Streetmovement in Paris

One of the highlights of the spring semester at Gerlev is the trip that each speciality takes at the end of May.  While the dancers go to NYC, and the cross-fitters go to LA, the students in the parkour speciality go to the birthplace of the sport, Paris.  More specifically, Evry and Lisses.  This is a tradition that is partially inspired by the 2007 trip to Evry that Martin and Mikkel took along with some of other founders of Streetmovement.  During this trip they had the opportunity to meet and train with a number of the Yamakasi, especially Laurent, and the training and ideas that they were exposed to during their visit dramatically changed their entire approach to the sport and many of the ideas that they had about their training. The documentary below explains a lot about the Danish roots in parkour as well as their philosophy today.

City Surfers [ENG version] from Street Movement on Vimeo.

Martin and Mikkel have been taking groups of Gerlev students to Paris since 2009, and the trip is considered to be one of the highlights of the semester for many students.  Since I’ve spent a fair amount of time in that particular part of the world over the past few years the trip was somewhat of a surreal experience for me, especially since in the past I'd been traveling solo, stayed with various friends throughout the area, and immersed myself in the French language and culture.  This time I was part of the “foreign legion” of the invading army of Danes (feel free to conjure up images of Vikings and longboats) so it was a totally different experience- and a lot of fun.

Waiting to catch the bus to the airport in Denmark.  Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Due to the size of the group (23 students, 4 instructors, and 3-tagalongs) and the fact that we had a budget that was significantly more generous than my typical "globetrotting parkour bum" amount, we stayed at the Hotel Ibis (a 3-minute walk from the Dame du Lac).  This seemed like the lap of luxury compared to most of the hostels that I've stayed in over the last two years, especially since it included an unlimited buffet breakfast that we decimated each morning.  Given my familiarity with Paris/Evry/Lisses and my linguistic expertise, I also became the unofficial tour guide and translator of the trip, which turned out to be a fun way of introducing the Danes to the finer elements of French culture.

Our home for the week in Evry.  Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

The adventure itself started the moment we left campus because, as anyone that has traveled with traceurs knows, things get interesting the moment you get more than 3 of them together, especially when they are bored/waiting while confined in small spaces like airports, planes, or trains.

Ville, one of the official photographers for the trip.   Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Unlike some of the other Gerlev speciality trips, almost our entire trip was spent training, eating, sleeping, or traveling to training spots.  After flying into Paris, taking the RER to Evry, and dropping off our bags at the hotel we headed out for the first "light" training session by the lake.  Most traceurs will recognize the lake as the one that the Dame du Lac is named for, but there is also a set of stairs and railings that the Yamak have been using for years on the other side of the lake.  While the training was really just to wake up our bodies after spending the day sitting on planes and trains, it also managed to get everyone pretty excited about being in the "Mecca" of parkour.  For me it also felt really good to be training back in France again, in the settings where I had first been introduced to parkour training 3 years before by Laurent.  The group hadn't been by the lake for more than a few minutes before we ran into Ahmed, who I had met during my first visit to Evry, and who has met and trained with Martin and Mikkel regularly since they started bringing the classes here.  Ahmed is one of the best examples of the long-term benefits of parkour training that I have met; he started many years ago after encountering Laurent and the Yamak in one of their early training sessions and he is now over 60 years old.

A chance encounter with Ahmed reminded me of how long it has been since my introduction to parkour.  Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

After the training we headed to the nearby shopping mall to grab snack material for the week and to have dinner at Flunch.  Having come from Gerlev, most of our meals in France were slightly disappointing, although that was primarily due to the fact that our budget, although better than what I was used to, didn’t really allow for anything special and Evry isn't exactly known for its fabulous culinary offerings.  Flunch, while not an example of fine French cuisine, did offer an interesting perspective on the “typical French meal”, and more importantly, it offered large amounts of food that we could afford.

Andreas was pretty excited about Flunch.  Photo by Ville Leppænen.

