Toby Segar

Cameron: You know when you see a ridiculous athletic feet online and wonder whether it is real, like someone climbing up the side of a skyscraper without ropes or someone jumping between two cranes, a hundred meter off the ground? Well, today we get to speak to a legend in this realm.
And unpack how he achieves the seemingly impossible.
Welcome to Flow Unleashed. I'm Dr. Cameron Norsworthy, scientist and high performance coach to multiple world champions. In this show, we unpack key insights on specific topics so that you are kept up to date with the latest science and practice of human performance.[00:01:00]
Our guest today is Toby Cigar, a British Park core professional who is also a finalist in three series of Ninja Warrior uk. Toby is considered one of the best parkour athletes in the world and is a member of Stoa. A collective of seven amazing athletes renowned not only for their world class park war skills, but also their exceptional storytelling and breathtaking video production.
Some of their reels and movies have yielded no less than 700 million views in 2019. Store made their feature film debut in Netflix, six underground. Toby worked closely with famous director Michael Bay, [00:02:00] to perform Park War stunts and famous sites such as the Florence Cathedral in Italy. Toby also holds a number of records including a world record of the longest distance vaulted between two objects, also known as the double Kong of four meters.
That's over 13 feet. Toby's job literally depends on one-off moments of success or failure. The margin for error in some of his stunts are minute, an inch here, an inch. There can be the difference between life and death, fame or injury. Such are the risks of his day job. The mental head space is everything
flow unleashed, unleashed, unleashed. This chat I had with Toby has been remastered from several years ago. Apologize for any distortion in audio quality.[00:03:00]
Welcome to the show, Toby. Oh yeah. Thanks very much for having me. It's a, it's a pleasure. I'm really excited to talk to you. Please, if anyone hasn't checked out Toby's stuff, go on YouTube, type in his name and I remember seeing an amazing image of you. Inverted in between two buildings and I imagine doing a cork or a back flip whilst jumping in between two buildings and all the footage that I have seen of you has always felt more effortless than a lot of other people doing it.
There's seems to be a sense of focus on. Efficiency or even in the Ninja Warrior stuff as a simplicity to your movement, which from my position is really, really, really interesting. Is that something you feel? Is that something you work on? I.
Toby: In
Cameron: the
Toby: sport and outside at the spots on the rooftops with the lines, I find for sure.
But it's interesting you say it with Ninja Warrior because that's a course that's essentially everyone's doing the same [00:04:00] thing. A linear, same obstacle, same takeoff. Yeah. I've always been fascinated by the strike fundamentals of the Sport Park wall. Like ever since I started, I've pretty much done. The same moves.
I've just been working out how to use 'em differently and put 'em together in different ways and implement them to different environments. I guess I never pushed my like tricking skillset that much. I never really pushed the gymnastics side of the sport, getting the twists and the flips. Three technical.
Gymnastic esque lines essentially, if you know what I mean. I've always fallen back and back to the fundamentals every time. I always end up back at the fundamentals. Just leveling those up really, and it's just something I'm naturally always focused on. So that is probably why my park has become very like fairly straightforward on paid by.
I'm doing fairly straightforward movement. I just try and these days to implement them in places that. A very, it's quite hard to implement essentially. As long as it's hard. I'm fairly satisfied, to be honest, [00:05:00] and when the world becomes figurative playground, it's, it the, there's lots of hard things to try just absolutely everywhere.
So it's sort of like endless in that sense.
Cameron: Just so people can get a picture of what you do and what you're focused on. What's a project that, a challenging project that you're working on?
Toby: So a big project at the moment is a documentary we're trying to create about the, the story of the team and our, and how our friendships have built since 2010 when we got together and, and, uh, thought about becoming a team.
There's only 2012, 2001st team that it started to actually work. And ever since there's just been an ongoing set of projects, a list of things, whether we want to go, I don't know, to the. To the desert and just jump down sand dunes for a week and make a video on that. Or 2016, we spent six weeks in in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul, and it was all on skyscrapers.
We haven't actually, I. Revisited that, but that was probably the photo you saw flipping [00:06:00] between the two skyscrapers. That was probably in Hong Kong, one of our biggest projects ever. And since then, there's been a few more and now we're moving into water challenges 'cause it's a bit more internet friendly, things like that.
So we're having to adapt and, and change our content, but we're trying to just keep it in a, in the realm of fun. We just wanna, as long as we find it really fun. And it's packed with challenges that are, that are tough and get us going then, then we're, we're happy. We'll,
Cameron: we'll keep doing it. So how does a water challenge fit into Park War?
