A few months back I was featured in a new project of the UW Career Center called myStory:
Burien has been talking to the PNWPA a good deal over the past year as they are really excited to bring parkour into the city, and we’ve been trying to figure out the best way to do that with them. One of the first steps is getting more local exposure for the sport…and what better way than to jump over their goverment figures and make lolkours out of them? :
Sorry I just had to! This is actually a shot from a video the B-townblog is putting together from a recent visit that the mayor came out for. Be sure to check them out when the video comes out, and if you’re a Burien native wanting to get into parkour, hop on WAPK and introduce yourself!
Today Tuesday the 18th from 3-4pm on KOMO TV be sure to tune in to the Northwest Afternoon show to see Rafe and I blathering on about parkour, live (ish)! We’re heading down there now to meet the hosts, wish us luck!
I got an email from a woman who had read about us in the Seattle Met, so I decided to pick one up at the airport before I left. It’s always fun to be reading about something you’re intimately involved with on the plane, makes you feel so special (especially if you are then able to blog about it through your phone before taking off) 
I’m returning out of my blog-hibernation to let everyone know I’ll be featured on KOMO TV January the 31st at 11pm on channel 4 in Seattle.
These guys specifically wanted to do this one on just me this time, and we spent four filming sessions hitting a PSCS parkour class, Gasworks, Freeway Park, and UW. They had to have captured some good material in there somewhere, so it’s definitely worth a look.
I helped organize this quick webisode for KIRO-TV’s IWitness video website at UW. Luckily the rain held up long enough for us to demonstrate some fundamentals, a traversal challenge, and parts of the new “Brutalist” gauntlet. Thanks go to Michael Fox, KIRO’s videographer, for putting this all together and doing a great job. Check out his recently learned wallpass at 1:41
Traceurs involved: Tyson (Undaunted), Jeremy (Raindog), Kellen (Recurve), Christian, Jonathan.
I really like how he simply had us narrate the whole thing, rather than doing the usual media thing and inevitably getting something wrong. On the flipside of that I need more work on my grammar for this kind of thing, some dumb stuff still came out of my mouth
Seattle PI Parkour Article - A look back
The article Athima Chansanchai wrote for the Seattle PI is still one of my favorite articles done in the Pacific Northwest. It was written way back in December 2005 before this blog was even started but I’m surprised I never put it up before.
These are the instincts of traceurs, adoptees of a French-inspired sport called parkour that is part obstacle course, part pushing the limits of urban architectural functionality and all adrenaline-pumping excitement.
Here’s the history on the epic jam we had that day:
It was planned originally as cross-borders jam #2 since we were trying to get some of the guys from Canada to come down. They never came but people from all over Washington and Portland did and it turned into one of the best jams we’ve ever had. Around 22 people ended up showing at Freeway Park, with 3 professional photographers and ton of general camera devices and media people. Having so much media around was pretty fun, but my favorite part was just jamming with all of the amazing people there. Click here to see the photos.
Parkour allows big kids to channel Spiderman with the fearlessness of younger days, balanced with the wisdom of adult discipline and safety. Traceurs range in age from the late teens to early 30s and they typically have some kind of background in gymnastics, martial arts, break dancing or acrobatics. But they can also come in cold, like Sam Wilson, 25, of Mukilteo, who joined a group of experienced traceurs at Freeway Park on Sunday afternoon.
I met a lot of great people that day and forged some very lasting friendships. It’s funny to look back at how far the people mentioned have come. Rafe, Sam, Janine, and I are all now on the board of representatives for the Pacific Northwest Parkour Association. Rafe is now teaching obstacle course classes at the gym he works and has traveled to France to learn more about natural method training. Janine has gone from one of the only women training at that time to one in a growing great community of female traceurs due in large part to her great leadership. Sam has injured himself like fifty billion different times . And I’m…well, explore around and see for yourself.
“It’s a great sport for them to be involved in,” she said, shivering as her sons ran up and down the immense concrete waterfalls at the park. “It teaches them how to use the environment around them and to challenge themselves.”
Parkour Article in the Columbian
Mary Anne Albright of the Clark County Columbian newspaper has just written a great little article on parkour in Vancouver and surrounding areas.
Traceurs say parkour is more than a hobby or sport. It’s a lifestyle and culture, and the problem-solving skills practitioners hone in the physical world transfer to their professional and personal lives.
The story focuses on a new parkour group at Skyview (my old highschool) calling themselves “The Pack.” It covers how they started, what in general parkour is, and what some of the people who have come from that region are doing now (Janine and I mainly).
And the link to the video on King5. I thought it came out quite well, Lori did a great job. Here’s to hoping she’ll come out for the Femme jam This is also the first mainstream media reference of the PNWPA which is pretty exciting.
They seemed to really like that cat leap footage…good edit though, especially because we barely seemed to have any filming time before the sun went down. Wish they had used more of my interview though, it was a fairly long one but one of my best so far. Getting better at speaking for these things.
In this week’s issue of TIME magazine I’m featured along with some other great traceurs for my work with the nonprofit and the University of Washington scholarship and club. Surprisingly the article is not that well researched though, and spends the majority of its time talking about parkour’s dangers and injuries.
Seriously now, take a look at how dangerous football, polevaulting, wrestling, and gymnastics are to name a few Continue Reading »