The next day we met Laurent at "la Terrasse" behind the shopping center for a morning training session.  The last time I had trained in this spot was for the ADD Experience in 2010 so coming back with 2 years of experience under my belt was a good feeling and I felt like I was looking at it with fresh eyes.  Laurent was accompanied by Francois, one of the "next generation" who is now teaching at the Yamakasi's ADD Academy and is one of the faces of the future of Majestic Force/ADD Academy.  After spending the morning exploring the spot we broke for a quick lunch and then met up at the "clos du cathedral" for the second training session of the day in one of Laurent's favorite spots.

As Lisses and Evry are considered to be the "birthplace" of parkour, one can be almost guaranteed that if you spend any length of time in them you are bound to run into other traceurs, usually from any number of foreign countries.  During the session, Yann dropped by to train, say hi, and share some wisdom with the Danish students.

While it is impossible to recap all of the events from the week in one article I'll give some of the highlights from the week:

Parkour Walking Tour

Since parkour has been banned by the City of Lisses, and Laurent had specifically asked us not to train there to avoid hindering the efforts and negotiations by the Yamakasi and the ADD Academy to reconcile the sport with the city, Martin and Mikkel decided that it was best to do a “walking tour” of the area so that we could see the spots while also honoring Laurent's request.  We managed to hit most of the spots that are well-known around the world from the "old-school" videos, and even managed to see a few that are off the typical “parkour pilgrimage” track.  The tour ended at one of the most iconic locations in parkour lore, the Dame du Lac, which, although we didn't have the opportunity to train on, is still pretty impressive..

The Dame du Lac.  Photo by Ville Leppænen.

Training at Bercy

We took the RER into central Paris early Saturday morning, and despite spending the entire day there, we didn't participate in any of the typical "tourist in Paris" activities   Laurent met us at the Bercy Stadium where he led us through one of the classic Yamak workouts on the stairs and surrounding park.  In all of my visits I have never actually been inside the stadium, but the exterior of the building and the surrounding parks are one of the favorite training spots for the Yamak and the location for some of their most grueling workouts (I’ve been lucky enough to participate in a number of them).  As per tradition, the session lasted much longer than most people would consider reasonable and by the end of it we were all pretty shattered.

The stairs.  Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Arriving at the stadium.   Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Martin tackling a large cat leap with Laurent and Mikkel spotting.  Photo by Ville Leppænen.

Andreas weighing a jump.  Photo by Ville Leppænen.

Josephine practicing vaults on the railings.  Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen..

After re-hydrating and grabbing some food we headed into the city to take full advantage of the one-day unlimited travel cards that we had purchased to get to Bercy to see some of the rest of Paris.  There were two things in particular that most of the group wanted to visit during the course of the afternoon, neither of which included the Louvre, Eiffel Tour, Sacre Couer, or Notre Dame de Paris.  Instead we headed straight for the 2WS (WorldWild Souls) shop where a number of the students took advantage of the opportunity to check out and purchase some of the clothing from the shop started by the Yamakasi.

After hanging out at the store for a bit we headed to the next stop of the tour, Decathlon.  While most traceurs know of Decathlon and it’s abundance of cheap shoes and training gear, only a few (16) countries around the world are blessed by having the stores nearby.  So for most Danish traceurs, new or veteran, any opportunity to travel to the store is a treat, as evidenced by the mountain of shoes, clothing, and gear that the group purchased.  After Decathlon I introduced the group to the delicious crepes and galettes of my favorite creperie near Place Monge, and then headed down to the Seine to chill out for a bit and recover from the day with a case of (French) beers (Note: beer is actually a great recovery drink- minus the alcohol).

Noisy-le-Grande

Another morning we met Laurent and Francois at Noisy-le-Grande and spent the morning training with them at a spot located just outside the train station.  Similar to many of the best spots around the world, the spot there is tough to explain and many of the architectural elements leave the visitor with the distinct feeling that the architect was under the influence of something unusual when designing it (or they had a lot of concrete that needed to be used up in the construction of the seemingly random walls, staircases and "art" forms that were all over).  After a few hours of training and exploring the spot we had a late lunch and then a few of us headed into the city to explore some spots and to do a brief bit of tourism that we hadn't had an opportunity to do on our previous expedition into the center of Paris.

