News

New Parkour Facility Opens in Peterborough

11th July 2023 by callunparkour

Aspire Parkour Academy have recently just opened their very own indoor space to run their parkour sessions.

Following a few years at their local leisure center, the team at Aspire Parkour Academy has now moved into their very own venue, enabling them to run sessions 7 days a week, without the restrictions of hall hire.

The new indoor facility is located at Orton Southgate, Peterborough.

Callun from our digital team visited the new Aspire Parkour Academy.

Aspire Parkour Academy runs parkour sessions for kids ages 6+. They offer a wide range of sessions, including Sensory Friendly, which is a class designed with additional needs in mind, such as ASD, ADHD, and SPD.

Their Sensory Friendly class is limited to 12 and they have 6 coaches on hand, giving a coach-to-participant ratio of 1:2.

Callun, from our digital team, visited the Aspire Parkour Academy team, having a look at the space, and talking to Kieran, the owner of Aspire Parkour Academy, about their coaches and sessions.

A handful of their coaches have also recently sat the Parkour UK Level 2 coaching qualification, and had just finished their assessment days in London.

Callun also spoke to Kieran, owner of Aspire Parkour Academy about their plans and ideas to help the academy flourish in the future.

“We are also working towards open jam sessions, as well as offering birthday parties, and other events spread throughout the school holidays.”
Kieran Wylde – Aspire Parkour Academy

Want to learn parkour? Check out the website for Aspire Parkour Academy here.

Free Your Instinct / Esprit Concrete Statement – 30/6/2023

30th June 2023 by callunparkour

Esprit Concrete and Free Your Instinct announced that the organisations have entered into a strategic partnership that will support comprehensive delivery of parkour as an evidence based method of supporting mental health. This partnership seeks to establish parkour, freerunning and Art du Deplacement as a recognised means of therapeutic support.

The partnership will work to develop participant and coaching development pathways whilst establishing a recognised evidence base of parkour therapy that integrates place, space and person in line with recognised clinical and counselling psychology methods such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), within services delivered by Free Your Instinct and Esprit Concrete.

Esprit Concrete was founded in 2016 by Parkour Coach and Counselling Psychologist Dr Kasturi Torchia and Parkour Athlete Gogoly Yao, co-creating the Esprit Concrete Method (ECM) of parkour therapy. Esprit Concrete has led on reflective practice within sports practice, coaching and athlete development, working within the UK and internationally.

The ECM offers an integrated, embodied method of delivering evidence-based mental health interventions, fully supported by psychologists, and has been used to promote mental wellbeing awareness through performance, professional development pathways and grassroots community initiatives.

Free Your Instinct is a charity that delivers parkour coaching to those with a recognised mental health need currently in London and Bristol, supporting some of the most at risk, vulnerable populations who are most affected by the inequalities of mental health.

Changes that beneficiaries will see as part of this partnership is the inclusion of the esprit concrete therapeutic method within course design, the establishment of development pathways for both coaches and participants, as well as a new name, Esprit Concrete: FYI.

“From conception, we wanted to ensure the Esprit Concrete Method was accessible and affordable, reducing barriers to participation. I am extremely excited at how this partnership will see this dream flourish, whereby corporate and development ventures provided by Esprit Concrete will further support the sustainability of Esprit Concrete: FYI and its community aims. Having collaborated over the last few years, I am grateful for this new chapter and we at Esprit Concrete are energised by this unique opportunity to strengthen and further our aims”
Dr Kasturi Torchia, Esprit Concrete LTD

“We are really excited to be working alongside Esprit Concrete. Our courses have seen significant demand over the last few years as the mental health impact of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent cost of living crisis becomes realised. This partnership not only enables us to continue to fully and holistically support our participants, it ensures ongoing sustainability, enabling us to meet this increased demand.”
Charlotte Boenigk, Esprit Concrete: FYI CEO

Parkour UK Update – May/June 2023

27th June 2023 by callunparkour

Welcome to Parkour UK’s update for the months of May & June 2023. Take a look at some of the news that has happened within the organisation over the last few months.

