEVER master IM. In parkour, the environment is the master and you just blend with it in your own unique way. In IM, the whole world is the master and its pulse is what you have to blend into, course-correcting until you get the right mix. Still, it might not be the same tomorrow.

I love the freedom we all share: that we chose to do this. We weren’t educated to do what we do today, we chose it.

To drive my point home, since we chose to do what we do, isn’t it just right that we also choose what we believe? People tell other people to do this, to do that, and it’s just ugly.

It is all a learning experience. In parkour, every jump, every fall, every injury, will speak to you in ways only you can understand. The lessons are all yours if you only listen and not succumb. Same with IM – listen, but never succumb. Try, but never conclude.

In parkour, I saw them fly. Flips, wall-spins, and everything nice. I don’t have anything against it, but it’s not for me.

In IM, you will see them flaunt their Paypal account screenshots, their daily earnings, their everything else and then you will jump on the bandwagon. But ask yourself, is that really what you want or is it because you were just enticed? Do you have a campaign you believe can be successful? Good. Keep at it and discover that faults yourself, course-correct by yourself and let the money roll in naturally.

They weren’t cut from a different cloth. But even so… even if they’re better than you, have more skills than you, have more experience, there’s one thing you can always outdo them at – hard work. You can always outwork everybody.

So be bold and do your own thing. In parkour, you’ll never know when you’ll miss a jump. You’ll get bruises, probably broken bones, but you wake up tomorrow and do the same shit. In IM, you’ll get your accounts wiped out completely, PVs everyday, Google penalizing you. Wake up tomorrow, and get to work.

4 Likes

Oh I remember those days with all the Chinese ninja movies :smiley: who didn’t want to be one after watching those…

Very nice motivational talk and exactly the mindset one should have in order to succeed at this!

Also glad to have you around @kraadnc looking forward to seeing you succeed big time and sharing it with us :wink:

Cool Post.

I was one of the first people in the UK to do parkour. Loved it. Never did pointless flips but could wallspin and some stuff. Loved the flow of it and the movement. I’m in this docu from 2005 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCswX-y7PRQ

Trained with Sebastian Foucan twice, once in the gym day that was in the doc, and once he was flown in to our town in the UK by the BBC to film with our crew.

I miss parkour…

2 Likes

Thanks @Johnny. Not really looking to motivate anyone, to be honest. Just spouting whatever comes to mind. But if somebody can pick something up, that would be nice.

Seb Foucan is one of the few people I really respect, especially his view about freerunning and parkour. The only person I know that successfully integrated the tricky parts of freerunning into the efficiency of his runs.

Training with him would’ve been really awesome. Did you see him on Casino Royale? Those moves are straight Parkour and until now, I’m still impressed despite having watched that part probably about a thousand times!