Teaching Seniors Parkour | Ordinary People - video Dailymotion

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Unexpectedly, Shie Boon stumbled into teaching parkour to the elderly. Founding Movement.sg, he breaks stereotypes by making parkour accessible to participants of all ages. Shie Boon's coaching helps seniors to build strength, balance, and agility — empowering them to reclaim a life of confidence.  Watch more: https://www.asiaone.com/video

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00:00I was bouncing around in what I should do with my life.

00:04I somehow ended up in LaSalle and when I met the founders of parkour and I experienced parkour,

00:08somehow it just made sense.

00:16I'm Sri Boon. I'm 33 this year. I teach parkour to seniors for a living.

00:20I was introduced to parkour nine years ago and I have been teaching parkour to seniors for seven years.

00:26I was in LaSalle studying a diploma in dance and then the founders of parkour came to LaSalle to teach a workshop.

00:35That was how I got to know parkour.

00:37I felt really good when I was practicing the movements.

00:41It gave me a sense of aliveness and freedom that I crave but could not experience so far in my life.

00:56Some of them have been following me for a few years so they have done this more than a hundred times so their bodies have adapted.

01:04Today we have done the conditioning. That is the very first part where we crawl and do all kinds of things.

01:10Usually that will take the part of our whole session.

01:15Then after that we do flow. That is the one that you see when we jump around.

01:18Over here I think I have me too quite a bit.

01:22Okay lah. Not too bad. So I can jump a little bit better now.

01:27It's a myth that is dangerous.

01:29You do things that you don't know that you could do.

01:31You fall easily. You don't worry about falling.

01:35They are very helpful to each other.

01:36Whenever somebody gets injured, everybody will come to help.

01:38And they will have their sambak or hot oil and sweets.

01:44Or they know all the motherly things.

01:46I'm very lucky to experience this.

01:49The essence of this entire community of motherly love, right?

01:51Most of them are mothers. I think all of them are mothers.

01:53And my own mum is in the class as well.

01:58Very nice. We have fun.

02:00I think we normally come and we encourage each other.

02:02Then we have fun together.

02:04And sometimes after class we will go out for makan.

02:07Yeah, then some of us will meet, you know, other than parkour session lah.

02:12We will meet outside lah.

02:21I was teaching young adults.

02:23This was, I believe, seven years ago.

02:26I was having supper with my students at a food court at Bishan.

02:30An old lady, she's probably about near 70 now.

02:34She approached me and she asked what I did for a living.

02:39I told her that I teach parkour for a living.

02:41I showed her some videos.

02:43And interestingly, she took interest.

02:45She told me that she falls very often.

02:49So the next day, I met her in the morning.

02:51And I started teaching her for about two months, twice a week.

02:55Her strength improved.

02:56Her balancing issues were better.

02:57I had a colleague then who helped me with a coverage of what happened.

03:02It got caught on by Straits Times.

03:04And then that was how more people came in.

03:06When I went to Xiaoliu Chiu, I cycled around the island with my family.

03:23And I fell.

03:24I fell along the road.

03:26And instinctively, I discarded my bicycle and did a road.

03:31And nothing happened.

03:32I wasn't injured at all.

03:33I was like, oh, thank God.

03:35Thank, thank Parkour.

03:41I was actually quite good in games compared to my peers.

03:46Whereas they were, they were better in studies than I am.

03:49I think at some point, I asked myself, why can't life be more like a game?

03:55Whereby doing things just feel natural and exciting.

04:00You look forward to the next level in game.

04:02The next new monsters to fight.

04:05New achievements in a game.

04:07Why can't life be more like that?

04:09Back then, I was depressed because I felt like life was increasingly difficult.

04:16In a way whereby nothing felt natural, nothing felt desirable.

04:20My experience in school made me feel like things are not very community-driven.

04:26And I didn't get the sense of wanting to help my classmates in academics.

04:31And I felt like there was a lack of humanity growing up.

04:34I think that contributes to me feeling very down and depressed as well.

04:38Over time, everything felt very competitive and selfish.

04:41And so I think Parkour was salvation because it was the first thing that talked about

04:46I guess, the essence of humanity.

04:48And that made me feel very human again.

04:55To want to try Parkour is already a courageous step.

05:00And to do it for a long time and to practice diligently and safely is another achievement.

05:08I have this long-standing dream that one day my students would perform an NDP.

05:18It's just, this thought just doesn't go away.

05:20That would mean that the Singaporean society would have been, as a whole, open-minded enough to embrace Parkour as a very good way of life.

05:29And I would be very happy because the impression of Parkour is so, it can be quite negative.

05:33So I think if my students were to represent Parkour on a national stage, I think a lot of good things would come to Singapore often.

05:42This thing got lost.

06:12This thing got lost.

06:13This thing got lost.

06:14This thing got lost.

06:23This thing got lost.

06:27About the life thathält does revealing ourselves.

Teaching Seniors Parkour | Ordinary People

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