Day 12 - Photo

This fear challenge once again puts me out of my comfort zone. One of my biggest issues with myself is how I look. Like all people, I tend to focus heavily on my physical flaws. These physical flaws have caused me to think very lowly of myself. Along with this low my self-esteem also comes my camera shyness. I felt as long as I avoid the camera I wouldn't have to worry about being ridiculed for my appearance.

So for this fear challenge, I was going to post a picture of myself online. After searching through my phone for the best photo I realize I couldn't compel myself to upload something that looked nice. Instead I pick the photo I felt was the least flattering, the one I liked the least of myself. I am hoping getting over this fear would make me feel a little less camera shy, and a little more confident with myself.

Day 11 - Trampoline Jumps

I always wanted to try out one of those trampoline rides at a festival. You know, the ride, the one where they attach you to some bungee cables so you can jump on a trampoline to unbelievably high heights. I finally got the courage to go to one for my next fear challenge, doing a double back flip on the trampoline.

I went with a couple of friends to the festival. I noticed the trampoline ride hidden in the back. It took a little encouragement from my friends to finally convince me to go forth and do it. I guess the idea of being the only one on the trampoline older than twelve gave me a small pit in my stomach. Eventually, I was strapped in and started to jump.

I got a small feel for it, only jumping on a few feet. Eventually I got high enough that people below me looked ant-like. The park staff member was encouraging me to flip. I leaned back and went for a black flip, quickly resuming back to my jumping position. I then went for a double black flip. Then started flipping forward. Eventually doing a double front flip. I did a couple more double back flips and double fronts flips for a while. I felt very alive, but exhausted. I told them I was ready to be strapped off and left the ride, feeling a boost of adrenaline mixed with tiredness.

I felt that this fear could not have been done without the encouragement of my friends. I felt as if I would have easily bailed out if it wasn't for them. The biggest lesson from this fear is that sometimes I don't have to be alone to overcome my fears.

Day 10 - The Tac Back

So a couple of days ago I talked about a fear involving doing a cat back from a wall. Well with that same wall, came a different fear. For my fear challenge, I was going to do a tic tac back onto the platform I jumped from.

Just to briefly go over the move, a tic tac is a move that involves you coming at a wall in one direction, putting your foot on the wall, then propelling yourself to go in another direction. In this case, I was going to jump at the wall, put my foot on the wall, then propel myself backwards on the 3 foot high platform I jumped off of.
I was training myself into this fear by taking on the move on ground surface. I was able to do the move very easily on the ground, so I felt confident enough to do the technique on a higher surface. However, after training this move for nearly an hour I still did not develop the courage to commit to the move. I ended up not overcoming this challenge, marking my first failed attempt in this 365 fear challenge.

Although I am disappointed from this failure I am not discouraged. I am going to try to successfully do this move by the end of this month. What I felt caused me to fail was approaching the fear with the wrong mindset. I tried to go at the clear mind approach but that only caused me to mess up the technique. I feel if I approached this move by belittling the fear I can not only assure I go at it with a proper technique, but also be able to overcome the fear. I am hoping to overcome this fear soon.

Day 9 - Introduction of myself

Recently I discovered my Parkour academy's website has a forum page. I noticed that one of these threads was a typical "Introduce yourself" threads. The latest post on these forum pages was posted over a month ago. I had felt compelled to post an introduction for myself, but always felt too anxious to follow through. That was, until I made an account.

A little information on me, I had been going to the academy for a couple of years now, but I'm very seldom verbal. Whenever I am verbal I tend to be quiet and speak very few words. I guess I just always felt uncomfortable, intimidated even,  being around people who I felt were a lot more confident than me. So when I wanted to create an account I kept thinking to myself "What would other people think of me?", then never did it. Well, the day came where I said screw the fears and properly introduce myself. Even if the audience I am making the post to doesn't read it, it still felt like a big step forward in getting out of my comfort zone.

The next time I went to the academy, I noticed I was starting to be a bit more verbal. I feel soon enough I will start feeling more comfortable with the people in the gym. Already I feel like I'm no longer an outsider there.

Day 8 - Cat Back on Wall

Wall from FOFA Academy

I went back to the Academy I go to for Parkour, mostly to be able to face my next fear challenge. The academy has two wooden boards mounted on a wall that can be grabbed onto by jumping. These are mostly used to deal with cat grabs, a move used in Parkour that allows someone to hang from a wall. My fear would be to jump and go into a cat grab on this wall, then jump from a cat grab back onto the wood platform I jumped from.


I have attempted this move several times before, none with success. The platform I jump from is at least 5-6 feet away from the wooden boards and about 3 feet from the ground. I always hesitate to make the full jump back onto the platform for fear of clipping my feet. This time, however, I went at it with a clear mind approach. Not only was I able to make the jump but I went a few inches over my intended position. The clear mind approach once again proved to be successful in overcoming this fear.

