Parkour has always been deemed as a very physically demanding sport.
But nowadays, people belonging to higher age groups have been finding their place within the ranks of the young and athletic.
This is the story for Lim Sing Yuen. She will be 59 this year but she still gave in to her curiosities for the sport. She shared with Today that she was not confident at first because parkour is much friendlier to younger people.
But when she saw that there are classes for her age group, she gave the sport a try.
She told Today about her interest in the sport:
“At first, what I like was the idea. Not that I could do it. The idea of leaping tall buildings and tumbling.”
The aim of parkour is to move from one point to another in an efficient and complex way.
It doesn’t use any assistive equipment and would rely mostly on your agility, flexibility, strength, and how well-greased your joints are.
Lim Sing Yuen struggled at first as the sport can be physically unforgiving. Luckily, Tan Shie Boon, her coach, made her training safer and much more practical. While most people believe that doing parkour only involves leaping from one rooftop to another, Tan Shie Boon focused her training to building strength and balance.
She told Today:
“But once I got into the classes, I did like the fact that I was growing stronger and more flexible bit by bit.”
A mother of three teenagers, Lim Sing Yuen attends parkour classes once or twice weekly.
She even made her husband a bit nervous when she shared with him the new activity that she’s devoting her time to.
With her newfound confidence, Lim Sing Yuen became much more daring in trying out the moves she learned from the sport.
And while it is not as advanced and risky as her younger counterparts, the sport allowed her to discover new activities to enjoy.
Lim Sing Yuen swerves and slides under railings almost effortlessly.
She can also jump over considerable heights, making proper falls to absorb impacts.
If you ask someone what they imagine parkour to be, they’d most probably tell you that it’s about leaping from wide gaps, climbing high walls from a full sprint, doing backflips after a wall step, or doing mobility stunts like a full-fledged urban ninja.
But for Koh Chen Pin, the head coach of Move Academy where Lim Sing Yuen is enrolled at, parkour teaches you how to take a fall.
Koh Chen Pin shared with Today:
“No matter how young or old you are, you still need to have the experience of learning how to fall. If you don’t know how to fall, there’s a lot of things that you’ll be scared of.”
While the whole premise is formulated around safety, we can take it as a metaphorical narrative of not losing our curiosity in trying out new things, especially when we grow old.
Lim Sing Yuen and her classmates might be over the athletic age but learning how to fall gave them the confidence to try things they would not have done otherwise.
Lim Sing Yuen told Today:
“We never discuss age because it doesn’t matter.”
Watch the video below and see how Lim Sing Yuen proved that being old shouldn’t stop you from discovering new passions.
SHARE this to your family and friends to show them that age is just a number.