Saying Goodbye

In May & June, we said goodbye to a few members of the Parkour UK staff team.

Kieran, who worked in our Membership Lead role, has left Parkour UK after an exciting work opportunity opened up for him.

Kieran previously worked in our workforce role and has been a valuable member of Parkour UK ever since he started.

Thank you for all your hard work over the years, Kieran. We wish you and your business the best of luck in the future!

In June, we also said goodbye to Chris Grant, Parkour UK’s head of development, who is taking a career break to focus on being a new parent

Chris has played a key role in the growth of Parkour UK over the last 2 and 1⁄2 years and we would like to thank Chris for his dedication, hard work, and positive impact on the parkour community.

We wish Kieran and Chris the best of luck in the future

Our Level 2 Summer Intake

In early June, we ran our summer cohort for our Level 2 coaching qualification. This started with the online section of the course, which went really well. Their face-to-face section of the course starts in July.

We’ve had a number of questions and inquiries over the last few months regarding our Level 2 coaching qualification.

If you’re looking for more information on the course, you can check out the podcast episode we did below.

UK Coaching Week 2023

In early June, Parkour UK celebrated UK Coaching Week, organised by UK Coaching.

UK Coaching Week this year had a focus on “Duty of Care”.

During this week, we put together an article (Read Here) where we celebrated a handful of the amazing coaches seen within the parkour community.

We think it’s crucially important to highlight the positive work that parkour coaches are doing to support individuals within their communities, and UK Coaching Week is a brilliant way for us to do this.

This follows our attendance at the UK Coaching Awards back in December of 2022, where 3 parkour coaches were nominated as finalists in the “Change a Life”, “Coaching Podcast of the Year” and “Young Coach” awards.

Parkour UK at the UK Coaching Awards in December 2022

Action Sports Gathering – Sheffield

In late May, Callun and Simon visited Sheffield for the Action Sports Gathering, organised by UK Sport.

We were joined by other sports, including Skateboard GB, GB Snowsport, British Bobsleigh and Skeleton, British Cycling, & GB Climbing.

This led to some amazing discussions with those organisations, including their competitive coaching pathways and experience in the Olympics.

We also told stories about how Parkour is unique as a sport, addressing some of the misconceptions about parkour being a high-risk sport, and what we are doing as a National Governing Body to serve, elevate, and add value to the Parkour community.

A huge thank you to everyone involved at UK Sport for making this happen, and we are looking forward to the next one!

Our Second Podcast Recording

Not long after the Action Sports Gathering, Callun and Simon met again in Brighton to record our next batch of podcasts.

This round of podcasts covers everything you need to know about starting your parkour coaching journey and includes information about how to get your coaching hours signed off.

These podcasts will be coming soon to YouTube, Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

You can check out our latest episode below. How can Parkour UK help you?

Women’s Engagement Project – Isla Ramsay

Isla Ramsay – Shot by JMS Films

In June, our first piece from the Women’s Engagement Project was uploaded to our YouTube channel.

This piece follows the journey of Isla Ramsay, who recently took part in our Level 1 Parkour UK Coaching qualification.

It was an absolute pleasure to visit Isla Ramsay in Glasgow for the first of many video projects to promote female participation in parkour, and encourage more women to take up space and be part of this wonderful community.

Thank you to Johnstone Macpherson-Stewart for filming and editing the video. https://www.jmsfilms.com/

Women’s International Parkour Weekend Takeover

We would like to say a huge thank you to Katie McDonnell, who hosted a takeover on the Parkour UK Instagram account during the Women’s International Parkour Weekend, hosted by Parkour Generations.

Katie attended and gave insight into the event, which included speaking to a number of different participants from all over the world and sharing their stories on our Instagram story.

The takeover was a huge success, and it is something that we would love to do more of in the future.

If you would like Parkour UK to cover your event, please reach out to us. A member of our team will be able to organise a visit or have someone do an Instagram story takeover on our account to document the event.

