When Parkour Visions first opened up classes at NW Crossfit we had an absolutely amazing first class with a lot people there. In the weeks that followed though we found that most of those people at the first class were our supporting friends in the WAPK parkour community who loved what we were doing but weren’t really interested in taking beginner classes themselves (they’d already gained most of that through the community).
So class attendance was low those first few weeks but we kept pushing forward with our set policies of everyone’s first class being free and every second Saturday of every month having a free community beginner class. We built another vault box and several more precision trainers and painted them all a nice royal blue color.
Well I still don’t think we’ve managed to raise enough money to pay our initial costs yet (about half of the class fees go to the Parkour Visions right now) but I’m calling the classes a success anyway. The reason being we just had another excellent free beginner class and this time it wasn’t filled entirely by our friends but by a bunch of awesome new people who were absolutely thrilled that we were running something like this. I was teaching mostly by myself this time as Rafe is in Nice, France but the format expanded nicely to fit the 20 or so people there and scaled to both the absolute beginners and our apprentice instructors quite well.
Not to mention that without really much promotion at all the classes have already been featured on TV through AOTS as well as online through the Seattlest Weekend Edition.
Photos from Flickr sets: NW Crossfit Classes, and Parkour Visions
Tags: beginner, classes, Greenlake, jam, NW Crossfit, training
October 13th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
My teenaged son has attended three parkour classes on Saturdays at Northwest Crossfit. I cannot imagine a better place for a teen on a Saturday: FUN combined with worthwhile training in strength, flexibility, stamina, coordination, focus, safety, agility, confidence, judgment and other attributes of lifetime fitness. People we have met through PNWPA – other traceurs and family members – are inclusive, encouraging, and positive. My username on the Washington Parkour forums is avillagemom, in case a parent reads this and wishes to see what another parent has to say from time to time.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:37 am
where do some of these classes take place i’d really like to get involved more with it. And i’m the only one where i live who even really knows what parkour is.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Right now we’re running classes in Seattle, Bellingham, Auburn, and Tacoma. The Seattle ones centered in Greenlake are what this post refers to, those are here: http://pnwpa.com/parkour-classes/pnwpa-seattle-classes/
December 8th, 2008 at 10:52 am
thanks for any help you can give me
June 4th, 2009 at 12:46 am
That was a very nice post, I