This week Parkour Generations Team Members Stephane and Seb are in Amsterdam for a photoshoot for GQ Magazine, the results of which will appear in the June edition of the world-famous magazine.
Online TV channel, Current TV, have just put up this profile of Forrest as he explains about his love for the art of movement and how one can achieve the seemingly impossible through hard training. Produced and directed by Julie Angel, it's well worth a watch and can be seen here.
These past few days Agota, one of Parkour Generations' most dedicated female practitioners, has been in Munich meeting some
of the German and Austrian traceuses in order to train and exchange
knowledge. Agota had a great time and was very pleased to see how passionate about parkour the girls were, and the day was extremely productive for all who attended. Thanks to everybody who made the day so enjoyable, and PKGen looks forward to welcoming several of the traceuses to our Academy Classes when they visit us in London this summer. A short edit and pictures of the day will follow shortly.
With practitioners coming from all four corners of London, and as far afield as Kent, Bristol, and Brighton this month's "Off The Wall" was another fun gathering. After weeks of training in the rain and wind, Mother Nature smiled on us and gave us a clear dry day to meet up. Many thanks again to all those that made the trip down so share their knowledge, and sweat it outside-by-side ... and special thanks to Yao for both running a quick warm-up, and for being the day's tour guide at his latest gem of a find!
Forrest and Dan have just finished giving a 3-day seminar in Geneva, Switzerland, and it has been a great success. The participants gave everything to the training, which was held at various excellent spots around the city under bright sunshine and clear blue skies, and the enthusiasm, diligence and determination of the students were most impressive. Parkour Generations would like to thank Jan, Paula, Gerard and Delphine for making the event possible, and all those who sweated it out for the three days without complaining (too much..)!
The first ever all-female action edit, called GoGirls has just gone online, and can now be seen here. Produced by Julie Angel for Yahoo`s Global City Beats movie which will be shown in theatres across Germany very soon, the film showcases several dedicated female students of our London Academy as they traverse the city. Many thanks to Julie, and to all the traceuses for their great work, and you can be sure you will be seeing more of them very soon...
This month the 'Off The Wall' open gathering in London will be held on Sunday March 30th. Set aside as a training day open to any and all who can come down, these jams are not structured sessions but rather an opportunity to share ideas and training methods between all levels of experience and ability. Several of our team will always be present to help out anyone who wants a hand! For location and start time information, email Brian (at) parkourgenerations.com and we look forward to what should be another very productive day.
Tomorrow Forrest and Dan leave for Switzerland where they will be running a three-day seminar in Geneva for the budding parkour community there. March 28th the training will be held at the Commune de Thonex, March 29th in Geneva's town centre, and the 30th we will be at the Commune de Meyrin. For more details of the event, email the principal organiser Jan Grossetete on jan.grossetete (at) hotmail.com.
Last week Forrest found himself teaching in Transylvania, in the city of Satu-Mare. Enjoying the pouring rain and layers of mud, he nevertheless drew quite a crowd of practitioners who showed great spirit and enthusiasm despite the weather. We would like to thank Erik from www.terror-parkour.piczo.com for organising the session and of course all the participants for braving the elements. Parkour Generations will certainly be returning to Transylvania soon and organising more and larger such events.
The next Wiltshire Academy Session occurs this Saturday, March 29th, with Kazuma and Chris teaching. Run in conjunction with Wiltshire Alternative Youth Sports, this new Academy is looking to be a great success and will go from strength to strength in helping develop the discipline in the Wiltshire area. For more information and location/time details, contact Nick Thrower at WAYS here.
This Friday we will be running some introductory workshops for Friern Barnet School in north London, the latest school to get involved in our Parkour for Schools Programme which keeps on growing and growing. We now run a weekly mini-Academy class at East Barnet school on Mondays from 4.00-5.30pm, which is proving to be extremely successful.
In November 2007 we were invited to teach at the Finnish Parkour Association's end of year seminar, which was an excellent event and a great success all round. Now the short documentary of the 2-day seminar is available to view in three parts on Youtube, here. You can also download the entire filmfrom the Finnish Parkour Association's website here.
The short film 'Mental Block' featuring Parkour Generations coach Alli and directed by Academy student Karen Palmer won the Film of
the Month Award on The Filmmakers website. Quite an honour, considering the distinguished judging panel consists of Morgan Freeman, Kabir Bedi, Derek Jacobi, Richard Attenborough and many more.
The next event in the build-up to the London Olympics will be a Sportathon Roadshow activity day held at Paddington Recreation Ground on Wednesday April 2nd. A team from Parkour Generations will be running open workshops there between 3 and 6 pm, and all are welcome to attend and join in. Always fun, these events are aimed at encouraging sport and physical activity across the country as we move to wards 2012 - so come and have a go!
Next week a team from Parkour Generations will be sourcing locations in Paris for what should be an incredible photo and video shoot for Canon the week after. The photographic results will be showcased as advertorials in the June edition of GQ Magazine, while the video will be available to watch online at certain websites. Stephane and Seb will be providing the action, with Julie Angel directing, shooting, and editing the piece. There's a great vibe surrounding this particular project, and we think it should produce something quite special...
This Easter holiday we will again be running two weeks of workshops for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, from 12.00-2.00 every weekday from April 7th to April 18th at the Rugby Portobello Trust, Walmer Road, London. These workshops are absolutely free to attend, but must be booked beforehand - for more details, or to book a place, contact Gemma Crawley at RBKC's Youth Sports Development Team.