Day 7 - Rolling on Concrete

For my next fear challenge I went back to facing my fears in Parkour. This fear was dealing with one of the most important concepts in Parkour, the roll. For my challenge, I was going to be taking this move onto much harder territory. 

In order to do an effective Parkour roll, you have to be able to roll without feeling any pain. Now when starting off, most beginners will take their rolls on surfaces such as grass or mats. When you get better you move onto harder areas such as concrete. For me, I have moved onto rolling on concrete. A surface that causes a lot of pain if I mess up on the roll. 

After spending years try to perfect my roll I have finally been able to go from a sitting position and rolling nearly painlessly on concrete. However, because the roll has to be done to perfection for it to be painless, there's always a slight hesitation on going forth and doing the roll. So for my challenge, I was going to take this roll on concrete and a little momentum to it by jumping off a 3 foot surface then rolling. This added momentum would mean that if I did not do the roll perfectly, I would be dealing with a lot more pain. 

I took this challenge on at a park I go to often for Parkour. I started off leading into the challenge by doing my typical concrete rolls. After I felt I had enough practice, I jumped forward a few feet then rolled. I instantly felt pain from the roll and identified what I was doing wrong with the movement. After practicing a couple of more times I settled to try to do the jump off the 3 foot surface. I set myself on a platform at least 3 feet high from the ground . I stared at the ground for a good few minutes before I heard people coming from a distance. "Shit it's either now or never", I thought to myself as I took a deep breath. 

I jumped off the surface and did my roll on my right side. I then felt a shot of pain go through the middle of my spine. I identified that I was doing the roll too far forward. I quickly corrected myself and decided to do the jumped again. This time, I went at it with a clear mind. I spent more time correcting my roll and doing this jump more until I felt I needed to give myself a break.

Although I didn't accomplish a perfect jump to concrete roll, I did get over my fear of the jump itself. After I did my first jump to roll the rest of the jumps became easier. I was soon doing these jumps with no thought to them. I feel that I could take a lesson from this fear. What caused me hesitation was the idea of the unknown. Even though the roll hurt, it did not hurt as badly as I figured it would. It put me at ease following the next few jumps. Thinking back to my previous lessons in fear was definitely helpful in taking on this fear.

Day 6 - Belay Rock Climbing

I started out rock climbing about half a year ago. Conveniently enough for me, there was a rock climbing facility 2 miles away from where I go to school. I went climbing there nearly once a week until I felt my wallet was drained well past my budget. However, my love for climbing never ceased.

About a month ago, I wanted to get back into rock climbing, but didn't want to dedicate myself to climbing at a gym. I figured if I save up enough money to buy my own gear I can start trying out outdoor climbing. Although my enthusiasm had set my goals high, I felt untrained to switch to the outdoors any time soon. That is when I made a plan that will help me make the transition from indoor to outdoor climbing. The first step was learning how to belay, one of the most crucial things about outdoor climbing.

After taking a crash course in belaying from the facility, I felt prepared to take the facility's belay test. I went to take the test with a friend, who was there both for support and as the climber I'll be belaying. I taught him a few terminology that he, as the climber, would need to know when being belayed then we preceded with climbing. Now the thing to note about my friend is that he is heavier than me. With along comes my history as a runner I have the body of a light weight. 

What caught me nearly off guard was my friend's unexpected fall. I tried to position myself low on the ground and grab the rope with two hands. However, this was not enough to slow him down and ended up yanking me up in the air. I thought to myself that this for sure was an automatic fail. To my surprised, the tester told me I passed the test and am now qualified to belay at any of their climbing facilities.

I couldn't be more grateful for my friend to help me with this test, as well as accomplish a fear of mine. I was pretty comfortable with taking the test up until I arrived to the facility. My stomach felt like it had rocks in it and I was more than tempted to excuse myself from leaving. If it wasn't for the challenge, I probably would have. I have not only bested my fear for the test, but also passed it. 

I also am able to take away a lesson from this challenge in overcoming my fears. The more I thought about my fear, the more nerve whacking it became. Once I started to do the very thing that caused me fear, everything started to feel very relaxed. My first step for going into outdoor climbing has been completed.

Day 5 - Phone Call

My next fear challenge was something a little bit different. While my previous ones where me trying to overcome my fears in sports, it only helped me get over physical fears. So my next fear challenge was facing a social fear.

As I've stated in a previous post, I am not considered a sociable person. While I do have my group of friends I hang out from time to time, I still have an anxiety towards most people. This also includes relatives of my extended family. Not to get into too much detail, I have an uncle who has been a big influence in my life. I have enjoyed being with him, but I seldom visit him. Several months ago he invited me over to come to his place, of which I never got around to. I was always afraid to pick up the phone and call him.