Further Event Coverage

As well as Katie running our Instagram during the WIPW, we also have been highlighting a number of competitions and work that has been going on within the parkour community.

Our recent long-form written content includes a post-interview with Generic Parkour, who hosted the Liverpool Takeover back in April, and a conversation with Queer Parkour, who are working within our community to create a safe space for individuals and communities who identify as LGTBQIA+ within parkour.

You can read both of those articles by following the links below.

Generic Parkour – The Liverpool Takeover

Queer Parkour – Creating Safe Spaces within Our Community

Further Learning & CPD Development for Parkour Coaches

We understand that there is a demand among parkour coaches to have the opportunity to further learn and develop their coaching skills.

Caroline, a member of our workforce support team, is in the early stages of developing some further learning courses for parkour coaches. This is something that we will be working closely with the community, and we encourage current parkour coaches, and those who are thinking of becoming coaches in the future, to get involved and have a discussion with us regarding this, so we can further add value to the parkour community.

Upcoming Webinars for Parkour Coaches

We are currently in the process of planning some upcoming webinars regarding our Level 1 Parkour UK Assistant Coaching course.

These webinars will run around 6 weeks before the courses are due to start, and we will be looking to run one of these before our Bedford Level 1 course.

Keep your eyes peeled on our social media to find out when this is, and have your questions ready!

UK Coaching Week 2023

9th June 2023 by Parkour UK

This year, UK Coaching Week is from the 5th-11th of June this year, with the theme being on “Duty of Care”

We asked our community on Facebook and Instagram to highlight some of the amazing coaches and coaching organisations that embody ANY of the following:

– Duty of Care
– Physical Well-being
– Inclusion
– Diversity
– Safeguarding
– Mental Health
– Participant Safety

And in today’s post, we want to highlight as many people and organisations as we can, so let’s get into it!

Spiral Freerun C.I.C.

Without a doubt, our Instagram comment section was full of comments tagging Spiral Freerun C.I.C., as well as their coaches Luke, Jesse, and Omar.

Spiral Freerun C.I.C. use their coached parkour sessions to promote the benefits that moving has on physical and mental health.

Luke and Jesse both attended a mental health first aid course with Parkour UK last year and have also helped Contendunt (A mental health-focused parkour project) in some of their suicide awareness workshops.

Spiral Freerun also have a diverse coaching team, and their “I’m Scayered” podcast discusses their experiences within parkour, including all the highs and lows of training.

Their podcast adds an extra layer of depth to the team, they detail their previous experiences with injuries, as well as a range of other topics. This is an amazing toolkit for their students, as they are able to learn more about how to be safe in parkour away from the Spiral Freerun sessions.

Spiral Freerun’s sessions run in Bedford, and if you’re looking to attend one of their sessions, you can check their website for more information here.

Follow Spiral Freerun C.I.C.

Spiral Freerun C.I.C. – Image from their Facebook Page

Team Reality

Team Reality, based out of Grimsby, was also another coaching organisation that was tagged in our Instagram comments section.

Team Reality has a real focus on the physical well-being of its students. With an in-house squat rack, their older participants can be seen lifting weights, prepping their bodies for general parkour training, or for the competition seasons over the summer.

Team Reality also takes some of their advanced students to parkour events, jams, and gatherings, helping them learn parkour training etiquette, and giving them a helping hand with integrating into the parkour community.

Team Reality have also recently launched their own podcast, “The Reality of Podcast” – in the first two episodes, they sit down with two of their students, who openly discuss competition preparation, once again adding an extra layer of depth and information available to their students away from their coached sessions.

Team Reality also host the “Grim Jam” each year, which is a two day event in their hometown. They’ve been progressing the event over the last few years, providing equal opportunities for both men and women within the sport.

You can find out more about Team Reality by visiting their website here.

