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Confluence Creative team Joshua B. Johnson and Bridget O’Neill pair up with members of Parkour Visions to bring you Parkour For The People. Emerging on the streets of Europe, taking names on YouTube and leaping onto the big screen, Parkour has an underground appeal the world over. But it’s here in Seattle we found a tight knit group of Tracuers working together to make Parkour accessible to the masses. The Pacific Northwest Parkour Association, or Parkour Visions, is a not-for-profit designed to get people of all ages outside and moving. Experienced Traceurs teach students the fundamentals through classes, training exercises, and strength building activities. If you would like to give Parkour a try, you can find more information at www.parkourvisions.org. Special thanks to: Green Lake Park, Gas Works Park, Tyson Cecka, Rafe Kelley, Brandee Laird, Janine Cundy, and Adam Truesdell

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Jake Mohr goes to Gig Harbor High School and has chosen to learn parkour and integrate it into his schooling as his senior project. To do so, he is setting and working toward numerous training goals, duly documenting his journey along the way. He contacted Parkour Visions to assist him in this process by providing a mentor from the community–that’s me–as well as seeking opportunities for community service. The project is well on it’s way and it’s to be an exciting six months of learning, training, and play!

Last Saturday, the 8th of November, I met with Jake for the first time to work with him on learning the fundamentals of training parkour. We began our day of basics at Gasworks Park–a popular training ground for Seattle traceurs–starting with running to get our blood circulating and followed immediately by a solid quadrupedal movement conditioning session on a section of stairways by the waterfront. From there we moved to practicing rolls, jumping and landing, and precision, then moved over to vaulting techniques and balance. Overall it was a good few hours of overview, focused on the importance of conditioning and essential training technique.

A bit from Jake’s training log on the Washington Parkour forums:

I started parkour for personal reasons, and took serious steps for academic reasons, let’s see how it turns out!

November:
Week One (technically week 2):
So, today I met up with [Brandee] at Gas Works Park and here’s my recap:

What I learned:
1. an awesome conditioning routing
2. tips on how to roll, jump and vault
3. improvements on jumping and landing

Goals for this week:
1. try to increase amount of conditioning using [Brandee's] tips
2. dedicate a minimum of 10 minutes to practicing rolls while out practicing …

After training we hit the NWCrossfit Gym in Greenlake to check out the facility and meet some local traceurs attending the weekly parkour class taught by Tyson and Rafe of the Parkour Visions. Unfortunately, we hit the very end of class (free every second Saturday after the regular class,) and so missed out on the training of the day there, but we were able to make the Parkour Visions board meeting, which had a large turnout and yielded plenty of good information and progress within the association.

All around it was a great day for training parkour and I am strongly looking forward to working wtih Jake and experiencing the improvement that’s sure to come for both of us while training together.

Cheers to all and safe training!

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).

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We’re gearing up for the first ever Seattle Lady’s Night at NWCrossfit. This is going to be AWESOME.

The plan is to meet up at the gym around 6pm on Saturday, condition, work touch, and then start in on basic technique till 8 or 9. Break for food, then explore around Greenlake. We’re conking out in the gym after watching some parkour vids and talking philosophy of parkour. We’ll wake up early next morning to hit the streets and put into practice what we trained the night before! Should wrap up around noon on Sunday. Charge is 15$. Half goes to renting out the gym, half directly to Parkour Visions.

I’ll be instructing, along with my good friends and training buddies Brandee Brougham (MonkEE), and Chris Moore (hundr).  The idea behind the workshop is to show women that they can be strong enough for Parkour, to create a safe environment to fall back on as you train, and to show you how to teach yourselves as you progress with Parkour.