Warming up.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Mikkel leading "follow the leader".  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Laurent taking one of the groups.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Handstand work.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

To the left is a 3+story drop and a busy street.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe .

Peter working on cat passes/kongs.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Ida "getting aquainted" with Noisy-le-Grand. Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Fontainebleau

One of the highlights of the trip for me was the day that we spent at Fontainebleau, a short train ride from Evry.  After arriving at the station we jogged 8km to meet Martin and Mikkel (and the car loaded with food and water) at the spot in the forest that would be our homebase for the day.  After a brief water break and dropping our bags off we divided into groups for a 2 hour training session in the forest.  For those that have never trained in a “natural environment” I would highly recommend it, as it offers a wide variety of obstacles that are hard to find or mimic in an urban setting and there is something very different about jumping and moving on natural surfaces.  Fontainebleau itself is like a giant natural parkour playground and the hill where we were was covered in large boulders, trees, and rock faces that offer endless possibilities for movement.  The session passed in a flash and we reconvened for a lesisurely lunch before heading out again.  After a second training session, we were given free reign to explore the park, and we ended up staying there until the early evening.  We decided as a group to walk the 8km back to the station since most of our legs were pretty dead by then and we wanted to be able to break jumps the next day, which would be our last full day in Evry.

The "campsite".   Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Fontainebleau.  Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Mikkel working some bouldering challenges.  Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Training in nature.  Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Martin.  Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

The ever-pertinent question of "who has a bigger log"?   Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Relaxing after lunch.   Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Rose resting up for the long walk back.  Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

Cathedrale d'Évry

Our last full day in Evry was mostly spent at the CathedralE where Martin and Mikkel gave us the option to divide up for the last sessions based on energy level, since many people were beginning to fade after the long days of training and limited sleep.  Those of us with higher energy levels were given a route to run that incorporated a number of techniques and then told that we should complete said route a certain amount of times (reflective of energy level/ambition).  The route itself included a few challenging bits that became much more challenging when combined with increasing lactic acid levels and lower energy reserves.

Claus.  Photo by Johan Vang Hansen.. 

Going for the max.  Photo by Johan Vang Hansen.

Things are starting to get tougher.  Photo by Johan Vang Hansen.

Photo by Johan Vang Hansen.

Finishing the route.  Photo by Johan Vang Hansen.

Feeling "the pump".  Photo by Johan Vang Hansen.

The Final Challenge
The last day of the trip we woke up early for one last training sessions before we went home.  This was a time-honored tradition that each class of students had done at the end of their trip and included a ~1000m quadrepedie section (without standing up or getting off of all fours) followed by a number lamppost climbs on very tired arms.  While it was tough, it wasn’t as bad as many of us had feared and yet again, I think that is more a testament to how high our fitness levels were as opposed to how much the difficulty rating wasn’t as high as we feared.

The start.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Halfway there.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Right after the finish.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Done.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Part 2 of the challenge.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Tired but done.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

A tired by happy group after completing the final challenge.  Photo by Martin Kallesøe.

Reflections on the trip

For me it was really interesting to see the way that many of the students reacted to the training with the Yamakasi.  Many of the students had been introduced to parkour at Gerlev and there were only about 5 or 6 of the group of 23 students that had been training previous to starting at Gerlev.  During my travels over the past 2 years I have been repeatedly been surprised to find that while almost all traceurs know the name David Belle, and are usually familiar with Sebastien Foucan, many have never heard of the Yamakasi.  While I have a special attachment to them due to my beginnings I am often shocked by how little known they are in many parkour communities around the world.  Over the course of the semester at Gerlev, Martin and Mikkel often make references to the Yamak style of training and the history of the sport, so by the time we had gotten to Paris most of the students had a basic background on the guys and could recognize them from YouTube videos or the “Yamakasi” films.