Well after months of putting it off I finally decided to step out of my comfort zone and call him. Although I was unable to talk to him in a phone conversation, I left a voice mail asking if I can take him up on that offer to visit him. I am currently waiting for a call back.

Day 4 - Downhill Blading

One of my more pressing fears for sports doesn't come from either Parkour or Freerunning, it comes from rollerblading. Sports that heavily rely on you controlling equipment, such as skis or snowboarding, has always given me a feeling of uneasiness. The idea of not knowing whether or not something is wrong with the equipment you are using terrifies me. It makes me feel I need to be extra cautious just in case the equipment has problems. So when I got a pair of old rollerbladers from a thrift store the other day, you can imagine how tensed I was trying them out.

The fear I chose for the day was to be able to rollerblade downhill without stopping. I remember very little about rollerblading when I was younger, only that I would constantly fall down on the concrete. Nonetheless, I was not going to let the idea of a little fall prevent me from overcoming my challenge for the day.
I put on the blades during the evening and found a flat space of ground to get use to the blades. I eventually got comfortable with the blades and found out that the brake on my blade was worn down to the point of being nearly useless. "Great" I thought. Another thing to keep in mind when attempting my challenge.

I finally decided to ready myself on top of the hill for my first attempt down that hill. I bladed down and quickly steered to the left where I fell down on the grass. I got up and attempted to continue down the rest of the way. As I went down, I tried to use my brake to slow myself down. A futile effort, but still the idea comforted me. I soon felt myself lose control and I steered back onto the grass where I fell a second time. I had just a little more ways away so I got up to blade down. I went down the rest of the way and felt an overwhelming feeling of ease hit me as I slowed down on flatter land.

I felt proud, but still didn't feel accomplished. I went back up that hill and attempted to go down that hill without stopping several more times. Each time I lasted a little longer with not steering towards the grass, or using my brake. After numerous times of bailing and falling, I eventually got to the point where I only steered off once. I thought to myself "This is it, no bailing. You fall, you fall.". I went down that hill with no attempt at slowing down or steering off. I focused on keeping my balance and finally made it down hill. I raised my arms in victory for conquering the hill.

I took my blades off and reflected on this fear. I realize that the only times I fell where the times I didn't commit to going down all the way. If I didn't go down that hill with anything but courage to not take the seemingly safe route I would have just kept falling on the grass. The whole "You bail you fail" mindset I feel will be greatly influential for my attempts at future challenges.

Day 3 - Gap Jump

Yesterday, I went to an academy that specializes in teaching Parkour and Freerunning. During one of their Parkour classes we were to go through an obstacle course with three different routes. I attempted the more advance route, which involved a lot of small fears I overcame by my clear mind approach.

However, one of the more larger fears took me a bit longer for me to get over. There was an approximately a 10-11 foot wall I had to get up on to reach the end of the advanced route. Out of all the possible ways to get up it, I took one of the more intimidating approaches. I climbed up a slightly smaller wall, 6 feet away from the 10-11 foot wall.

What followed was me staring down the other wall with a straight drop to concrete. I took a few deep breaths and realize the clear mind approach was not going to help this time. I knew if I over jumped or under jumped the wall, I will take a fall onto concrete. I had to land it perfectly to avoid certain injury.

After a few deep breathes I remembered back to jumps I have succeeded, at larger distances, on the ground. The difference between this jump and other jumps I have done was the height. I decided to just think of this jump as any normal jump. I landed it without error and finished the obstacle. Afterwards, I decided to make the jump several more times.

Although the clear mind approach didn't come in handy for this particular fear attempt, my other approach still resulted in my success. I felt by belittling the challenge I removed the idea of intimidation. This caused a seemingly scary jump to be done with ease.

Day 2 - On the Rail

 

When I go out and do my Parkour training I start off each training session with a goal in mind that both challenges myself and I feel is feasible to accomplish.  The entire training session will then be dedicated to practicing drills and lighter moves leading up to that. Then by the end of my training session, I will attempt to accomplish that goal.
 

For one training session, back when I first started doing Parkour, I came up with a goal I now realize I was not yet ready for. I planned to jumped from a wooden beam 5 feet away from a rail and 2 feet high from where I start. After prepping myself throughout the training session I attempted to do the jump.

 I went for the jump and clipped my feet on the rail while my body went forward. I tried to tuck myself into a ball to roll out, but my legs where still behind the rail. I landed 5 feet down, onto a concrete floor with a loud "Oomf". After I lied there and gathered myself I went home to spend the next few days recovering from my injuries.

I have never attempted this move again until yesterday. This time, I cleared my mind and jumped, landing on the rail on the first try. Reflecting on this incident made me realize the best way to overcome fear is with a clear mind. Back then I doubted myself when doing the jump, resulting in my failure. I now feel that as long as I approach an obstacle with a clear mind I can overcome any previous failures.