Back to Bangkok and the PkGen Asia show at the Queen's Imperial Park Hotel

After another long (but during daylight, and pretty picturesque) ferry ride back to the mainland, we took an overnight bus (a lot less enjoyable) back to Bangkok to get back in time for a day of adjusting and light training before getting ready for the PkGen Asia debut show.

Coming back to Bangkok after so much time in the south of Thailand was a bit of a culture shock but it was also a very welcome relief to get back to training on a regular basis.  Of course the first place we went to was Saphan Taksin, where we showed Dan Edwardes around (who had just arrived from snowy London, and was soon sweating like a one of those funny-hatted guards in red in summertime).  Dan had come to Thailand to help Stephane with the official launch of PkGen Asia.  This also happened to coincide with a PkGen performance at a rooftop party at the Queen’s Imperial Park Hotel in the heart of the city.  Aparently this party was one of a monthly series of parties that were pretty popular on the Bangkok party scene.  While the initial estimates of 1,500 people sounded pretty outrageous to me when they were outlining the game-plan I was also pretty nervous, especially since this was to be my first official parkour “performance”.

A publicity photo of the hotel as seen from the nearby park.

We arrived a day early at the hotel to check it out and to get things set up for the show, mainly the choreography.  Of course the scaffolding that we were supposed to be performing on wasn’t ready when it was supposed to be, which gave us a much smaller window to practice things in and to figure out our respective routes for the show.  Despite that, we managed to get in enough runs the evening before, and the morning of the event, and I gorged myself into a semi-food coma at the buffet brunch in the morning (it was probably one of 3 meals that I had during my month in Thailand that left me “full”).

A bit of an upgrade from the bungalows of Ton Sai...

Enjoying having my "own room" for the first time in a while.

The set-up.  Photo courtesy of Julie Angel.

Hanging out underneath the scaf to take shelter from the midday sun.  Photo courtesy of Violetta Beral.

Julie figuring out angles for video and grabbing a few still shots.  Photo courtesy of Violetta Beral.

The starting line-up at the top of the roof, preparing to make the descent to the scaf.  Photo courtesy of Violetta Beral . 

Dan making the drop to the scaf.  Photo courtesy of Violetta Beral.

After a power-nap and few last runs on the scaffolding before the reporters started arriving we got ready for the show.  The first (of three) show was actually held right after a press-counference in which Steph announced the launch of PkGen Asia and described a bit about the company and its goals.  The video below was made by Julie Angel and shows a bit of Steph speaking as well as the full show.

After that performance we had a few hours before the next one where we could watch the party start and hang out with the guests.  It was pretty interesting to watch the party begin to unfold and to see the Bangkok "party scene" come to life.  By the time we did the second performance, things were starting to get pretty wild.  The second show went off smoothly and I found that I actually really enjoyed the “performing thing”, especially when it’s doing something that I know well and am comfortable and relaxed doing.  By that time the party was well underway and by the time we did the last performance about a half hour before the party was due to be closed the audience was pretty excited.  Despite some improvised flair elements that threw off some of the timing a bit, the third performance went well.  After a rather prolonged photo-shoot afterwards we headed back to our rooms to take quick showers and change before heading out to join some of the other team members for celebratory smoothies and drinks at a local bar.

The performance team and PkGen Asia staff.  Photo courtesy of PkGen Asia.

Introducing: Team Farang

My time in Bangkok gave me the opportunity to meet and train with some of the members of Team Farang, who I've been hearing a lot about during my travels, especially when I was in Australia last year.  The group’s name, “farang” originates from the Thai term for a Western foreigner and is a fitting name for this group of non-Thai natives (with the exception of Anan, who is technically Thai, but not quite Thai- he’s got a pretty unique story) that are based out of Bangkok.

The Team Farang logo.

First, a bit of background on the team and some of its members as gleamed from conversations with them in Bangkok.  The team is made up of a number of guys (there doesn't seem to be a fixed number) and started as a loose group of guys that met up in Bangkok (at an event hosted by Anan Anwar) to train for a few days and to generally have a good time.  This group included a pretty diverse representation of guys, (of course with lots of Aussies, who, as a country, seem to like Thailand a lot as a tourist destination- kind of like Cancun for Americans).  One of the unique aspects of this group is that not only do have a very high skill level when it comes to moving, they also like to party and have fun.  While it is obvious that there was a lot of training going on at the event, there is also a lot of footage from the everyday goofing off that goes on within this group of guys.  This video from the event in 2010 shows a bit of the action from that trip, as well as the general atmosphere that seems to characterize the group:

With the release of their video “Team Farang Tour – The City” in December 2011 Team Farang brought both their media production and movement to a new level.  While the video keeps the same attitude and general atmosphere of previous videos, it put Bangkok on the map as a "parkour hotspot" with lots of great places to train.  It is also pretty evident that there was a lot of time and effort spent in the production and editing of the video, which really shows in the final product.

The next video released by the group, is the next installation in the "Team Farang Tour" series, called "The Temple”.  It was actually released while I was in Bangkok with the guys so I got to see them reacting in real time to the international attention that the video got (it racked up more than 100,000 views within a few days).  The video has a lot of great movement in it, although some might raise objections to the use of another culture's sacred space as a training location.

