From the moment you enter, it’s obvious that this is not your ordinary gym.

Well that went well! At least 60 people passed through the doors, with the adult clinic getting so huge we had to split into two groups and break out all 60 or so feet of precision trainers to balance on in line! That many people is a bit too much for the current gym space we’ve learned (until we can open up the second room) and we’ll keep events smaller in the future

Marc Ramirez from the Seattle Times was there and he wrote an awesome article that was featured in the paper today as well as photos from Alan Berner and an excellent video put together from Genevieve Alvarez. Our own Kellen Fujimoto spent some time grabbing shots as well, and we’ll update this blog post as more stuff comes in.

Update: Check out Tim Kahn’s video coverage of the event!

Read the Seattle Times Article

Parkour Visions Gym opening from Rafe Kelley on Vimeo.

Click for our project

Update: We just barely missed this by 0.1% !! Thanks for all of your votes!

I’ve been watching the sustainable clothing company Nau ever since they first sent one of their employees up to Seattle for a story on the female parkour scene way back in v1 days. I was impressed with their dedication to giving back they built into every faucet of the company and the amount of great local giving they did (especially back in the beginning of their partners for change program).

So when I noticed them launching their first community grant I enthusiastically jumped in feet first and have already hit the ground running so to speak. Through the awesome help of the American Parkour community we’re already almost at the 100 vote minimum mark before this post is finished! APK has been so fast to action and giving in fact that we’re finalizing a potentially fantastic relationship with them shortly (more on that later).

We need your vote!

If we win we’ll receive $10,000 to put towards our own training center for our academy classes and Jump Washington outreach program, and all we need to be considered is a place in the publicly voted top 5.

There’s 293 other groups in the running and voting ends August 31st so please visit the link below and give us a high rating (5 stars)! More info on helping spread this campaign and win the grant in our resource doc.

http://www.nau.com/collective/grant-for-change/tyson-cecka-1026.html

Back in June we helped bring 8 of the coolest Seattle photographers together for a quick photoshoot at Gasworks Park of some of our instructors and younger students.

The idea was that any photos coming out of it would be Creative Commons licensed and cool for noncommercial use by the nonprofit. That way we get some awesome photos to use on the website and in printed materials (with attribution of course), and they get to shoot with some awesome traceurs and build their portfolio.

Well the first Flickr jam went great and you can see the results below or in our Flickr group at flickr.com/groups/parkourvisions

Featured photographers:
Paula: www.flickr.com/photos/gapey
Mark: www.flickr.com/photos/maginashun
Terence: www.flickr.com/photos/ttstam
Rachel: www.flickr.com/photos/packet
Brian: www.flickr.com/photos/bh88keys
Rick: www.flickr.com/photos/rickr_m
Paul: www.flickr.com/photos/swortz
Dave M: www.flickr.com/photos/davemcom

After launching our Parkour Visions outreach program through the fundraising on GlobalGiving we decided just to change the whole name over as it’s a better fit for our organization than the painfully long Pacific Northwest Parkour Association (more on that later).

The problem is that every bit of time we have right is focused on running the outreach programs (which we’re considering calling the Jump Washington project) and finding our own gym space for our regular academy classes. A redesign of the web site just hasn’t been possible.

Rafe got tired of that though and created the amazing logo you see above Consider this an open call for any graphic designers who want to volunteer and work with us on a new logo!

Some excellent news since our last update! What started as a side project from Janine working with the Spruce Street Teen Crises Center has expanded to a relationship with New Futures serving low-income apartment complexes, the Lincoln Center public after school program, and one or two other groups who are interested in using parkour teachings to improve the lives of those who could definitely use it. This has inspired us to change our name to Parkour Visions and here’s an example from an email I just received for another potential program:

So, we’re trying to think of ways to make our program “not just another program” that the kids participate in and then forget about when they go back to their own environments and personal lives: We want to inspire them. We want them to find their own inspiration inside of themselves. We want to give them hope. We want them to make their own hope. We want to give them tools like social skills, communication skills, problem solving skills, and conflict resolution skills…and we want them to learn these skills without even realizing it through enrichingly fun and awesome activities!!

LIKE PARKOUR.

We were hoping on being able to use the profits from our general classes to fund these types of reduced cost or free outreach programs, but while the classes are growing rapidly they’re not to that point yet (we’re hoping to move into our space this month which will help).

So we reached out to the parkour community by teaming up with AmericanParkour (more on that later) and entered into a fundraising competition on the excellent GlobalGiving site to subsidize the cost for future programs. That was near the beginning of last month…and it worked We’ve raised over $4,500 with your help so far, earned a permanent place on the GlobalGiving website, and are already being featured in another competition this month for sports organizations called Ready, Set, GIVE.

We’re very excited but have a crazy amount of work to do now, so the site may get a bit quiet We’ll make sure to update those who’ve donated through GG (even $10 helps!) as often as we can, and for everyone else – spread the word!

Train safe,
-Tyson

Is on the 9th this month and will be hosted at Northwest Crossfit’s Seattle location -link to class page- The focus is as always on introducing new people to the fundamentals of parkour and what you need to build an individual practice. There’s a limit of 30 people at the Seattle location so email classes@parkourvisions.org to reserve your spot and be sure to show up a bit early if you haven’t been before to fill out the release (or bring it with you!) Minors need to bring their parents or grab the form beforehand and get it filled out. Come prepared with clothing you can move in and a waterbottle! See you there!

See more photos on the Parkour Visions Flickr group

Tune in tomorrow (May 2nd) to KUOW at 12:24pm to hear Jeremy Richards interviewing our own Rafe Kelley at Freeway Park.

Or just go direct and download the show here Thanks to KUOW for inviting us out!

Side note: Check out this blast from the past, KUOW was one of the first media interviews for parkour in Washington we ever did way back in 2005 before Parkour Visions and everything you see here!

For those looking to join in on this Saturday’s class, it has been moved to the Bellevue Northwest Crossfit location for this Saturday from 1-2:30pm, sorry for the inconvenience but come check out the new location if you haven’t!

Is on the 11th this month and will be hosted at Northwest Crossfit’s Seattle location -link to class page- -link to facebook event- We have new freshly made precision trainers to bring to this one to accommodate everyone in the balance warmup and the focus is as always on introducing new people to the fundamentals of parkour and what you need to build an individual practice. There’s a limit of 30 people at the Seattle location so email classes@parkourvisions.org to reserve your spot and be sure to show up a bit early if you haven’t been before to fill out the release (or bring it with you!) Minors need to bring their parents or grab the form beforehand and get it filled out. Come prepared with clothing you can move in and a waterbottle! See you there!

See more photos on the Parkour Visions’ Flickr group

The report speaks for itself, check out PNWPA on SeattleIAM and vote it onto the frontpage!

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

If you like the piece head over to SeattleIAM and vote it onto the frontpage so we can get this stuff spread!