Yeah, so
Toby: we started uploading these really till like we, we, we made a film in 2016. It was a, it was a year and uh, it was a hour and a half. And we put it up. And after that we released a lot of BTS on our channel, which was on skyscrapers. YouTube didn't like it and actually demonetized our channel 'cause we were on the skyscrapers.
They said, kids are gonna copy you. They're gonna, they're gonna fall and die. And I totally get that. I understand that. They don't [00:07:00] want, they don't wanna be there. But the water challenges then came about because it. When you're standing on the edge of a bridge or something and you're about to jump to a pile, the big poles that stop boats.
Banging into the bridges and stuff like that. They, they usually, they used to guide the boats through the bridge and stuff. There. A lot of those poles around, around canals and all over the world. Actually, Sydney is a hot, we really want to hit Sydney because the harbor there is just packed with these challenges from the edge of the, the harbor over to these wooden beams and poles, and there's just a whole array of challenges.
Jumping to those beams and, and staying on the beam without falling into the water is usually the number one challenge. And then there's just. An infinite amount of those of different variations, volts from bridges over to those poles, or like shimmies. But the water challenge essentially replicates the feeling we get when we're high up.
There are consequences there, but it's this fake fear. It's like this, if you fall in the water, [00:08:00] nothing's happening, but while you're on the edge and all the time, you're dry and you're fully clothed, you really don't wanna fall in. And it's almost. It almost replicates the feeling you get up on a rooftop 'cause it's telling you definitely don't fall.
You're still really high up. You don't wanna fall in the river. But you know that it's a fake fear essentially. It's just this reality is just playing on your mind. Your eyes are taking in all this scary stuff and, and that, so yeah, when we started releasing those water challenges, falling in the water, then sticking it and staying dry, the, we absolutely loved it and fortunately the internet did as well.
And when. Because our job generally just relies on keeping the views high so we can keep doing it as a job. It was a perfect balance for us. YouTube liked it. We were just getting wet. We weren't falling down office buildings onto concrete. The audience loved seeing us get fall in, and we love doing them.
We love that feeling of a stick and staying dry, and I think. Like back to flow. It really, it does [00:09:00] just encompass that it's mad when you're in the air above the water and it's just 360 consequence and you have this one point to focus on and it's essentially all relies on that takeoff. Once you've taken off, it's not a lot more you can do and there's these moments involved in those, in that process, which we absolutely love.
Yeah.
Cameron: Yeah. So much. I want to talk to you there around commitment and, but first of all, I just wanna figure out how. Landing in water is more fearful than landing on concrete.
Toby: So yeah, that's the thing. It it's not, so if you are say, 10 stories up in the air and there's concrete underneath, there's no option here.
You have to either step away from this jump or know that you're gonna make it a thousand times out a thousand times, and that, that. Preparation has been made, but you're good enough at your sport that that takeoff is as grippy as you say it is. The slab you are moving off is cemented down. It is solid, like your run up is good.
If your steps change, are you stepping on a bad bit of that [00:10:00] rooftop or what's the landing like? Do we need to brush the gravel out the way? Or check it. It's the pretty stable. And once you've got all that out the way, then you're looking at your own skillset. Can I make the jump? Am I feeling good today? I get a good night's sleep.
What's my energy saying? When's the last time I did a jump similar to this? And over the years, that process just happens to, just seems to happen a lot more naturally and a lot more safely, I guess. You end up cutting a lot less corners, which is what I see. I've noticed in maybe the last five years of training.
You've been doing it like 15 years. I dunno if I mentioned that. So that's the sort of scale since I was like 11 and more recently, it feels a lot more natural. And when something starts to feel wrong these days it's a lot more serious. It's like, okay, that's, I dunno how to actually get around this one.
And then you start to, I. To feel the bad feelings, you start to feel that that different side of the nerves, it's, it is no longer an excitement. It's like a, oh, like this isn't a bit of an alarm bell here and now I was 16, 17, 18. I wouldn't recognize that. And that was maybe [00:11:00] actually a, that was maybe actually the go light, but that was the green light to to say, right, you're in a bit of a.
Sketchy state right now. If you start running, you probably won't stop and you might just commit. So let's just see how it goes. That was definitely a head space I used to work in and nowadays it's a lot more like, I don't wanna see how it goes. I don't need to know for sure how this is gonna go. It's not worth it half the time.
So yeah, a lot of people, if they start taking it seriously, will take a few, have a few close calls for sure in the early days, and then you learn ahead of a lot as you know as well from your sports and, and yeah, it's uh.
Cameron: So it sounds like the roots are pretty planned and you are being within a, a comfort zone, so to speak.
