Men's Health "Survival of the Fittest" Races

Toward the end of my stay in London I had the opportunity to help out as a member of the “event staff” for the Men’s Health “Survival of the Fittest” races that I competed in last year.  Unfortunately I was only able to participate in the first two events due to my return flight to the USA, but they were still a lot of fun.  The experience also gave me a whole new appreciation for the events themselves and the massive amount of work that went into their preparation and set-up.

Cardiff Bay, beautiful as usual.  Photos courtesy of Mark MacKenzie. 

The start of the set-up.  Photo courtesy of Mark MacKenzie. 

On my first day the powers-that-be made the mistake of leaving us for a while with no orders and lots of mats.  Then they were surprised to find us all hot and sweaty when they came back…

Too much free time and fun toys.   Photo courtesy of Mark MacKenzie.

Mats + free time = ...   Photo courtesy of Mark MacKenzie. 

Hard at work the day before the race.   Photo courtesy of Mark MacKenzie.

Mixing mud for the race in Nottingham.   Photo courtesy of Mark MacKenzie.

Making sure the platforms were solid in Nottingham.   Photo courtesy of Mark MacKenzie.

In both Cardiff and Nottingham I ended up hopping into the race at the last moment, and both times, despite the lack of sleep and the long hours of manual labor late into the nights preceding the event, the irregular meals, and general lack of preparation, I managed to do pretty well, winning my heat/wave both times and placing within the top 10 overall.  While this has made me reevaluate many of the “pre-race rituals” that I’ve sworn by over the past 10 years of competitive running, it has also made me realize that perhaps the parkour training here has been a bit more than the “standard” training that I’d taken it for…

Cardiff - Race photos from the exorbitantly priced MH SOTF site . 

Cardiff -  Race photos from the exorbitantly priced MH SOTF site.

Nottingham -  Race photos from the exorbitantly priced MH SOTF site.

Nottingham -  Race photos from the exorbitantly priced MH SOTF site.

Early fall in London

After what seemed like far too little time in Paris I returned to London, where the rest of my trip seemed to pass in a blur of teaching and training.  I had numerous opportunities to build on my instructing experience, and since the London community is so well established and welcoming, pretty much any time I was in the mood for training there was at least one person, usually more, that were willing to join me.

I spent the first few weeks of my stay bouncing around from one person’s floor, couch, or guest bed to another, and found that although I didn’t have much privacy or space to call my own, I didn’t miss it much nor find it to be much of a sacrifice.

During the first few weeks in London I met a young filmmaker who was putting together a documentary on parkour and asked to interview me for the project.  After the interview she came with me to one of my favorite training spots to get some more footage of me interacting with the urban environment.  Below are some of the still shots from the day. 

All photos courtesy of Nadia Hammond.

Scotland's first parkour park opens

This is old news now but I thought it would be appropriate to highlight what seems to be a growing trend in the UK, the construction of parkour parks by municipalities to give encouragement to local youth who are being active, responsible, and positive members of their communities.  Hopefully this trend will spread to other countries as well.

The link to the full article, "Scotland's first parkour course opens in Coatbridge".

Photo courtesy of BBC News.

An afternoon spent exploring spots in Paris

An afternoon of exploring some of the spots in downtown Paris with Val, Philippe, and Jun...

A spot of lunch by the cathedral.

Jun testing out the lamposts in Olympiades.

Surveying the area.

Right before someone came out and kicked him off...

Not exactly efficient, but a haven for parkour. 

And people wonder why parkour started in Paris....

A recurring theme throughout my visit.  Apparently even the art was out to get us...

Paris – A visit to the World Wild Souls (2WS) Boutique

In addition to having a chance to reconnect with old friends and get some “quality training time” with the Yamakasi, my other reason for visiting Paris was to check out the World Wild Souls, aka 2WS, store that opened last fall. 

I first learned about the launch of the brand when I visited in June 2010 for the ADD Experience.  It was there that I was introduced to the two main people behind the effort, Daniel Toti and Stéphane De Maintenant, and got a glimpse of the efforts and plans underway.

World Wild Souls, also known as 2WS is something that has been in “in the pipes” for a quite a while now.  Actually, if one looks closely, the logo and name can be seen on some of the clothing and media items used by the Yamakasi in some of the earliest videos (this is from quite a few years ago, notice the cut of the shirts and the logo on the back)

It wasn’t until a few years ago when Daniel, a veteran of the Parisian fashion industry, and Stéphane, with an extensive business background, came in contact with the Yamakasi and plans for the clothing went beyond a small, custom-made line of clothing to something larger.  The official launch of the brand occurred in October of 2010 and since then it has been making steady progress in becoming recognized in France and throughout the parkour community.  After nearly a year of hearing about the brand and everything going on in Paris I decided to pay a visit to check things out during my trip to Paris.

The 2WS store is located on a small street in Paris near the fashion district of Les Halles on Rue Jean-Jacques.  While the street that is located on is not exactly a main thoroughfare, there is a constant stream of people coming into the store, usually from within the extended “family” of the Yamakasi or the staff at 2WS.

The shop itself is an awesome combination of French fashion with the Yamak feel and is decorated in a combination of scaffolding and wood that fits nicely with the clothing and with the Yamak themselves.  While the decorations are simple, they also fit well with the clothing and with the moving decoration of the traceurs that can be found wandering in and out of the store at most times.

The store front, the street is a bit quiet but there seems to be a constant stream of friends and visitors passing through. 

The entry.

After a quick tour of the building and the labyrinth of caves and storerooms down below (almost an extension of the Parisian catacombs) I met with Daniel, Antoine (one of the managers at the store and the younger brother of Tony Thich) to talk logistics and about the potential pairing of my travels with the development of 2WS.