Follow Team Reality

The Team Reality Team – Photo from their Facebook Page

Free Your Instinct

Free Your Instinct is a young and dynamic charity that helps people with mental health support needs through the delivery of specialist Parkour classes by qualified and experienced coaches.

Their aims and objectives include:

To use Parkour to promote mental and physical well-being to those who have recognised a mental health need
To physically and mentally enrich the lives of users through parkour
To offer development opportunities and coaching
To promote the Charity within the Mental Health community
To ensure a duty of care to all members of the club

Free Your Instinct operates in London, Somerset, and Bristol, and has been one of the leading providers of mental health parkour sessions since 2015.

Follow FreeYourInstinct

Queer Parkour & Fluidity Freerun Academy

Queer Parkour is a community-focused group, fronted by 4 members of the parkour, art du deplacement, and freerunning community who identify as LGBTQIA+.

Their four leads are dotted across the UK (and the world!), and they’re working to build a community, give a voice, and improve accessibility and experience for the LGBTQIA+ community in Parkour, Art du Deplacement, and Freerunning.

The four individuals who started Queer Parkour are Jia Wei @officialjiawei (he/she/they, Cardiff and team TOFU Parkour, Malaysia), Louiseanne @louiseannewong (she/they, team Esprit Concrete, London), Amy @dallex_ (she/her, Manchester) and Kel @kelglaister (she/her, Melbourne in Motion, Australia).

They have been collaborating with Fluidity and now we have a bespoke membership with them. They have also been invited to join Sports Network Wales.

Otis, from Fluidity Freerun, then curated a membership for them that includes 8 hours of either open sessions, “Funky Fridays” which is a creative movement class, and soon – bespoke LGBT+ sessions specialised for the group.

You can choose to join any session you want, and it’s affordable for all members. It’s an inclusive way for those who might want to join Parkour, but it might be too expensive for them, so it allows them to come and experience parkour and find community there.

Follow Queer Parkour

Follow Fluidity Freerun

*Queer Parkour Cardiff jam at Fluidity Freerun, April. Photo by Jia Wei Lee.*

Contendunt

Contendunt is a mental health-focused community project run by Callun from our digital support team. Callun is also a parkour coach, working in Crawley. Callun fuses his knowledge and experiences with mental health to provide resources and information to the parkour community through his website, where he has listed the helplines of over 100 different countries and regions, meaning anyone in the world can access the support they need.

Follow Contendunt

Parkour Generations London

Parkour Generations London is also taking a stand on mental health. They recently hosted Contendunt for a suicide awareness workshop, which a number of their coaches attended.

Parkour Generations also has a wide customer base, offering classes for all ages, from children all the way through to adults.

Parkour Generations provides parkour sessions to help all individuals get into parkour. For some adults, there is a concern about how the body will take impact. Parkour Generations London recognises this and creates and provides workshops to help adults of all ages get into parkour.

Follow Parkour Generations London

Contendunt’s Suicide Awareness Workshop at Parkour Generations Republic London

Aspire Parkour Academy

Aspire Parkour Academy runs sessions in Peterborough. On their calendar of sessions, they include multiple sensory-friendly classes a week. It only takes a glance at Aspire Parkour Academy’s reviews to see how impactful these sessions truly are.

These classes provide a calmer and quieter atmosphere with fewer distractions. They have designed the session with additional needs in mind, such as ASD, ADHD, and SPD.

The Sensory Friendly class is limited to 12 and they have 6 coaches on hand, giving a coach-to-participant ratio of 1:2.

Aspire Parkour Academy has also recently sent a handful of their coaches on one of Parkour UK’s MHFA courses, taking a stand on mental health and equipping their coaches with the tools they need to deal with those scenarios.

Aspire Parkour also offers DofE volunteering opportunities, as well as working closely with Children’s University Peterborough.

Follow Aspire Parkour

Aspire Parkour Academy and Jump PK coaches on a Mental Health First Aid course

Plymouth Parkour

Plymouth Parkour provides parkour and freerunning classes in the Plymouth area.