You know, it's well rehearsed and you know you're gonna make it and being in water, do you play with that edge a little bit more because you are, the consequences are, are less.
Toby: That's it. Exactly that. So, and that it's, it is the first. Type of challenge we found that [00:12:00] involves height, involves accuracy, involves all the same skill sets that we apply on the rooftops.
But now we can actually push it to the place where it's like, oh, I might not actually stick this, but that's okay. I can fall down the drop. And it is okay. And when we unlocked that a couple years ago, it was a big moment for us. We, oh, we can do this everywhere. And it's great fun and it's great training.
It's great training for your mind because you do really find out how it works under it. Pressure and if when you learn to relax over that water and you learn, take it for what it is, and you accept it, you accept taking the dip, then that's usually when the sticks actually come, is when you. When you know the danger and you just let it, let it be, you let it float around you and you just, you work with it.
But yeah, the water challenge has been a really nice balance for that. You don't die, but you can fall. It's one of those, yeah, and I guess there's
Cameron: falling 40 meters onto water still hurts if you get it wrong. Oh, yeah,
Toby: yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Cameron: You, you said something really interested that I just wanna pick up on where that excitement [00:13:00] just turns a corner to something else and having that innate, intuitive wisdom around, I've got this electricity, or I've got this fear, or whatever you wanna call it, and it can be your greatest friend, and there's a point where it becomes your foe.
Toby: Yeah.
Cameron: And how have you developed that relationship over the years? I.
Toby: Very, very slowly. Yeah, very slowly. And with a lot of progression and regression is it seems to, if I have a couple weeks off or something, your head can go out sync, you mess up a move that you wouldn't have usually messed up and, and that can affect your whole month of, of training.
It's like, I shouldn't have made that mistake. I shouldn't have done that. And I guess that pattern over the years has just crystallized to the point where I now have enough. Same with anything you do for a long time. I, I guess you have enough data in your subconscious, in your history that it [00:14:00] triggers are happening all the time.
It's like, oh, I've sinned that edge before, or, I've slipped on this type of brick before with these shoes on. Maybe I'll try the, try these shoes or changed my angle or something. And it's just a kind of thing that. Kind of tweaks I, I just wouldn't make without the experience, without having been in that same scenario before.
And the beauty of parkour is that every single sport, every single. Move you do. It could be the same move you've done a thousand times, but at this spot it's different. The wall's this much higher, it's this much thicker, the distance you're getting is further, or there might be a slight drop or a slight.
It's just all changing. It's not like you're on a, it's not like you're on a gymnastic obstacle that is just uniform and stays the same around the world. It's same as something like surfing. When the wave gets bigger and smaller, it's like that type of learning I think is so full or all encompassing and gives you way more than you think.
It gives you way more, you're learning more than you actually realize you're learning. I think when the environment is just constantly changing like that, which I [00:15:00] think applies to everything in life. I think if you generally just chuck yourself into different scenarios as much as possible, I think you are.
You just generally become comfortable anymore. I think that's directly trying to able to park all for sure. Yeah.
Cameron: And that sense of knowing becomes clearer. And for a, a lot of people there's this confusion as to, well, is it good fear? Is it bad fear, I'm on the edge, but I'm on the good side of the edge or mm-hmm.
How do you find clarity in that? Is that like a feeling in your body or is that just something that happens in the mind and you monitoring your thoughts?
Toby: When it comes to a, like a specific move, usually if we're creating for, I'll just put it into perspective, the movement, like if we're creating a lie, if we're creating a sequence of movements, most of the time because they're strung together, they're G on their own, they're gonna be fairly easy.
You'd be gonna build up to each one and get each section of that line dialed before you try and string it together. But once [00:16:00] you start to string it together. Each individual movement's fairly straightforward, and then it's just the connections that make it difficult. The difference then comes when you only wanna do one of those movements when the challenge is a single move, it's a single explosion, a single takeoff or, or something like that.
So you're clearing one gap and that's done. You're not clearing a gap and then carrying on the line and doing a something else after or a flip, or you are not making a sequence. So that's where the physical boundaries usually. Get pushed is when you're working with those singular movements and, and then when you combine that with something like height, that's where for me, I end up with my biggest, biggest challenge is when it's a single movement that takes a quite.
I guess compressed sense of attention. 'cause you're not thinking ahead. You have this like one section of this environment you're gonna conquer. It's just two walls a lot of the time and it's gonna take a lot of speed, a lot of power. And there is consequence involved. Maybe there's a drop or something.