Laurent.   Photo courtesy of Andreas Lorentzen.

To say that everyone grew during the trip would be an understatement.  The difference that one trip could have in someones training is huge, and as I have effectively been traveling my entire parkour "career" I have found that I often take this for granted.  The change was immediately apparent as soon as we all arrived back at Gerlev at the end of the week and found that the structure seemed to have shrunk in many ways in our absence and people seemed to have a new determination and motivation in their training.

Souvenirs from a successful invasion.  Photo courtesy of Ville Leppænen. 

The video of the trip that Ville put together: 

A Visit to Paris - training with the Yamakasi, classes at the ADD Academy, and a stop by the 2WS Store

Since London is a whole lot closer to Paris than Boston I decided to take advantage of my proximity to the city of light to spend a few days there before heading to Thailand.

My visit to Paris was pretty productive despite the short duration and I managed to fit in a grueling training session with Chau and some of the other guys at the hill/stairs in Torcy, attend one of the ADD Academy classes being held at Bercy, and spend a fair amount of time at the 2WS boutique near Chatelet.  There are a number of new products in the pipeline for the upcoming spring and summer seasons and I got a chance to try them on an give some input into the designs.

One of the new custom-printed t-shirts.

There are new colors available for both pants and tops.

The Takare is now available in "Cherry Red".

If you can recognize the arms, you've spent way too much time with me...

While I was at the store some of the guys showed me a recent “reportage” that aired on France 3 about the ADD Academy and the classes that it offers in Paris.  It is especially notable because it was done by a French reporter that actually took the time and effort to try to get to know what l’art de déplacement/parkour/freerunning actually is, instead of the usual dismissal that the French media gives to the sport, labeling it as an activity performed by a bunch of kids from the banlieue that want to be stuntmen and get on tv (or worse, an illicit activity by bunch of street youth training how to become acrobatic burglars.)

Visit to France - Training with the Yamakasi

After a few weeks in London I headed to Paris for a few days to go back to where I had first been exposed to parkour and to catch up with a number of old friends there. 

My plane arrived in Paris late at night so I crashed at a friend’s house and took the RER to Evry the next morning.  My visit just happened to overlap with Laurent being in town as well so I joined him at the cathedral for a “handstand block” followed by a light 45-min jog around Evry/Lisses.  The run ended up being an unofficial tour of parkour’s early days and he “unconsciously” managed to take us by most of the buildings that are seen in the earliest parkour videos.

  

My visit also happened to overlap with Jun Sato’s visit before he headed back to Japan, and we were both generously hosted by Philippe.  We were also joined by Valentin, Philippe’s best friend, who had recently come over to Europe as parkour of a Réunionese exodus of parkour talent to Europe (more about his countrymen Axel and Kevin later).  This made for a very entertaining train rides in the mornings as we made the long journey from Philippe’s house to civilization every morning.

Jun found a good way to pass the time on the long rides to and from Philippe's house.

The next day we headed back to Evry to check out the new training facility that the ADD Academy had recently completed.  While not yet open to the public due to some bureaucratic nonsense about the maximum number of people allowed in the space at one time, the facility is pretty good and offers a lot of potential for winter and bad-weather training as well as providing a good location to work on flips and acrobatics. 

The entrance, which is located in the middle of the mall in Evry.

The interior.

Lots of space, lots of mats...

 After hanging around at the gym, where we were joined by some of the other ADD Academy guys that had come by to train for a bit, we headed to Paris to join in the ADD Academy class that night.  The class was much bigger than I expected (40+ people) and it was really great to see that the academy was growing strong.  The class itself was well-run and featured instruction by Chau and Ben (who I hadn't met before, but who definitely fits in with the Yamak spirit).  I was also surprised to find that, like the Parkour Generations classes in London, the vast majority of the participants at the class were working professionals who were using it as an alternative to going to a “normal gym”.  The class felt significantly easier than the last time I had been to one of the ADD Academy Parisian classes (during a research trip in 2009), although I suspect that this was because my training has come a long way since then.  I guess that Chau noticed that I wasn't feeling too tired by the end as he invited me to the “team training” the next morning at Bercy.

