I’ve been practicing parkour since December 2015. I started learning with Parkour Visions, and was part of the formation of Seattle Jumps, a tight-knit community with regular meetups. I’ve met many of my best friends locally through it, and have had the pleasure of training with groups across 5 countries. I’ve learned a fair bit about myself, mind and body, and the nature of fear along the way.

So what is parkour – it’s that crazy sport where people huck themselves off of buildings, right? Not at all – this video is the best explanation to start with. My own movement style has changed over the years, most recently focusing on flowy movement and squeezing through tight spaces.

lazy vault, photo by Filip Tuhy

Videos

A huge part of parkour culture is filming lines. Here are some of my favorite works!

  • The Quiet Months: at the beginning of the pandemic, I returned to solo training and started breaking many jumps I had been eyeing for years.
  • Summer 2019: probably my most upbeat lines
  • Évry Move: in 2019, I had the pleasure of meeting the original founders of parkour at a workshop in Évry, France.
  • Japan, 2019: this is less a parkour video, and more a love letter to the spaces in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nikko, and Miyazaki.
  • Bleeding Water: in which I come to a sort of reckoning with my hometown, Baton Rouge.
  • Texas Winter Jam: I went to college in Austin, but somehow didn’t start parkour while I lived there! Luckily, I went back.
  • May 2019: contains the only bail I’ve ever caught on film.
  • Red Square line: a longer line at UW, without anything high-impact.
  • Fremont cat leap: the first jump that I really had to undergo an inner process to break. I was looking at this for around two years first.
  • Volunteer Park lines: some of my favorite things developed through weekly EMP meetups.
  • A Gradual Return: my last jumps in Seattle, and the first small steps after an ACL surgery.
  • In the summer silence: blurring between London, Paris, New Orleans

Maps

Red Square line

I stumbled into my current project because I’ve loved maps all my life, so of course at some point I tried to combine parkour and cartography. Move fast and map things is a talk I gave at the Art of Retreat in 2018 about notations for representing parkour-conducive spaces and movements through them.

Join me!

Open offer: if you’re ever passing through London and want to try parkour, ping me! I’ve taught dozens of people their first lesson. “It’s dangerous” is a shaky excuse – proper parkour is all about progressing at an appropriate pace and managing risk. I won’t stand for “I’m not in shape” – you can start anywhere, and parkour is a fun way to exercise. Paraphrased by a friend Brandee Laird: everybody moves; parkour just helps you move better.

If you’re interested in trying it out in your own area and can’t find anybody to practice with, I might also be able to help find your local community.