Parkour! How the sport keeps your body and mind fit | Taylor Lynn Carpenter

0:06You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. One of the greatest gifts in my life has been getting to see the wonder of the world through my children's eyes. As they've grown, I've loved seeing them play and explore and get excited about all the things around them. But I'll be honest, this is also a little bittersweet because we know we lose that sense of wonder as we get older. In her 2024 talk, professional parkour athlete and coach, Taylor Lynn Carpenter, shares why movement is an important tool for developing better relationships with our bodies, learning to find joy in overcoming obstacles, and seeing the playground all around us.

0:55Parkour is a method of movement in which we train our bodies and minds to overcome obstacles. When most people think of parkour, they often think one of two things, young men jumping across rooftops or that episode of the American TV show the office, where they pretend to do parkour all over their office and parking lot. But despite its mainstream reputation, parkour is much more than that. At its highest and most competitive levels, parkour is not for everyone. But when you break parkour down to its basic movements, it can have lifelong value for anyone. Parkour is a life skill that helps you to navigate your environment more easily.

1:34I'm a professional parkour athlete and coach from Hawaii. My parkour journey started when I was 21 years old. Having just recovered from a broken elbow and rib, I was feeling weak and incapable. I wanted to build upper body strength and confidence in my body by learning a climb up. Before parkour, I did sports like track, cheerleading, basketball, judo, swimming, but nothing really stuck until I found tricking, a combination of martial arts kicks and off-axis flips. After a few years of training, I started teaching tricking at Apex School of Movement, which eventually led me to start training parkour.

2:09A question I get a lot is, why did you start doing parkour? And I say, why did you stop? What I mean is, we were all natural athletes when we were kids. Remember the days where you jumped puddles, climbed trees, balanced on curbs, and played floor as lava? Those are the fundamental movements and mindsets that lead to parkour. Somewhere along our way, we lost our sense of adventure and play, but the good news is, it's never too late to rediscover. One key benefit of parkour is that it builds functional fitness, movements that enhance daily life and also help protect us from injury. As we age, maintaining mobility and mitigating injuries becomes increasingly important.

2:50Parkour provides a fun, effective way to keep our bodies strong and agile. It's not about recklessly pushing limits, it's about understanding and respecting your body's capabilities. This means training our bodies in a way that improves our ability to perform everyday activities. Whether it's bending over to tie your shoe, squatting down to pick something up, simply getting up off the floor, or climbing up to reach a high shelf. All my shorties out there know this struggle. Parkour helps us move better in daily life. To show how some of these simple movements progress in parkour, let's add some obstacles.

3:29An extension of the squat is a jump or drop to landing. Good landings are key for anyone who does sports, plays with their kids, hops out of a truck bed, or drops off of a rock while hiking. If you need to take a bigger drop, fall off your bike, or trip over a curb, the roll is a key skill to know. Rolls allow you to absorb impact over more time and distance, which may lead to less fall damage and better flow. While everyone encounters hip-high barriers, most people walk around them. But what if you knew you could easily vault over? Vaults save time, build confidence, and they look pretty cool.

4:06And lastly, the move that started my parkour journey, the climb-up. Climb-ups are used to get up something head high or taller. Maybe you need to scale a building to help someone, or get over a gate, wall, or fence to escape danger. Or more likely, you forgot your keys and have to climb up to an open window or balcony. I've had to do this before, and it's pretty awkward when your neighbors come out to see what's going on. While it's unlikely that we'll ever need to use these skills, learning movements like this help to empower me and build my confidence. There's a big mental aspect to training parkour.

4:41Rather than avoiding obstacles, parkour teaches you to embrace challenge. The obstacle becomes the way. Parkour helps me with my anxiety in cities. Coming from an island lifestyle, urban environments felt confining and stressful. Cities are designed to funnel you into certain pathways, often blocking the most direct routes with walls and handrails. By always taking the sidewalks and stairs, you end up moving in autopilot without even noticing. Parkour changes this. You get to reinvent your environment and move with more meaning. What once appeared as obstacles now appear as opportunities for movement and play.

5:17This paradigm shift allows you to approach life in a more positive and proactive way. In our busy, structured adult lives, we often forget the joy of the spontaneous movement and exploration that we experience as kids. With parkour, everyday objects start to seem like a playground again. A park bench is an obstacle to vault over, a low wall is a challenge to balance on, and a tree branch is something to swing on. While parkour has evolved into an extreme and competitive sport for some, at its roots, parkour is for everyone. and it can enhance our physical fitness, mental resilience, and overall wellbeing.

5:56So the next time you walk around your city or town, think of how you can move, play, and rediscover the joy of overcoming obstacles. Thank you.

6:13That was Taylor Lynn Carpenter at TED Next in 2024. If you're curious about TED's curation, Find out more at ted.com slash curationguidelines. And that's it for today's show. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, Alejandra Salazar, and Tonsika Sarmanivon. It was mixed by Christopher Faze-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Ballarezo. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.

6:54Thank you.