We were up at the crack of dawn the next morning to get to Bercy and we arrived to find the guys ready and raring to go.  In typical Yamak fashion we spent the first hour and a half running, crawling, and jumping up the stairs of the Bercy stadium.  After absolutely shattering our legs Chau brought us to the next part of the training, which turned out to be plyometric strides and jumps along the bollards by the fountain.  By the two-hour mark our legs were starting to cramp and give out so Chau decided that enough was enough and it was time to move on to the second half of the training- arms.  He picked what seemed like a small and non-descript white guard railing by the skate park but an hour later I knew every intimate inch of that railing.  The arm workout turned out to be even more brutal than the leg portion and by the end of it almost all of us had forearms that felt as if they had swollen to the size of our quads.

Once we had “gotten to know” the railing we moved over to one of the ping-pong tables in the park.  Normally a very non-aggressive and demure object, by the end of the exercises going over, under, up, and down the rough concrete edges of the table we had all left significant quantities of blood and sweat behind.

After the training we all headed over to a local Vietnamese restaurant for a delicious lunch “en famille”.  Basking in that feeling that comes after an extended punishing workout I realized that this was perhaps one of the things that I missed most about the Yamak style of training- spending a few hours pushing the limits of strength and endurance, with few breaks or time spent fooling around, and then taking time to hang out with new and old friends that were forged with the blood sweat and tears from the workout- preferably in a venue with copious quantities of good food.  While I had pushed myself to my limits on the other two occasions that I had spent time with the guys in Paris (2009, 2010), this was the first time that I was able to properly to join in the training and I finally felt like I had earned my place at the table, both as a friend and now as a traceur.  While it was great to see the progress that I have made over the past year and a half, training with the guys that day also reminded me of how much I have yet to learn, and not just in terms of techniques and movements, but also in life.

Rendezvous 5

So I realize that I’m writing about this post a month after the event took place but it has taken me a while to totally digest the action-packed few days that were “Rendezvous 5”. This event, which took place on August 14th and 15th and was hosted by Parkour Generations in the Southbank region of London (near Waterloo Station in London), was a sort of international gathering of traceurs, similar to the ADD Experience that I went to in France this past June (see first blog post). The weekend included 2 full days of training sessions, workshops, group discussions, and general networking with traceurs from around the world, but with a special focus on those from throughout the UK. While the activities and training was great, the thing that made the event so special was the atmosphere that pervaded the event.

The logo of Rendezvous 5, designed by Andy Pearson.

After having endured several weeks of veterans hyping the event, I was both curious, and I’ll admit it, a bit apprehensive about the event. After the ADD Experience in France, I figured that I had been to the best parkour event possible and couldn’t see what the Brits could do to equal it. In retrospective, I think that this might have been due to the fact that I hadn’t quite come to understand the depth of the Parkour Generations organization yet, and also because I was (am still am) fiercely loyal to the group of people that “introduced” me to parkour.

The event started early Saturday morning with a group warm-up session on the roof of one of the big theaters in the Southbank district. The group size was impressive in and of itself, with more than 150 people showing up to the first day’s events. The participants ranged from veterans who had started practicing 7+ years ago after the first videos and documentaries came out, to people that had heard about the event from friends and had decided to try it out for the first time (needless to say, they were pretty sore after the first day). As usual, the diversity of nationalities was also impressive, with lots of people flying in for the event from all over Europe, with strong representation from Italy and France. The event also featured special guest instructors from abroad, with Laurent Piemontesi (the Yamakasi founder who I trained with last summer and who had a profound effect on my interest in the philosophy of the sport) coming in from Italy where he is establishing a parkour academy; Sebastian Foucan (James Bond: Casino Royale); Chau Belle-Dinh, Serika Kingman, and a few other members of the Yamakasi/Majestic Force/ADD Academy team; and a number of Parkour Generations “ambassadors” who seemed to reconvene from all corners of the world for this event.