Due to the Easter Holidays coming up, there will be NO Youth Academy class on Friday 21st March and NO Academy class on Monday 24th March. The Friday Outdoor Class this week runs as usual, as do today's Academy class at Moberly and the Women's Outdoor Class tonight. All class times will return to normal as of Tuesday 25th March.
This year Parkour Generations is proud to be partnering with social enterprise UK AWARE, an organisation that strives to promote green ideas for everyday living. The central event, LONDON AWARE 08, is a groundbreaking green consumer event launching at the Barbican on 10th and 11th May, and parkour will be incorporated into some of the LONDON AWARE 08 promotional events happening over the next few weeks to generate excitement, bring a carbon-free performance dynamic and create a sense of energy - all human powered, not a fossil fuel in sight!
This week we began ongoing filming work with film-maker Julie Angel for a brand new project designed specifically for the parkour community. Long overdue, we are very excited about this one which will be another completely in-house Parkour Generations production that we think will turn a few heads. It'll be worth waiting for, we promise you...
On the evening of March 19th we will be running another workshop in conjunction with the Wiltshire Alternative Youth Sports (WAYS) organisation, part of Wiltshire County Council. The workshop will be held at the John Bentley School from 6.30-8.30pm, and is the latest in a long-running series of workshops and events we have put on in Wiltshire that have led most recently to us teaching a more regular Academy Class down that way.
On March 28th, 29th and 30th Forrest and Dan will be running a seminar in Geneva, Switzerland in conjunction with the budding parkour community there. March 28th the training will be held at the Commune de Thonex, March 29th in Geneva's town centre, and the 30th we will be at the Commune de Meyrin. For more details, email Jan Grossetete on jan.grossetete (at) hotmail.com.
Along with the regular school workshops this week, we will also be running two open workshops at the City of Norwich School in Norfolk this Saturday March 15th. Running from 11-1 and then 2-4, all details of the workshops can be found online here. If you are in the area, get in touch with the relevant contact at the link and try to book a place before they are gone!
We have recently started the saturday Wiltshire Academy sessions, which are looking set to grow in popularity just as our London Academy classes have done. Last week Chris and Johann went down to teach and we will be mixing up the instructors to expose the students there to as many influences as possible. The Calne Parkour regulars, whom we have been teaching for coming up on two years now and who have shown great determination and enthusiasm ever since we first met them, are always at these classes and are a fine example of a young but strong growing community.
Last week Forrest and Tracey were filmed for the promotional video for the Royal Parks Half Marathon charity event happening on October 12th this year, and the short edit is now up on Youtube. The aim of the piece was to promote running and the London parks rather than parkour, which therefore had to be kept to a minimum, but it's still a well shot video that gets the message across.
Saturday 8th March saw Anne-T and Agota, accompanied by Yao, giving an impressive live performance in collaboration with Ijad Dance Company to celebrate International Women's Day. The demonstration was choreographed by Forrest, and the audience seemed somewhat surprised by the fluidity, speed and grace of the ladies and the power displayed by Yao. With the women of Parkour Generations receiving more and more attention of late, and this in turn energising the female parkour scene, we are certain there will be more and more demand for such displays.
At the end of this month a team from Parkour Generations will be engaging in an innovative video and photo shoot for Canon in Paris, profiling some new technology that has clear overlaps with the parkour community. Julie Angel will be providing the camerawork for the video shoot, and the photographic elements will be released in the June edition of the world famous GQ Magazine. More details here soon...
At the end of last year Kazuma, Stephane and Thomas of Parkour Generations went out to Italy to run a hugely successful and popular seminar. A few snippits of the action have found their way online, with probably the best candid camera edit being this one put up by one of the attendees. The team had a great time, and were very impressed by the enthusiasm and dedication of the Italian traceurs. You can find the edit here.
With the 2012 Olympic preparations building up steam, we will again be running demonstrations and workshops at the next Olympics Sportathon Roadshow in April. This one falls on Wednesday April 2nd and will be held at the Paddington Recreation Ground in London, running from midday to 8pm. Everyone is welcome to attend, please come along and find us there!
The promotional work we are doing for London's Royal Parks Half Marathon charity event later this year is now halfway complete, with Tracey and Forrest completing the video shoot yesterday and the photoshoot to come this Sunday. Shot mostly in and around Hyde Park, the video should be out very soon and promises to be an energetic, light piece with the focus on fun as much as on the parkour.
This months women-only outdoor training day will take place on Saturday March 8th in London, open to women of all levels of experience and ability to learn from each other and share knowledge and ideas. These jams are free of charge to attend, the price being only a set of sore muscles the following day..! This months falls on International Women's Day, so we expect a big turnout! Tracey will again be organising the day, so anyone who is keen to take part should email her directly at Tracey(at)parkourgenerations.com
With Kazuma set to return from France this week, his Advanced Class on Tuesday evenings will recommence as of 11th March in London. These classes are not open to beginners, and are aimed at practitioners with a high level of ability and confidence with their movements. Anyone wishing to book a place on one of Kazuma's classes can find details here.
Sunday 8th March is International Women's Day, and to mark it a collective of male and female practitioners from Parkour Generations will be performing some demonstrations alongside the dancers of IJAD Dance Company at the Arts Depot building in Barnet, London. IJAD develops innovative and dynamic concepts within dance, moving with the times and developing work where there are no limits between dance, space, film and technology.
'MySpace', the now classic Julie Angel short film showing Dan and Forrest of Parkour Generations exploring the possibilites for movement within one tiny corner of London's standard architecture, has been selected to be shown at the Moves08 Film Festival, happening on 22-26 April in Manchester, UK. The short is almost at one million views on Youtube, and has also been shown in film exhibitions in the United States and all over Europe.
