After six years of coaching and three years running Lion City Parkour, Neo is heartened that there is an uptick in the sport. In Singapore, she is teaching it in several international schools as a co-curricular activity. However, she has yet to succeed in persuading any local schools to give parkour a go because it is still considered too dangerous, she said.
“If we can eradicate this misconception, parkour can have a pretty good place in the average Singaporean’s lifestyle,” she said, noting that Singapore’s landscape provides the perfect backdrop for parkour. Natural urban structures like railings, walls and ledges are the perfect obstacles for training.
In fact, many parkour practitioners travel to Singapore for parkour tourism – to explore the city while training, Neo added. Just last year, Neo hosted three women from Europe and Asia.
Parkour transforms urban spaces into a playground, she said. “When you learn parkour, you start to look at obstacles very differently. Instead of sitting on a bench, you might do vaults over it.
“Parkour makes you feel like a child again, playfully exploring any place the way you used to in a playground as a child – you’d go over, go under and monkey around. You don’t need fancy equipment,” she said. “It makes you feel youthful no matter your age.”
#cofounder #coach #Lion #City #Parkour #thought #sport #extreme