Plymouth Parkour runs after-school activities at Secondary schools for age group 11-15. Among participants, they develop a youth crew team providing them guided coaching, opportunities to help around workshops and classes, and providing opportunities for them to perform at festivals and events.

They also work with primary school age groups at special educational education units, which specialise in children needing a break from the mainstream education system with behavioral challenges from various causes. They provide a once-a-week PE activity which has a massive impact on the students.

Plymouth Parkour also offers outreach sessions, involving groups of youth in parks and estates inspiring them to learn some parkour or calisthenics (bodyweight training)

Most of the community work they do is on a voluntary basis, and you can find out more by visiting their website here.

Follow Plymouth Parkour

Project Z Parkour

Project Z Parkour provides parkour coaching sessions in Manchester. Their mission is to create a safe and enjoyable environment for individuals to learn how to interact with their environment and surroundings in new exciting ways.

Project Z Parkour offers a range of services for children and adults in the North-West area, spreading from Manchester to Bury, Bolton, Stockport, and more.

Their reviews say it all! Tom and the team at Project Z Parkour are truly passionate about their work, making a positive impact for young people, and offering opportunities for them to grow and develop.

Follow Project Z Parkour

Amy Harcourt / Dallex

Amy is a leading figure in both the LGBTQIA+ community and parkour community. Amy is a Parkour UK Level 1 qualified coach, and recently assisted Parkour Generations at the Women’s International Parkour Weekend.

When it comes to safeguarding, Amy aims to work with Queer Parkour, Parkour UK, and other organisations to provide valuable knowledges, insight, information and guidance for parkour practitioners in the LGBTQIA+ community. This will include help and support for individuals within the LGBTQIA+ community to safely access support if they are being discriminated against.

Amy strongly believes that no one should be ashamed of who they are, and is always there to support events and individuals who champion her message.

Amy is also a huge advocate for being unapologetically yourself. Amy wants parkour to be a safe and inclusive space for everyone, regardless of age, background, gender, identity or religion.

Follow Amy

Safeguarding

Parkour UK regards the safeguarding and welfare of everyone and specifically children (under the age of 18) and adults at risk to be of paramount importance.

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility; please ensure that you report any concerns in order that we can all keep all participants safe from abuse or forbidden conduct. We would ask you to act on your concerns, but it is not your responsibility, or that of volunteers, coaches, or parents to investigate or decide if abuse is occurring, it is the responsibility of safeguarding experts.

Our safeguarding policy summary can be found here.

Our full safeguarding policy is available here, which includes greater detail about offenses and ‘Position of Trust’ legislation, responsibilities, Good Practice, Parkour UK processes, safe recruitment, and specific circumstances.

With parkour’s continued growth, there are so many inspiring coaches and coaching organisations who are doing amazing things for their community when it comes to duty of care. We have tried to list as many as possible in the timeframe we had to put this article together, but there is no denying that there are some names and organisations missing from this list.

UK Coaching Week is one of the many fantastic opportunities we can use to highlight the incredible work done within our sport. If a name of a coach or coaching organisation is missing from this list, please let us know by reaching out to us on our social media channels. It helps us develop and grow these highlight articles in the future!

Parkour UK Monthly Update – April 2023

9th May 2023 by callunparkour

The year is flying by! The first quarter of the year is done, and we have some exciting updates to bring you following some of the work we did in April.

Our Visit to Member Organisations:

In April, Callun spent some time visiting Powerhouse Parkour, one of our member organisations, in Epsom.

Callun was there to sign off some of their Level 1 coaching hours, whilst also engaging in conversations with the Powerhouse team to learn a little bit more about their parkour coaching.

A full article will be up on the website soon.

Over the next few months, Callun will be focusing on trying to get to as many of our member organisations as he can, in order to highlight the amazing work that members of our community are doing.

Callun will be in touch with our members soon, but if you have an immediate story you would like us to share, do not hesitate to reach out to us!

Competition Season!

The competition season has kicked off!

With summer approaching, we’ve already seen street competitions starting to take place as the weather gets warmer!

