Sunday, July 26, 2009
1) My grandfather used to say that to me: “You need to use it and not abuse it.”These are phrases that come back to me all the time. In those moments when I ask myself questions, I tell myself, “But this settles it. I've was told.”You can’t be a jackass all the time. You can’t ... You can’t play with your body like that. There’s a moment when you need to follow rules. There are laws of physics.---------------------------2) People who are like: “Did you see? He’s on the wall of the school?” and everyone goes, “He’s not supposed to be there. Oh la la!” It’s people who are giving the impression that you’re doing something wrong.But you’re like, “What’s the matter?”If a cat comes along, or a bird sits up there, you’re not going to throw rocks at it. It’s a living thing. It has a heart beating inside it. Why then just because I am person and I can speak, well now you'll say, “Oh you know you’re not supposed to be there, you know. What are you doing on that wall?”---------------------------3) Like someone - I keep coming back to combat - the guy is there in his club. He’s done his drills all year. Hop. He made his display. One day he gets into trouble. There’s a lot of pressure. The other guy isn’t talking to him like his teacher because it doesn't matter that he does martial arts, and he only wants him to know that if he doesn’t give him his wallet right now, he’s going to get messed up. And the guy, he panics.You want to say, “Hey! Wake up! What have you been all year? Didn’t you train for this moment?"“Yeah, but now I don’t know, because I’m paralyzed by…”“Well you didn’t learn anything then. It’s useless.”---------------------------4) I think the fear will always be there. But there will be a moment when you will have the confidence, that right when you are about to do a jump, you say, “I’ve practiced this 500 times right beside, and in that 500 times I never bailed. Why am I now I worried that I’m going to fall?”Because fear makes us lose our memory sometimes.---------------------------5) There isn’t really anything you can do to protect yourself from danger or to avoid risk. Life is already a risk. Life is a permanent risk. We take risks all the time when we speak to people. When we engage with someone and trust them, we are taking a risk.So the trick is to be aware of it and live with it.---------------------------6) That’s knowing yourself. Setting goals and attaining them. Because if we don’t have goals, we’re just floating in the wind and we don’t know why we’re moving. And when we have found a reason for what we’re doing, even if we move into other areas that are not Parkour - artistic areas or in life - well, we will already be in the habit of finding meaning. All the questions that they ask me about Parkour… They ask, “Why are you doing this? What is the…” As though it’s hidden in the philosophy, or in the movements that you are working on.
But if you look at a monkey... If you were to stop him at the moment he's in the middle of doing a jump, you pres pause and then you ask him, "Why are you doing this? Why are you moving?" I think the the monkey would answer, "Any you? Why are you NOT moving?"
- Words from the man himself, DAVID BELLE