Meet the Muslim women using parkour to feel free

By practicing the sport, Mudallal hopes she tin promote much women to participate what she describes arsenic a "male dominated" field.

"It's benignant of intimidating for women to sometimes travel successful and bent retired and things similar that. But now, recently, much women person been showing up, truthful it's been much comfy for women to travel successful and practice," 26-year-old Mudallal tells CNN Sport.

"It starts with 1 and you person to basal up for that, and past you bring much radical in."

In astir of the parkour jams she attends -- wherever parkour practitioners congregate and bid unneurotic -- she says she's often the lone hijabi athlete.

"I inactive americium similar the lone idiosyncratic who wears the hijab, of people [...] we inactive person a agelong mode to spell with that for women to consciousness assured successful themselves," she says.

Standing retired from the crowd

But Mudallal is utilized to lasting out.

She grew up successful Los Angeles, wherever she was jock of the twelvemonth successful precocious schoolhouse -- and garnered the aforesaid rubric successful mediate schoolhouse 3 years successful a row.

"I'm precise well-rounded. Like I tin play soccer, I tin play basketball, I tin play football. I tin play tennis. Except play -- I don't cognize however to play golf," she muses.

When she was 12, her parent enrolled her successful karate classes, wherever she went connected to gain a archetypal and 2nd grade achromatic belt.

At the opening of 2015, Mudallal decided to commencement wearing a headscarf. That aforesaid year, a person introduced her to parkour.

Having gained important little assemblage spot and halfway equilibrium from karate, she says she was built for the sport.

"My legs were already beauteous strong," Mudallal says. "In presumption of taking a atrocious landing ... I was safe."

"I've ever loved climbing and jumping connected things and didn't truly cognize that was a sport, didn't truly cognize it was a technique."

As a beginner, Mudallal says she was welcomed into the parkour and freerunning assemblage with unfastened arms.

"I bash not consciousness that radical did not privation maine successful the group," she says. "I didn't springiness them that accidental to marque maine consciousness that way. It's astir personality, it's astir however beardown you are. If you are shy doing thing due to the fact that of what you're wearing, you person to cheque yourself with that, past wherefore are you wearing it, you know?

"I didn't truly care, if I was wearing oregon not wearing [a headscarf], my interests are inactive the same. And I truly wanted to bash parkour, truthful I went successful careless of what I look similar connected the outside."

'It's adjacent harder for the girls'

While athletics has ever fixed Mudallal the abstraction to explicit herself, Iranian parkour manager and erstwhile nationalist gymnast Fatemeh Akrami has memories of feeling hampered arsenic a young athlete.

Growing up arsenic a shy child, Akrami's parent signed her up for section gymnastics classes erstwhile she was six, successful the hopes of bringing her retired of her shell.

"I was a ace shy girl, I didn't adjacent accidental hullo to strangers. I was hiding down my mother's backmost due to the fact that I was truthful shy," the 27-year-old Tehran autochthonal tells CNN Sport.

Despite her archetypal apprehension, Akrami rapidly excelled. She says she won her archetypal medal astatine a nationalist contention erstwhile she was 12 and joined the nationalist squad a twelvemonth later. Akrami went connected to clinch 2 golden medals and 1 metallic astatine the Islamic Solidarity Games successful Iran successful 2007.

But portion Akrami was enjoying occurrence successful the spotlight, she was struggling down the scenes.

She says that owed to planetary gymnastics dress codification rules astatine the time, she wasn't capable to vie connected a planetary signifier successful accordance with Iran's mandatory hijab law, which was enacted by the Islamic Republic in 1983.

Since the Islamic Revolution successful 1979, the state hasn't dispatched a azygous pistillate jock to enactment successful the Olympics successful swimming, wrestling oregon gymnastics -- including astatine this year's Tokyo Games.

"It's adjacent harder for the girls successful Iran," Akrami says. "You bid similar an Olympian, but you ne'er get there, truthful it's hard to support yourself motivated."

"I deliberation similar successful 10 years I didn't be a funeral, a wedding, a day party, nary of them," she adds.

Dealing with the unit of competing successful immoderate precocious strength athletics is challenging, but Akrami says that juggling the demands of grooming portion attending schoolhouse was doubly exhausting.

"Gymnastics is simply a precise hard sport. You person to enactment a batch of effort due to the fact that you person to beryllium mentally and physically prepared to beryllium successful a competitory level," she says. "We were experiencing a batch of pressure."

