June 15, 2021
Our “Humans of Lazada” series takes a look at the professional and personal lives of the more than 8,000 people who work at Lazada. Click here for more stories from this series.
“You know the saying ‘never judge a book by its cover’? Well, this rings true for me quite often because a lot of people wouldn’t peg me as a guy who does parkour. People would say to me, ‘I can’t imagine you jumping over guard rails and leaping across rooftops.’ It must be my glasses – they probably make me look more corporate than I am.
The fact is it’s been more than 10 years since I’ve been involved with the sport. I instantly fell in love with it the very first time I did it. At the beginning, I thought the idea of doing parkour itself was cool since it instantly became a topic of conversation. However, I quickly realised that the sport also helps you overcome your fears and empowers you to confront them. It doesn’t matter if you are 15, 35 or 55, when you are ‘in the zone’, nothing matters except the obstacle and technique. You focus on what you want and break it down into achievable steps. It’s very much like how life is.
I started MoveParkour in 2017 to teach others the sport as a way to make it more accessible. When the pandemic hit, it was certainly a challenge because parkour is such a physical sport, and no one had ready-made obstacles they could use at home. We began recording online tutorials by using everyday things, such as chairs and books. We even showed how you can train on flat ground.
To this day I’m still amused by the surprised looks on people’s faces when I talk about parkour. I explain to them that the sport benefits you not only physically but also mentally. It teaches you resilience, discipline and risk management, and it improves mind-and-body coordination, or as I prefer to call it, connection. These are all useful skills to help a person navigate the real obstacles in life.”
This profile was compiled by Anoushka Bhar from the Lazada PR team in Malaysia.