And with [00:17:00] something like that, it's all just a preparation. It's hitting the wall low if I'm planning to land on the top of it, knowing that. That there are option. If I don't make it 100%, that 80% is safe and that 70% is safe, and knowing where my safe zones is, what equals the commitment. Once I create that safe zone, all of those safe, different safe options that come from mistakes, then I know that regardless if I mess this up or succeed, I can try again and work off what I've learned over the years.
You get better at saving stuff, and they might even be. On purpose. You know, sometimes you know that it's gonna take a lot of power to get to an edge, but you don't want to put in that full power 'cause it increases the risk of messing it up. So you put in 80% and you just hit it short. And learning to hit stuff short over consequence is, is massively important.
Learning to fail essentially. And it's on purpose to build up. But yeah, lots of things equal that commitment point. Lot, lots of different things. Yeah. [00:18:00] Yeah.
Cameron: Yeah. Interesting. You talked about inviting failure, and I see failure as this thing that's common across all domains. You know, people who are finding flow and good at what they do.
They invite the failure, but they invite it in a way of it being a, a stepping stone to mastery and just a process, process of learning. Yes. If you have a particular new technique or a new move that you want to do or a new building that you want to summit, or whatever it is, do you stay at it and have that deep practice and keep failing?
Keep failing, keep failing. Keep failing until you've learned it got the wisdom and then complete it. Or do you move from new things all the time and just slowly pick up that
Toby: failure? I've definitely stayed. Along the same paths of progression for me, I've, I very rarely peel off and learn something brand new in the sport anyway in parkour, but definitely, especially on ground level, which is a full power [00:19:00] move or, or yeah, full speed move, that's the risk.
And the danger just accelerates massively even on flat ground level with a, uh, just a few foot drop. Anything with speed being any other urban sport with wheels. Most of the bales come because they're going insanely fast and being able to process those things is just so hard. So I'll slowly speed up and I'll do the move almost in half speed if I can do that.
If I don't have to make it to that wall and I can just land on the floor in the middle, I'll do that a bunch of times. Um, but. Esp, especially more nowadays, we try and make our sessions as efficient as possible. Like it's tough to get up at nine in the morning and train all the way around until it's dark.
I can't do that in a bouldering gym or a climbing gym or something like that. You can keep going, keep pushing, and obviously your skin disappears and you're not as good at climbing at the end of the day, of course, but the danger isn't there, like you're not gonna really damage yourself and with. I know you say that because bouldering is mostly, feels like my second sport at the moment.
I'm absolutely loving it. [00:20:00] I love loving that. But the difference is the impact. So we're trying to reduce those attempts. We're trying to reduce those attempts big time because it just takes a toll on your body and after five goes at one big jump. And if you still haven't made it the sixth up to the 10th go, you really are gonna be rinsed and then you're moving into like.
Fatigue territory where the chance of the injury is just skyrocketed, I suppose you start to work out whether it's worth putting in that 100% sprint early days, and if you can make it happen safely, you're trying to work out if you can make that happen safely, and if you are able to build up with some fails, then if you do fail that 100% attempt, you've already done it a bunch of times and it just naturally falls into your motor.
I guess usually if I've built up. For that long and it, and it's been a really long process to actually fall out of that state of like natural flow. It becomes a lot more like I'm just getting this done and it becomes very conscious and very, I'm just very clear there's [00:21:00] no intrinsic feeling. The, if I'm on ground level and it just, and it's raw power, it becomes like trying your personal best deadlift or something where it's like, I've now rehearsed this movie so many times that now it's just.
Putting in the power and, and nailing the technique and getting all of the coordination spot on. And once I'm in that state, on ground level, I actually don't really, I don't feel any different. It feels like you're just exerting, like you're in a gym. There's no fear, there's no nothing else. Um, but yeah, if there's, for example, a concrete roof gap, you know the landing's good, but you've never been on that other roof.
That's when you have, that's when I have to fall into a certain state of like. That feels very different. It's closer to what, yeah, closer to the flow is when you've gotta nail that first time and you're relying solely on your intrinsic experience and you're waiting for that mode to ease its way in.
Through talking with your mates about the move or through visualizing it and thinking about a [00:22:00] previous bit and genuinely considering walking away from it. It's really important to go through that as well. Like am I cool walking away from this? If is, will I? I look back on this and think, oh, you know, it would've been, would've been easy one.
But you always do. When you walk away from something scary, you always go home and think that, so, but it's good to consider that option of walking away. You've gotta do it. When it comes to the dangerous stuff,
Cameron: and you mentioned visualization and talking with friends, what are, what other things help you get to that place of trust?
