Parkour is where the heart is

Kennemer Dunes, today. Recoverytraining [run, bend, stretch, walk, move, rest ]

"Individuals raised in aggressive societies are prone to attribute fighting to man's biological makeup and have difficulty conceiving of people living peaceably. Researchers coming from these settings who subscribe to the belief that man possesses an aggressive drive requiring periodic discharge selectively search for evidence of psychological disorders when they study the people of [peaceful] societies. Considering the omnipresence of problems of living, the dubious validity of personality tests, and the elasticity of referents for psychiatric conditions, one who sets out to demonstrate that non combativeness is hazardous to mental health should have no difficulty in finding confirmatory evidence, regardless of the merits of the belief. The reinforcement customs and habits of aggressive societies are rarely, if ever, studied by observers from gentle cultures. Were they to conduct anthropological field research revealing that in societies in which aggressiveness is idealised and cultivated people recurrently humiliate, injure, and kill each other, they would undoubtedly be struck with how aggression is generated by man's social customs. From the social learning respective, human nature is characterised as a vast potentiality that can be fashioned by social influences into a variety of forms."

Albert Bandura in 'Agression, a social learning analysis', page 113. First published in 1973 by Prentice-Hall, Inc., USA

"The capacity to use symbols provides humans with a powerful means of dealing with their environment. Trough verbal and imagined symbols people process and preserve experiences in representational forms that serve as guides for future behaviour. […] Images of desirable futures foster courses of action designed to lead towards more distant goals. Trough the medium of symbols people can solve problems without having to enact all the various alternative solutions; and they can foresee the probable consequences of different actions and alter their behaviour accordingly. […] From a social learning perspective [social learning theory: the explanation of human behaviour in terms of a continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioural, and environmental determants. This conception of human functioning then neither casts people into the role of powerless objects controlled by environmental forces nor free agents who can become whatever they choose. Both people and their environments are reciprocal determinants of each other], human nature is characterised as a vast potentiality that can be fashioned by direct and vicarious experience into a variety of forms within biological limits. The level of psychological and physiological development […] restricts what can be acquired at any given time."

Albert Bandura in 'Social Learning Theory', page 13. First published in 1977 by Prentice-Hall, Inc., USA 

"Pain is delight."

Jan Siebelink's 'Pijn is genot', title of excellent Dutch book with conversations with (among others) Erik Breukink, Wim van Est, Jan Janssen, Peter Post, Steven Rooks, Jan Siemons, Gert-Jan Theunisse, Johan van der Velde en Joop Zoetemelk