"In the weekdays, I utilized to spell to schoolhouse from 7:00 a.m. until 1p.m. And past from the school, my parent utilized to prime maine up and past [go] consecutive to the gym until 10:00 p.m," she adds. "So successful the Friday, which was the play [...] determination was nary rest. So we had to bid from 9:00 successful the greeting until 9:00 successful the evening.

"Training hard gives you intelligence unit due to the fact that you get tired, you person school, you person homework, you person training. Like sometimes, the grooming don't spell well, you don't get the accomplishment right. It takes excessively long, sometimes you get injured.

"I don't retrieve sleeping astatine nighttime without having pain."

A doctrine of state

After Akrami near her vocation arsenic a nonrecreational gymnast astatine the property of 18, she was looking for a caller start.

She had conscionable begun university, erstwhile 1 of her peers encouraged her to effort retired parkour.

"It was like, 'OK, what's next?,'" Akrami says. "I ever needed thing much due to the fact that gymnastics is simply a precise breathtaking athletics and [...] each time you request the adrenaline rush.

"He stopped successful a parkland and told me, 'Do you privation to effort immoderate of the parkour skills?' And I was like, 'Yeah, let's springiness it a try. I deliberation successful the archetypal 30 minutes, I got 5 oregon six [...] skills of parkour, and I myself was super, ace surprised."

While Akrami utilized to consciousness restricted by gymnastics, she says parkour gives her "self-confidence."

"In gymnastics, everything is truthful disciplined, you person to bash everything conscionable arsenic they say. No more, nary less. But successful parkour, you tin bash immoderate determination with your body," she says. "The doctrine of parkour is each astir the freedom."

"You tin bash parkour wherever you want, whenever you privation and with immoderate formal you want. Like there's nary formal code. I tin vie successful a contention with my Islamic formal and that's fine.

"And you tin bash each the skills with your ain body, with your ain style, truthful it gives you a batch of choices. That's the feeling of state that parkour gives."

Mudallal adds, "What's chill astir parkour is that each azygous idiosyncratic moves differently."

"It makes maine consciousness free. It makes maine consciousness similar possibilities are endless, and I tin bash anything," Mudallal says. "I fell successful emotion with it arsenic soon arsenic I started."

Shattering stereotypes of stereotypes

Since Mudallal started practicing parkour, she has gone from spot to strength.

Since posting videos of her freerunning adventures connected societal media, she has amassed implicit 35,000 followers.

In July 2021, she attended the Red Bull Art of Motion contention successful Greece -- wide considered 1 of the highest-profile freerunning events successful the sport.

"It's similar for the archetypal time, I felt like, 'Oh, my God, similar this is fate.' Like this is being handed to maine connected a platter and I'm not going to accidental nary to moving forward," Mudallal says.

"I conscionable decided to, like, determination guardant with it and signifier much and instrumentality it earnestly more, but instrumentality it earnestly successful a mode wherever I would inactive emotion it and not beryllium dragged to spell bash parkour due to the fact that it's similar my job. No, I privation to bash it due to the fact that I emotion doing it," she adds.

In 2018, Mudallal besides became the archetypal hijabi jock to look connected the battle people TV amusement American Ninja Warrior.

"It was decidedly something," she says. "First clip experiencing a crippled amusement [...] knowing however TV and Hollywood [...] however each that works."

"In presumption of the hijab aspect, yes, that's similar my title. I americium the archetypal hijabi to spell connected American Ninja Warrior, but it's similar I was virtually walking similar immoderate different person," she adds. "They mentioned it connected TV, but it wasn't precise focused connected that."

Even though Mudallal is champion known for being a hijabi parkour athlete, she says that being known by a singular statement tin consciousness reductive.

"It's a rubric I've had for a precise agelong time. And moving forward, I don't privation to beryllium lone known arsenic that due to the fact that anybody could beryllium a hijabi parkour athlete, but are they bully astatine what they're doing?" she says. "I privation to amusement I'm decidedly much than that.

"It's not up to radical that deterioration hijab who play those sports to interruption them [stereotypes]. But it's bully to physique that consciousness that, 'Hey, beryllium down, you know, like, halt creating that stereotype.'

"I anticipation 1 time [...] radical volition spot maine past the hijab."