Toby: I, I have some things that I generally can rely on, which is usually just like. So generally speed and power usually are a good sort of fallback for me in a sense. Uh, a lot of the time, dangers down the middle, danger, you're, you're clearing something or the bounce off if you don't make a move is gonna be really harsh.
So what I can usually kind of rely on is the speed and power that I get over the top of all of those dangerous obstacles and I can [00:23:00] clear the space rather than hitting the nasty edges and things like that. What helps me with that is basically constructing your runup absolutely perfectly to the point where you don't even have to think about what's coming up.
You only have to execute it once you're there, and once you runup set in something like the park or you are, you're playing sailing from there, really, I think a lot of people run at a wall and they just think, if I run from way back here and I get there that it's just gonna go fine. But if your steps are, are a foot too close to that wall or, or a foot too far away from that wall.
For a running jump or for a vault, which is something I really like doing it, it transforms the movement. It could be make or break between getting five meters out of it or seven meters out of it. And if you rewind that movement, it could be the difference between a couple of inches in your, in your runner.
So breaking down the physical ax aspects is number one. Once got, once I have all of those dialed, then. I have to trust that I can now play out what I've designed without having to make [00:24:00] any adjustments during the movement. If I can, if I know what's gonna happen from the moment I take my first step, I know there's gonna be nine steps for my takeoff, and then once I'm in the air, if I bounce off, I've got this option.
If I overdo it, I've got this option. If I stick it, I've got this option. You end up with a, I guess. A big pack of backups and a big pack of safety notes in your head through the experience that once you do start running, you just see it. And yeah, that's sometimes when the blinkers come in and you just, you are in, in the space.
And when, like you said earlier. That's when it feels easy. That's when suddenly this thing you're building up to and this thing that has the potential to be the best move you've ever done suddenly feels easy and you come out the back end of it feeling like you could do better, you know? But really you've just put in the preparation, you put in the time, and you hit that state of control that allowed it to happen.
And it's applicable in so many parts of, of your life. I've got it in front of me actually on my desk. I've written in poem and Marco. Prior preparation prevents piss [00:25:00] ball performance, and it's very well known. It's a very well known term, but it equals it. It takes you to those places of pure. Clarity and control where, you know how you're gonna get this task done regardless if it's a jump or an edit or anything like that for me.
Mm. It's you build that pack of prep to then just chuck it. And nothing here wrong, you always go the back of your head maybe. So maybe there's something I've missed and occasionally there's something you've missed. And that's, I guess, the name of the game. Yeah, it's one of those.
Cameron: Are you looking to improve your performance? Stress less and flow more. Do you want to improve the human performance in your organization or team? If so, we are here to help our team of experts specialize in helping individuals and businesses integrate a high performance practice and culture. So if you want to take your performance to the next level.[00:26:00]
Or integrate the lessons and skills you hear on this pod into your leaders and teams. Go to flow center.org today. The official site of flow training and flow coaching, it's a a really important point, and I'm often talking about professionalizing our preparation, and most people would expect an elite athlete to do that for an important event, but they wouldn't expect themselves to do it for an ordinary day.
Or an ordinary. When we do professionalize our preparation, we can go in with so much more open-mindedness, curiosity, trust, and, and open openness, because we're, yeah, we've got all the, uh, the confidence of all that scaffolding and when you're actually doing it, and you are not just doing one move, but perhaps some of that rooftop footage that I've seen of you running over rooftops and playing with it, and you're going from mm-hmm.
From obstacle to obstacle, is there [00:27:00] a or a focus for you? Do you focus on just staying light or being simple or where's your focus?
Toby: Depending if I'm running with other people or not. A lot of time, uh, the, the clips you might be referencing of POVs we're running with as a few of us running along the roofs like that.
Yeah, so those are, those are obviously, uh, pre-planned sequences that we've rehearsed every part of, and then we come back and. We'll connect them all with a roll transition, so it looks like you're carrying on with the run. You know, you do a roll and you teleport to the next rooftop and then you, but some of those runs are up to a minute long and a lot of those, it is really comes out for me.
I just focus on executing them. Smoothly, it's, it's trying to use your body as efficiently as possible so that there aren't any jarring angles in your motion and your weight. Essentially, your center of weight is just taking a nice, smooth ride rather than hitting these balls and jarring over them. When you hit the ground, it's to see it, see it come in and absorb nicely so you can [00:28:00] sprint out and preserve that energy and.
Taking impact with bad timing is just so, so exhausting. It just takes it out of you. Your whole century nervous system just goes into into shock, and you have to like get yourself back into the flow, especially if you're with the others and there's a camera behind you and you're about to take off For this next gap, you gotta switch back into the mode and know that.
