Inspiration
Whether your interest lies in parkour, tricking, street stunts, or martial arts, something that unites us all is the constant drive for progression: the inner force that pushes us each day to be that much better than the last, to challenge ourselves, face our fears and produce results that are beyond even our wildest imagination.
With the explosion of interest in these activities in recent years it has become consistently more difficult to find good quality inspirational videos which really make an impression. Much of this is purely due to desensitisation in that we all become desensitised to are used to seeing every day and as such it takes a lot more to raise our awareness.
I'm sure you can all remember the first time you saw someone do a wall flip out on the street or a cat leap between seemingly two impossible locations? Of course once you can do it for yourself it loses the appeal. It was only appealing in the first place because it was unusual and thus presented itself as a challenge to be conquered. Once this challenge has been defeated, it is at best an entertaining party trick or something which can elevate some other part of your training but the passion and energy for this movement has gone and has already been put to work on solving the next new challenge to appear on your 'radar'.
Some of the best inspirational videos can be found under the names of people such as David Belle, Sebastian Foucan, Cyril Raffaelli and Tony Jaa but while there is little doubt their videos are of an incredibly high standard, many of us find it difficult to relate to them because there is such a vast skills gap. After all... How are you supposed to compare yourself to someone who started training in their chosen discipline before you were even born?
This brings me to the video I would like to share with you which in my opinion is the best video I have seen in all of 2007 and really sums up the year in terms of how far the 'sport' of freerunning has developed; It is of course 3Run's 2007 Show real from Team Evo.
What I really like about this video is how much I can relate to it. These are not people who have been doing it all their lives nor have they achieved the celebrity like status of Belle and the Yamakasi. They are just ordinary people from ordinary backgrounds who many of you will have already met and trained with at some point yet their persistent dedication, vision and determination has defined a level of progression which surpasses that of almost every other practitioner in the country. The result of course speaks for itself!