'Don't fto thing halt you'

Mudallal says that for immoderate Muslim girls, making the determination to measurement extracurricular one's comfortableness portion tin beryllium met with hostility from radical some wrong and extracurricular their community.

Six years into her parkour journey, she says she inactive receives captious comments from radical connected societal media.

"In presumption of what radical say, I'm precise past that, precise past that. Because ideate if, like, I did halt parkour, I did perceive [to] what radical accidental -- I'm the 1 who's going to beryllium miserable, similar they're conscionable going to support moving connected with their life," Mudallal says.

"My connection of proposal to everyone who wants to determination guardant with this is halt asking, 'Should I determination forward?' Do it. It's a elemental happening to say, but it's a hard happening to do.

"Everyone other is going to determination forward, but someone's ever going to beryllium stopping you for immoderate reason. So you person to determination past that. You person to get implicit that wall."

Akrami's connection to young Muslim girls? "Don't fto thing halt you."

"Go for it. Try and you're going to execute it. I judge the information that it mightiness beryllium harder a small bit, but it's not impossible."

Luckily, some athletes tin autumn backmost connected the enactment of their families.

Mudallal says, "What I've noticed is [...] sometimes successful presumption of culture, it's similar Arab fathers are precise restrictive of what they privation their daughters doing. And what's antithetic astir my begetter is that due to the fact that I'm the oldest child, helium was always, 'Sara, you're going to turn up and you're going to beryllium independent, you're going to turn your ain business, you know, you're going to marque your ain money.'

"My ma is the aforesaid thing, you know, 'You got to beryllium strong, got to enactment your ft down, beryllium confident.' From wherever I americium today, they're conscionable always, always, ever supporting me."

Reminiscing astir her gymnastics career, Akrami says she "gave up truthful galore times."

"We ne'er were a precise affluent family, but they gave maine each I needed, each I wanted [...] financially, mentally, [...] truthful that was wherefore I could basal each the pressure," she adds. "They are ace arrogant of wherever I americium today."

Endless possibilities

Mudallal hopes that by sharing her story, she tin promote radical to admit the extent and nuance of her travel and make abstraction for much young Muslim women to measurement into the parkour industry.

"I anticipation to spot much girls similar maine prosecute it," she says. "The value of maine doing parkour. It's conscionable an look of [...] what I preach, of my movement. What I've grown, what I've taken in, what I'm showing out.

"Parkour is inactive reasonably a antheral dominated sport. And for women successful general, they are expanding for sure, twelvemonth by twelvemonth and [...] really making a statement."

Akrami besides hopes to spot much girls freerunning, which is wherefore she became a parkour manager erstwhile she was astir 20.

"I was like, 'OK, determination are truthful galore girls and they are truthful passionate astir parkour. You person to thatch them what you know,'" Akrami says.

So far, she says she's taught 100 girls however to parkour and fixed certified grooming to astir 50 much to go parkour coaches themselves.

"When they get this skill, it gives maine a amended feeling than erstwhile I bash the skill," Akrami says. "Because erstwhile they consciousness things, erstwhile they consciousness the joy, erstwhile they get excited, like, 'OK, I got the skills,' they're screaming and running."

By sharing her knowledge, she hopes she tin thatch her students beingness skills, specified arsenic resilience and determination.

"I'm truly blessed to fto them [students] know, astatine least, that they tin bash this. So galore of them are like, 'No, we cannot train. It is intolerable to bid successful Iran, to bid parkour successful Iran.' At slightest they recognize that it's possible, you conscionable haven't got there. But it's possible," Akrami says.

"It's astonishing however erstwhile you commencement doing parkour, it gives you the imaginativeness that thing is arsenic hard arsenic it looks, adjacent successful life," she adds. "When you effort it, erstwhile you win and you are like, 'Wow, did I truly bash that? Did I truly leap that far?' Yes, you did it. It was looking ace hard [...] but you ne'er cognize unless you effort it."

Ultimately, parkour is rooted successful a counterculture that gives radical who tin beryllium sidelined by nine a mode to halfway their stories and marque themselves arsenic disposable arsenic possible.

Like Mudallal, Akrami shares her videos of her parkour tricks online to "let different radical successful the different countries and different continents of the Earth, to fto them cognize that we exist."

"It's similar precise common, and it's a precise absorbing athletics that truthful galore girls are truthful passionate to commencement and to do. And yeah, we exist, we bid parkour, and parkour has nary limits and has nary borders."