You can't stop there. Someone behind you needs to jump as well. It's like you've gotta keep going, but we'll never do any of those team sequences unless everyone has it absolutely dialed or the movement's quite easy and you can pull it out. Even if you mess it up a bit, you can still, you can still get it out the way, and you'll see it in a lot of those point of view videos.
If you look in the distance that the guys a little bit further away, there might be the odd mistake that we figure. I'll get away with that one. That one will be right. But uh, when it comes to gaps and stuff, I suppose you do, you lock in, but, um,
Cameron: when, when you lock, when you lock in, do you lock into where, where am [00:29:00] I placing my foot?
Do you lock into feeling like and keeping that sense of gravity on all the different obstacles? Or do you just feel that flow and, and trust that? Where do you lock into?
Toby: Yeah, depending on the movement, again, it usually is dictated by the danger involved. So it's a dangerous element is coming up, something that needs to go right, like a takeoff.
A lot of the time you're stepping up onto a slab or the edge of a rooftop or something. And on ground level I might aim for that takeoff with the takeoff for, and then before it even touches, um, my eyes are now up at the railing or the something in the distance that I'm gonna be landing on. 'cause that's the next important thing, whereas when it's, when the danger is involved.
My eyes are on that takeoff until my foot is for sure in the right spot. And until I know for sure that when I now drive with my other leg, that takeoff is solid and that it's gonna clear me across the danger. Once that foot is solid, that's when my eyes will come up [00:30:00] to the landing. But that will happen later when the danger is involved to ensure that you're not gonna fall down the middle, I guess.
So, yeah. And then on ground level, you can be a bit more. Hazard with your eyes, put them where you really want them to be for your for the movement. Because the danger's not there. It's less consequential. I mean, if you're sprinting at a takeoff on ground level and you mess it up, it's still gonna be really la.
You're gonna be grinding along the concrete, but you're not falling
Cameron: down. I guess what I'm hearing is that your focus is on the moment to moment task, like where does that foot go? And then you deal with the next thing at the next time. Yeah.
Toby: That's it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then sometimes you've rehearsed that so much that you're not even, you're not even thinking about it.
Um, yeah. And something that you're, something you're concentrating so hard on them was the crux of your line is now this just easy flowing, just. Piece of cake. It's a lovely point to get to where it, it starts to feel easy, but you've gotta be careful with that and not push it too far [00:31:00] when you're in that mode.
'cause yeah, that's when the young mistakes happen. Yeah, because it feels amazing, doesn't it? It feels like the best feeling, is best feeling in the world. You feel indestructible, you feel like you can do anything. Like you feel stronger and faster and more sharp than you've ever felt. And you've gotta recognize that can play tricks on you.
Cameron: Yeah, it often feels like when you notice that feeling. And you're like, IF I'm feeling good. And then the ego kicks in. You're like, that's, I can do anything. When we're just focused on the task at hand and in the flow, then it seems to be good. But then when it goes into our head, then it becomes a false confidence and yeah, false confidence.
That's it.
Toby: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Cameron: Is there any kind of mental ritual that you go through? Let's say you planned it out, you've got your, your processes sorted in that 30 seconds before you. You go for it. Is there a mental ritual you go through?
Toby: I think I have like, [00:32:00] it, it, I get it. It it is so, it's so dependent on the movement and, and the scenario that it, it definitely changes the mental side of it.
But I've got a lot of physical ticks. I. Are, are signs that I'm in that, that, in that mode, I'll, I'll be shaking my hands or playing my sleeves, like my sleeves are never quite in the right spot when I'm in that preparation mode. You know what I mean? You pull them up, now you pull 'em down, you pull them up, pull them down.
You end up with these little ticks. I like to kick the floor with my toes to get my foot to the front of my shoe so I can feel how my, where my foot is in my shoe, for example, stuff like that. Over the years, the shoes have just got tighter so that I don't have to do that as much like. Little things like that.
A lot of the runup, to be honest, a lot of it's in the runup. So I'll be standing at the back of a runup 15, I dunno, 10, 15 steps back, seeing where my left foot's gonna hit that curb, or my right foot I've already marked is on that drain there. If I right foot hits that drain and I'm at this speed, I know I [00:33:00] don't need to worry about the takeoff and I can just move into it.
So I guess. To be honest, that my ritual is getting my runup right. I rave it, I shout it at people a lot and some people don't. Some people just start running and if their run ups wrong, they just back off before the takeoff and they'll go back and start again. And that breaks my flow big time. If I'm running up, I wanna know I'm gonna be taking off and going, just a personal thing really.
