My story...

I've been thinking about writing this for quite a time now, but God knows why I'm only writing it now.Anyway, so my story begins...

Hi, I'm Liam, 16 years old, I'm myself. But there was a time where I could have been classed as a shy kind of person, a person uncomfortable around certain others, but also a person who only wanted to fit in with the crowd, a person who only wanted respect. This made me seem like one of those 'fake' people, because I never acted myself around these people and it made me seem to change the deep down me to make myself liked. Now not many people may have noticed this, but it was what I used to be like. Now this flaw made me often feel sorry for myself, and made me seem rather selfed obsessed (in the non independent way, as in I relied too much on others to do the dirty work).Overall I was a weak person inside and out.

Then, at about 14 years of age, something entered my life whilst sat in a friends house watching television. I saw a small documentary on the Extreme Sports Channel which was about these men, who were leaping about and flipping everywhere, they named it Free Running. I said to my friend, 'What's all this about, it seems a bit silly, what's its point?', this was me at my most judgemental. But about a week later, we went out jumping about, just pratting around, and I was thinking of how fun it was and how I had contradicted myself from a week earlier, it made me feel free. Don't get me wrong, any traceur, tricker, or free runner (anyone who practices the art of movement) may find this slightly common and possibly annoying or noobish, but I did think Parkour was all about death defying stunts and big drops that were harsh to the knees, I thought it plainly for adrenaline junkies and in my own little world, I thought that this was a way for me to gain respect from others, the only thing it didn't help was for me to fit in with everyone else in this stereotypical world. Everyday I would go out and do big drops, filming them and trying to edit videos of me doing some stupid big drops, then re-filming them on my phone to show all my friends how spectacular and brave I was. But one day I suppose the wrong person found out about my little hobby, I will say no names. A rumour went around school about me doing some silly sport where you jump off buildings and everywhere I went I was being called an idiot and comments such as 'show off' were being thrown at me constantly. I said I was a weak person, therefore I found the most stupid little things upsetting, and plus I naturally have a short temper, but for a short tempered person I somehow did well not to lash out at people, I think its because I was too afraid of what would happen if I were to lash out. But as time went on, I kept training and joined forums etc, and then found a friend who went to the same school as me. Big props to Ed Sampson. Ed I have an apology which I reckon doesn't really count anymore as th0se times are long gone. Mentioned for the last time now, I wasn't a strong person, so whenever I saw Ed training in school and would hear people calling him gay and a huge list of other comments I would take it into account. I didn't want this so I would just agree with them and pretended I didn't do Parkour. This caused me and Ed to constantly fall out with each other, when we knew damn well in both our heads it was pointless. But later on I started to realise that these people were close minded people and judgemental people, whom I should just ignore and as I trained more and more and learnt things from scratch another great thing which would lead to a better me happened...the Leeds Parkour Jams in town. Through this I met Scott McQuade and a whole bunch of great people and new friends. Every Saturday I would train and train and it seemed to be the more I trained, the stronger a person I became. Then one day at school someone insulted me and finally I reacted. From that day he has never insulted me again. Through the art of movement I have become a confident person, a stronger (both mentally and physically) person and I now have something called self respect or at least I'm in the process. I train movement for a few reasons, one, so that I can help other people in any way I can, but only with the assistance of reason number 2 can I carry this forward, number 2, by becoming the strongest I can be, in every form, as an individual. I can now say I'm myself everywhere I go, although I still feel that some people at my school need a good slap .

Anyway I need to get some Psychology revision done I have an exam next week (uh oh).