Yamakasi founder Laurent (left) and co-Director of Parkour Generations, Forrest (right). Two people who have had a huge influence on my training and development in parkour.


The instructors- it would be hard to find a more talented or open group of people.

After a grueling warm-up led by Châu and the Majestic Force guys, the participants were divided into groups based on skill levels and sent to different locations around the Southbank area. We spent the rest of the day rotating among the different instructors in our small groups, with each “station” working on a different skill set, usually with a heavy influence from the particular instructor’s personal style. After 8 hours of training, many people headed back home to recover in time for the next day, while the “hardbodies” (or masochists) met up again after dinner for a “night-training” session. Slightly different from a typical training session, practicing at night in an abandoned housing project definitely gave me a new perspective on movement and a lot of the things that one doesn’t think about in broad daylight. The entire 2-hour session was conducted in compete silence, from the mimed warm-up to the “follow the leader” challenge that took us through the 3-acre estate. I’m convinced that if we had attempted this in an inhabited housing development someone would have called the police, but the fact that the windows boarded up, there were no barking dogs or murmur of voices, and even the traffic seemed muted by the dark and abandoned towers around us. This environment amplified every sound and made us painfully aware of the scrape of trainers on a misjudged step, the thump of landings not made on the balls of feet, the clap of palms that missed their marks, the scuffle of leaves underfoot, or the muttered curses that escape when the overhang jumps out from nowhere to attack one’s head. Since moving efficiently and smoothly ideally involves very little noise, this night exercise was a great way to make one aware of corrections that needed to be made.

Stephane Vigroux, one of the instructors for the night training session. Photo courtesy of Andy Day Photography.

Sunday morning saw another early start (it felt especially early for those who had just gone to bed after getting back from the night session) and full day of training with the different instructors and trying to absorb as much of their knowledge and the general atmosphere as possible.

The first official picture of me actually doing some of the stuff I’m writing about.

One of the most striking things about this weekend for me was the spirit of community that seemed to pervade all the events. While the atmosphere had subtle differences from the one that I encountered in France, (one might chalk that up to one being French and the other British), the spirit of cooperation, unity, and pursuit of the common goal of personal development and general fitness were the same. These events really seem to be the glue that binds a lot of these organizations together. The friendships and mutual respect that are forged by two days of blood and sweat seem to create a “community” aspect to parkour that I think stems from the inclusive and progressive philosophy of the sport. An example of this is the accommodations set up for the event, with all of the “imported” instructors being hosted by Parkour Generations team members, and many of the foreign participants staying with friends that they had made at previous events.

The warmup at RDV5 (Photo courtesy of Parkour Generations)

Maybe it is the stark contrast with the individualistic aspect of the sport that makes this sense of community so striking, but it gives me a lot of hope for the development of the sport, and the desire for it to outlast the labels of “fad” or “fashion”. Much the same way that the sport of Frisbee can only be played as long as the “spirit of the game” is respected, parkour seems to depend on this as well. Not only do traceurs have to keep the reputation of the entire sport in mind when they practice, since one incident with an unhappy resident or damaged private property can result in a city-wide ban on the sport or an unfavorable view in the eyes of authorities, but also because so much of the development of the sport seems to depend on the sharing of knowledge and experiences- moves, techniques, conditioning exercises, practice spots…

Perhaps one of the best ways to capture the attitude of this weekend is with the phrase that became the mantra of the weekend, “We start together, we finish together”. Originally taken from the Yamakasi expression “On commence ensemble, on finit ensemble”, it not only describes the general practice of waiting for everyone to finish the set/route/rep before continuing as a group, but also of a state of awareness for the safety and well-being of the others that one is training with.

Rendezvous 5: I’m in the top left, sporting a bright orange shirt and the usual tousled mane.

For more pictures of the event (there are a lot of great ones) check out Andy Day's shots from the night session HERE or pics from the Parkour Generations site HERE.