I don't wanna waste those run-ups. And then if you're sprinting into something, it's even more so you're trying to keep that session efficient. You don't wanna be rinsed by the end of the day. I dunno if you. You've done, I'm sure you've done some sprint training in your time. It's just savage. It's just grim.
It's horrible for your body and, and when you're doing it unnecessarily in a park wall session, that really, that frustrates me. So I, I guess you could call that a ritual of mine is just, it's just being a bit bit weirdly obsessive about my run-ups
Cameron: and any kind of mental preparation that you might go through before that 32nd period that you feel is critical.[00:34:00]
Toby: It usually circulates general motivation. I'm trying to make myself happier, I guess I'm trying to manifest the love for the sport in the warmup, it's like you're reminding your body physically that it's good to do this stuff, and the moment you start moving the, the chemicals do their thing. The human body just loves moving.
And once you're in the movement, you're not thinking about the video. You just wanna move. You just wanna move. Uh. I think mental preparation circulates general motivation. For me. I just have to be motivated. Have to be happy on the walls, to want to be there. Have to want to be there, and if you start to sense that you don't, I dunno if much special is gonna happen that day.
Cameron: At the beginning you talked about getting excited for a particular project or run or film or, and ordinarily that helps people get into flow. You get inspired and that takes over. Mm. Yeah. But when you become a professional and you start making money out of it and you've got [00:35:00] sponsors or X, Y, and Z and you've gotta start to hit deadlines and mm-hmm.
You've gotta start to do stuff that isn't purely because. This is the best thing I can ever think of doing right now. Yeah. There comes that ju juggling act of find, igniting that inspiration or finding that flame for something that isn't necessarily like a hundred percent there. Maybe you're 90% or 80%.
Yeah.
Toby: Yeah.
Cameron: How does that work? Do you only take stuff on that you're a hundred percent for, or you, you'll do stuff that you're amped for, but not the best thing in the world. How do you manage that?
Toby: Excellent question, but it's something we all talk about in the sport a lot. It, it setting that standard almost.
It's the point to try and this, if it's not the best thing I can do, it's definitely a pattern I've fallen into in the past for sure. And it's a slippery slope because the higher your standard generally, the less you'll actually. Train behind that 100%. The less movement you end up actually doing, you're just on the [00:36:00] hunt.
You're just looking for that world class gap or that massive cat bus or that you're just always on the hunt. It's, it's probably. My ego, it's probably the ego just coming in and being like, you are this good. You should only be performing and showing people that kind of level. And a lot of the time you don't see tho those athletes around for that long.
Really. I think that's pretty much it. They're just, it just doesn't work. You lose the pa, you lose the fun. And that's generally number one. Just you've gotta be finding it fun and if, if hitting that a hundred percent's, the only way you can do that, then. You, you're destined for, for failure. I think, uh, you've gotta be comfortable at 50% even.
You've gotta be comfortable there just knowing that if you take the same steps, it'll happen again, I think. Um, but yeah, it is a funny one. You, you've always got your eye on that move. That is the hardest move. And it's different for each person at the spot. You know, seven of us training, we're gonna have seven different goals a lot of the time, which is really nice because you don't.
In store, for example. There's a lot, there's very [00:37:00] little comparing because all the skill sets. So unique, which is really cool because a lot of the time people will just cater for that one person that is up at that time and something that can feel like it's at your 100% limit can just suddenly start feeling a lot easier Once you've built up with friends, once they've given you their example of a recent feedback or something.
Once you work on a move together, a lot of the time you can feel a lot more comfortable than if you're doing it on your own.
Cameron: And what really motivates you in terms of. You talked about the difficulty of the move and it being a challenge essentially, and I imagine there's also this amazing social element that you have with the other professionals that you're working with.
What are the other things that get you get your juices going
Toby: more recently in the team? Actually, we've started to realize that when anyone does anything, 'cause we've been training together now for so long, I. Some of the time it [00:38:00] feels like you've done it some of the time. You're so up for your body to, to conquer that challenge because you know how much it means to, you've been there a million times yourself, that you can stick a jump.
And now the whole team is just on top buzzing and everyone is buzzing. And, and, and I find that really interesting, that kind of collective state of accomplishment. We still have only come through time with, uh, with the team anyway 'cause I don't get it with. Many other athletes. I could be an athlete for the first time and that day if I watch them try something 30 odd times and then they stick it.
Don't get me wrong, everyone's going mental. Everyone is psyched for that guy, but in the team it can happen like that. It's like a really quick synchronization of all the guys. When it come. When one person is in that mode and they're the one that's trying to break through that barrier and do all that, everyone is catering for them.
