- Fear, to me, means
absolutely nothing anymore.
Fear played such a big piece of my life,
and it controlled me to not
do what was best for me,
so fear to me now is
nothing but an imagination.
(rhythmic beat)
My name is Flip Rodriguez.
I'm a Hollywood stuntman,
and on "American Ninja Warrior."
In the ages of 9 to 15,
I was sexually abused by my father.
Like, how do I live my life after that?
Like, I can't trust anybody.
I got into parkour and freerunning
when I was the age of 19.
Parkour and freerunning are
two different definitions
that are very similar.
Parkour is just straightforward: vaulting,
jumping over walls, over
any obstacle in your way.
Freerunning is your own
style, your own flipping,
flow of it; make it nice
and pretty as possible,
and you take your time.
When I first got started, I
had never been upside down.
So my body's like, wait,
whoa, we don't do that.
And then the fear aspect kicks in.
So, it's like, let's stop
and think about this.
Is this really worth getting hurt?
Fear is what stopped me from
trying to stop my sexual abuse.
Parkour and freerunning has a
been a stepping stone for me
to heal and be OK with my sexual abuse
because fear is a big part
of parkour and freerunning
so every day I trained,
I was always encountering a new fear.
I started in "American
Ninja Warrior" Season 3.
- [Announcer] And look at him go!
Using momentum from each
jump to get to the next one!
- And then on Season 7, I
actually explained my story.
I was sexually abused.
After my interview came out,
I've had kids write to me.
One of the parents reached out to me.
Turns out that the daughter and the son
were being sexually
abused by a family friend.
The child just started
breaking down crying.
She was like,
"What Flip is talking about
is also happening to me."
And they brought up charges.
The gentleman got convicted of that
and that right there blew my mind away
because not only did I heal myself,
but I also saved somebody
from further abuse
and that was incredible.
I like to give back to the
community with using my story.
I coach parkour and freerunning.
I'm not teaching them just
about parkour and freerunning.
I try to teach them tools of life.
You guys just saw, he
kind of fell a little bit.
What do you got to say?
- OK, I don't give up,
and I'm gonna try this right now again
because Flippy taught us to never give up.
- Every single person can relate to fear.
Yeah!
So if I can teach these
kids, from a young age,
to separate fear from
danger, that is a life tool.
-Yeah, Sasha, nice!
My negative piece of my life,
I can now turn it around
and put a spotlight on it
in the sense of this is who I am.
This is what happened
to me, and look at me,
I'm still shining.
(rhythmic beat)
