Arturo Camarena Torres – The Fearless Freerunner
Arturo is a professional freerunner and parkour athlete from Mexico. He grew up loving extreme sports and was quite gifted in skateboarding, snowboarding, surfing, and climbing. He eventually found parkour and the rest is history. He has been training and competing for 10 years and, in 2017, he came 2nd in the National Championships in Mexico. Due to the lack of opportunity in Mexico, Arturo is currently training in order to come and compete in the Sport Parkour League in America. When Arturo isn’t focusing on his own parkour, he is trying to spread the sport among the youth in Valle de Bravo in Mexico. He teaches young children for Yoghika en Movimiento and hopes to continue to bring the sport to the masses through a new parkour gym that he built with his bare hands with the help of only three others!
We caught up with him to get to know him better.
What is your biggest sporting accomplishment?
It is very difficult to choose one particular moment. The reason why I compete in parkour is because it makes me happy. So, I would say that all jumps are a big win for me. Training in parkour gives me the feeling that I’m always succeeding.
What do you attribute the most to your success?
Dedication and always giving 100%. I am never satisfied and know that I can always do better. I want my race times to be better, I want to have more opportunities to compete, I want to come up with new jumps and stunts for videos, and I want to travel more to train in all kinds of different locations and refine my art.
Besides the sport(s) you compete in, what is your favorite sport?
It is impossible for me to choose just one sport as I grew up doing all kinds of extreme sports. The best I can do is narrow it down to three; snowboarding, skateboard and surfing. I love all three and I also love watching all three.
Who is your sporting idol/someone you looked up to growing up?
I don’t want to name names or leave anyone out, but my little group of friends from back home are my biggest idols. Especially one of them (he knows who he is), as he was the one who urged me to follow my dreams and never give up until I accomplished them.
Do you have any words of advice to aspiring athletes?
Take advantage of everything you have at your disposal to practice and become better. For me it was mainly parks, hence I became a parkour athlete. But, whatever it is that you want to be, make sure that you use what is at your disposal to keep improving. Also, you are going to have to make sacrifices to become the best athlete you can be, but if that is truly what you want, then there is nothing more satisfying.