It's like you're all prepping the jump with them. That's a fascinating thing for us and something we're trying to actually document a bit more down the line because it's weird that someone else is, can achieve [00:39:00] something that is solely their thing. It's all their, all of their ability, everything. And you feel a sense of collective achievement when they've done it.
And I think it's just 'cause we've been together so long I think doing the same thing. Yeah. The motivation is definitely that feeling afterwards. Really. That's the true motivation. Yeah.
Cameron: Sounds like there's, there's common goals there. Shared identity with the group and that Yeah. Everyone else's progression is an integrated progression of your own progression
Toby: y Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. I think we're, we realized a long time ago that we're way more powerful as a unit and I think over the years, just 'cause we've done so much together, it's just solidified itself as a fact in our heads that we are better together. Wouldn't change it. Relevant? Yeah, for sure.
Cameron: Awesome. All right. I'm gonna ask you some quick fire questions. Are you ready? Cool. What are your three pillars [00:40:00] to your success?
Toby: Good friendships, hard
Cameron: work,
Toby: and sleep.
Cameron: Sleep. It's amazing how underestimated sleep is. Big time. Big time. And what's your one golden tip for finding flow?
Toby: Persistence. Stick with it. Stick with the preparation. Stick with the preparation, and it won't come right away, I guess. Then sooner or later you start to notice that second mode that helps you out here and there. I think it's persistence time on the ground in a sport will give you, that will give you that mode and then through experience you start to realize what, what situations enhance it or what situations trigger it, I guess.
Yeah.
Cameron: And where do you take inspiration from outside your sport? And I'm gonna. Caveat [00:41:00] that you're not allowed to use rock climbing or gymnastics is a oh damn rock climbing gonna be a number one.
Toby: Oh, okay. Outside. There's a guy called Ed Stafford. Do you know him? He's a survival guy. He goes out and lives on islands for weeks on ends, and he just preaches this headspace that keeps you going, preaches this positive headspace, and he usually circulates it around the gut.
He says his gut is his second brain. A lot of the philosophy he promotes around. Staying happy, staying motivated when everything around you is just dire. That's where I take a lot of inspiration from and breaking the rules. I got that from the big wall guys. The guys in the middle of El Cap that are just, they seem to just hate their life, but they get to the top and they're the happiest men in the world when they're up there.
The men and women that are are up there. I find that fascinating and really inspirational. Yeah. Sticking with it, knowing it's worth it. [00:42:00]
Cameron: And a book or film that has had a huge impact on your life
Toby: avatar? To be honest, the first avatar that came out really genuinely opened my eyes to just how we're ruining the place, how we're ruining our own planet. I think that was probably, that was the biggest switch for me. Still my favorite film to date, but I think it's awesome.
Cameron: Great stuff. Well, thanks Toby.
Thank you very much for your time. No, thank
Toby: you, Cameron, for having me. I really appreciate it. Pleasure,
Cameron: flow. Unleashed. Unleashed, unleashed. Toby talks with great humility of his acts that many would call superhuman. Whilst many people in his domain have come and gone or been one hit wonders, Toby still remains at the top of his game a decade later.
Delighting us We've never been done before. Feats every month. Many may assume that his acts are reckless or gung-ho, but [00:43:00] behind his calm and wild exterior is a conscious, courageous, and deeply considered professional athlete. Whilst he displays a somewhat nervous laugh every time he talks of the consequences of his risks, Toby doesn't stray away from embracing the worst case scenario in his visualizations and preparations.
His acts require an absolute commitment to complete. And it was clear that his deep commitment to a project lies not in blind faith, but in his trust, in his deep wisdom, that and vast experience, an ability to clear his mind to only focus on an actualized version of his next move. This chat with Toby is a constant reminder of how important our preparations are to our mental game.
If we want to be pushing limits and stretching our capacity, we need to be versed in playing with the edge of the wedge. And by that I mean we need to be comfortable in the [00:44:00] uncomfortable so we can stretch. This comes not from living on a prayer, but from being meticulous in our preparations, having a series of fallback plans and being confident in what we are doing.
I for one, am excited to see what Tobi does Next, if you want to find out more about Tobi cigar, please see the show notes.
Thank you for listening to Flow Unleashed. If you enjoyed listening, please subscribe to get notified when our next episode drops. The more people that subscribe, the better I can make the show for you. Equally, please leave a review. Your review will go a long way to helping others find this pot until the next time.
Thank you for listening to Flow [00:45:00] Unleashed.