Since then, Team Farang has released two more videos that follow member Jason Paul’s travels in India and Germany (Jason is pretty well known in the parkour community and has also done a number of the “Red Bull – Art of Motion” events). They have also launched a new website which looks like it will be a rather unique addition to the plethora of parkour websites out there.  Not only will they be posting videos and photos, but it they will also be trying to get a deeper look at some of the aspects of the sport that don’t seem to get a lot of direct attention (I was particularly struck by this recent article about the Storm clothing line) and interviewing people that they meet and train with.  Having met and spent a fair amount of time with the guys in Thailand, I'm really looking forward to seeing what they come out with and where they take things.  For more information and to check out the site, go to:  www.farang-mag.com/ or go to the Team Farang YouTube channel.

An introduction to Bangkok

So after my visits to London and Paris had flown by, I headed to Bangkok for the next part of my adventures.  I arrived in the city and was welcomed by a sudden gust of hot humid air that hit me the moment the airplane doors opened and forced me to take off the multiple layers that I had been wearing.  I was immediately struck by the “foreignness” of the city, which is very different from the other places that I have visited over the past year and a half of traveling.  While many aspects of life in Bangkok were similar to things that I’d seen in other cities, there were a lot of things that I had never seen before, and unlike most of the other places that I visited, my “foreignness” couldn’t be hidden by keeping my mouth shut and nodding and smiling, instead it was broadcast to all passerby's by my "Western" appearance.

Within a few hours of arriving in Bangkok I met up with the other members of the Parkour Generations family that had congregated in Thailand.  While not all of the visits had been planned to overlap with the others, there were way too many of us for it to be called a coincidence.  After spending an afternoon and evening getting re-adjusted to the climate and the time change, we met up for a group training session at Lumpini Park, conveniently located near the guest house some of us were staying at.  The training group was an international medley featuring Andy “Kiell” Day (UK), Violetta (Spain), Stephane Vigroux (France), Leon Lawrence (UK), the Annty Marais (France), Bruno Peixoto and his wife Rafa (Brazil), myself (USA), and some of the guys that Steph had started training with from Bangkok.  Anan Anwar (Thailand) and Shaun Wood (Australia) also showed up to the park accompanied by Jason Paul (Germany), who was in town to hang out with the guys and make some new videos with Team Farang (more details to come).  Since I’d been hearing about these guys from various people throughout my travels it was good to finally be able to train with them and see them move in person.  Needless to say, we weren’t a particularly small or inconspicuous group and we soon discovered that the Thai park authorities were not nearly as understanding and accepting of parkour as their British equivalents and we found ourselves moved on from one spot in the park to another.

A PkGen family (+ extended family) reunion in Lumpini Park my first day in Thailand.  Photo courtesy of Leon Lawrence.

 The next day we spent the morning exploring the city before heading over to Saphan Taksin to meet up with some local traceurs.  The park that we met in was located under a major highway overpass and had a number of basketball, football, and sepak takraw (think volleyball + football) courts, a weightlifting area, and most importantly, a metal climbing structure that looked like it had been built for insanely heavy children, or just designed to stand for the next 200 years. 

The park.

Perhaps the demographic that it was initially intended for.

While the design of the structure may look pretty simple at first glance, the simplicity and unadorned design is perhaps the genius of it as a training structure as it allows for an almost infinite amount of creativity in movement.  The park happens to be the preferred training spot of a group of young traceurs (aged 8-23) that call themselves the “Dark Monkeys”.  While it still isn’t clear to me how much of their movement in the park is inspired by traceurs like Anan Anwar and the other members of Team Farang who have been using the park for the past few years and how much is totally organic (there seems to be a pretty incredible amount of “play” and “natural exploration” that goes on among the group, most of whom are between 10-16 years old), the routes and movements that they do show just how much time many of them spend there (it is almost guaranteed that 5-10 of them will be there any given afternoon after school lets out).

The first 2 minutes of the video below shows some footage that Leon took of movement at the park.

As one can see from the videos, the park offers seemingly limitless opportunities for creativity and expression.  It was pretty amazing to watch the kids “playing” in the park as their movements seem to defy their ages in many cases and show just how much time many of them actually spend in the park.  Training with the kids was a lot of fun and it soon became our “default” training spot throughout our time in Bangkok.  While many of the traceurs had a high skill level when moving around the park, many aspects of “Parkour Generations/Yamakasi” training were pretty new to them, most notably many of the warm-up and conditioning drills.  It was interesting to see how the kids had developed in the atmosphere of “play” which was very different from the atmosphere that exists in the Yamakasi and Parkour Generations training tradition.  Many of the kids were very curious about the way we trained and even more so once shirts started coming off due to the heat and there was a a notable difference between the physiques of the two training methods (Leon was probably the most obvious example and his Hulk-like muscles were fascinating to the kids).

Leading a"Parkour Generations style" warm-up at the park.  Photo courtesy of Violetta  Beral.