The clothing is pretty awesome and I was fortunate enough to receive a number of the items to wear on my travels.  While many of the items are inspired by the Yamakasi and parkour movements, the clothing is not by any means parkour-only.  The brand is more designed for movement in general, and many of the items are also designed for use in dance, yoga, pilates, capoeira, martial arts, and any number of other movement-based practices.

The interior of the store.

The decor has been kept simple, but anyone that has trained with the Yamak or seen them perform can understand the choice of the scaffolding.

Some local traceurs and Laurent who happened to be at the store for an event.

All of the items are made from 100% cotton, although the feel to the cloth is very different from the standard cotton gear that one often finds in the US or Europe.  The symbol on the back of many of the items, known as a “chesu”, is New Caledonian in origin and symbolizes the Yamakasi spirit of “esprit fort, corps fort” (“strong mind, strong body” in English).

The chésu, the symbol of the brand.

 In the year since the launch the brand has grown a lot and been featured in a number of fashion-related events in Paris.

The guys performing at the Fall 2011 fashion show by Jean-Paul Gaultier (in the middle).  Photo courtesy of 2WS.

In addition to heading back to London with a few items to wear on my travels, I also came back with the title of “Global Brand Representative” for the brand, with the task of promoting the brand as well as the history and ideas of the Yamakasi roots as I travel.  While this isn’t really any different what I’ve been doing in the past, it has given me a unique opportunity to use some of my marketing experience while working for a company and ideology that I strongly believe in.  And of course I get to wear and test out some pretty awesome clothing in the process.

For more information on the brand and the clothing, check out the newly refurbished site below.

www.2ws.fr

Some more photos of the clothing from 2WS below...

Chau, one of the founders of ADD/parkour.

Laurent, in his "resting" pose in a reversible long-sleeve shirt.

Guylain, fellow founder, wearing the Early Running hoodie. 

Yann, founder, wearing the reversible t-shirt.

One of the most popular items, the "Takare".

  

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.

Watson: Year 2 – the return to London and Rendezvous 2011

So after a few weeks at home I returned to London for two months.  While this was done under the general premise of continuing my research into parkour, I also wanted to attend some key events, get a lot more instructing experience with Parkour Generations, and to learn more about how a “parkour company” is run and organized.  I returned to London on the day before Rendezvous and arrived in the city just in time to catch the tail end of the instructor’s meeting at Elephant and Castle.

Photo courtesy of Jun Sato.

Group conditioning with the other instructors.  Photo courtesy of Jun Sato.

Taking over a local restaurant for dinner (and lots of press-ups).

While it was great to see a lot of familiar faces from my travels, it was also slightly disconcerting to see many of them standing side by side and interacting with each other.  This feeling was compounded the next day with the official start of Rendezvous VI, which featured a very diverse group of participants, among them people that I had last seen in Australia, Brazil, Denmark, France, or Italy.  While it took me a little while to get used to, I left the event with the distinct feeling of being part of the “community fabric” of the sport, which was a pretty cool feeling, especially when looking back to Rendezvous a year ago when I knew almost as many of the French guys as I did anyone else at the event.  It was also really good to see how far my “generation” (no pun intended) has progressed over the past year.  While I’m sure that the steady improvement is pretty standard in the sport, I do get the feeling that the group of people that I started training with in London has made a particularly concerted effort to get better and “make something” of their parkour.

In my initial plan to come back to London for Rendezvous, one of the reasons for this had been that the event was also supposed to coincide with the opening of the L.E.A.P. parkour park and training facility at the Westminster Sports Academy.  However, due to a combination of problems with the builders and municipal bureaucracy, this was not to be.

Checking out the park.  Photo courtesy of Ludo. 

So nice, yet so unfinished...  Photo courtesy of Ludo.

To be re-visited.  Photo courtesy of Ludo.

Despite the absence of the “headliner”, the event was still a big success and included nearly 200 traceurs from around the world. During the two-day event participants were given the opportunity to partake in a number of different workshops that were led by a variety of specialists from around the world.  Some were parkour training specific such as strength training and body-weight training with Chris Keighley and Blane, while others dealt with issues such as proper stretching routines, nutrition, and even some presentations by Julie Angel and Andy “Kiel” Day, the renowned film-making and photography duo that are probably some of the most knowledgeable people about the history and development of parkour today.

A stretching session led by Awsa.  Photo by Philippe Gaya.

The rest of Rendezvous was filled with two long days of the hard training that has come to be synonymous with the event, which was only exasperated by the presence of Williams Belle.  While it was later confirmed that he did everything at the event with two broken shins bones, he still managed to move around with a grace and fluidity that was inspiring to witness and which left pretty much everyone, including a lot of the more experienced guys, struggling awkwardly to master the new movements.  This was the first time that I managed to successfully cross paths with Williams in my travels and I was glad to finally be able to meet and train with him.

For me, this year was an interesting contrast with my participation in last year's event, mostly because I was wearing a white "Instructor" shirt this year.  While the absence of Chau and Laurent, who seem to have an innate ability to make people do quantities of exercises that they would not normally perform voluntarily, was definitely felt, the mantles of "hard-ass" were quickly taken up by some of the Parkour Generations instructors who seem to have perfected the art of self-inflicted physical misery as well.  Needless to say, I’m sure that that there were a lot of people that woke up very sore the following Monday and Tuesday.  All in all it was another great event and was a testament to the ever-increasing popularity of parkour around Europe.

Trust falls.  Photo by Philippe Gaya. 

Forrest leading the stretching at the end of the second day.  Photo by Philippe Gaya.

Brian getting some extra exercise.  Photo by Oliver Thorpe.

Training in the skate park next door.  Photo by Oliver Thorpe. 

Photo by Jun Sato.

The instructors of RDV 6.  Photo by Jun Sato.