In April, we saw the Liverpool Takeover (Read More Here) and Manchester Takeover competitions, both looked incredibly fun and successful.

MORE EVENTS!

Other events in May include:

Women / ENBY Jam (By the time this article is published, this event has happened!)
Street Media Social V1 – 20th/21st May
Coventry Jam – 27th May
Women’s International Parkour Weekend – 13th/14th May

We’re always looking for new events to attend and share with the parkour community.

With our team expanding, Parkour UK will try to attend as many parkour events as possible. If you have an event coming up and would like us to attend, don’t hesitate to send us a message!

Women’s Engagement Project

In last month’s update, we spoke about Lynn taking a trip to Glasgow to shoot our first women’s engagement project piece.

We’ve seen the first draft, and it’s incredible! It will be the first of many women’s engagement pieces to come.

The project will be released soon.

REMINDER FOR LEARNERS – PAST AND PRESENT

We would like to remind all learners who have taken their Level 1 and Level 2 Parkour Coaching Qualifications to please get their hours signed off as soon as possible!

If you have any questions, please get in touch with our workforce team.

Simon: simon.vardy@parkour.uk

Caroline: caroline.ness@parkour.uk

Level 2 Parkour UK Coaching Qualification

There isn’t long left to book the summer assessment day for our Level 2 Parkour Coaching Qualification.

Bookings close in just under two weeks’ time, make sure you book quickly!

Book The Assessment Day Here

UK Coaching Week 2023

Towards the end of April and the beginning of May, UK Coaching announced their daily themes for UK Coaching Week 2023.

You may remember Parkour UK attended the UK Coaching Awards in Leeds in December after three parkour coaches that we nominated became finalists in their categories.

It’s important to use these events to truly showcase and highlight all the work that parkour coaches are doing.

This year, UK Coaching Week runs from 5th June – 11th June, with the theme being “Duty of Care”.

The mission of UK Coaching Week 2023 is to educate people about the critical role of Duty to Care in coaching and its impact on the nation’s health and well-being.

Parkour UK aims to highlight as many parkour coaches as possible who fit the following criteria for the week.

Monday 5th June: Duty of Care – The foundation of great coaching.

Tuesday 6th June: Physical Wellbeing – Encouraging physical activity, healthy habits, and recovery to prevent illness and injury.

Wednesday 7th June: Inclusion – Tailoring delivery to a wide range of audiences and how you engage and empower people to keep them involved.

Thursday 8th June: Diversity – Providing equality of opportunity without discrimination.

Friday 9th June: Safeguarding – Protecting people from harmful practices in sport and physical activity.

Saturday 10th June: Mental Health and Wellbeing – Supporting psychological and emotional well-being.

Sunday 12th June: Safe to Practice – Ensuring participant safety and working within the scope of practice.

If you know a parkour coach/coaches or a coaching organisation that fit one or more of the categories listed above, please get in touch with us so we can highlight all the amazing work done by coaches within the parkour community.

You can find out more about UK Coaching Week by following the link here.

We aim to update the parkour community on the work that we are doing each month. If you liked this post, or want to reach out to us with anything you would like us to talk about, then you can do so by following any of the social links below!

Queer Parkour – Creating Safe Spaces within Our Community

24th April 2023 by callunparkour

Queer Parkour is a community-focused group, fronted by 4 members of the parkour, art du deplacement, and freerunning community who identify as LGBTQIA+.

I arranged a call with the Queer Parkour group to learn a little bit more about their goals and ambitions.

The call was super insightful, I learned a lot from it, and seeing a proactive group of individuals want to make a change is super inspiring.

You can read more about Queer Parkour, and the conversation I had with them below!

Callun: What is this project, and how did the 4 of you come together to make this happen?

Louiseanne: I met Jia Wei online first actually, at Esprit Concrete’s Zoom Yamak Style Training during lockdown. Shahman from the Singapore parkour community linked us and we started chatting. We realised we both identified as part of the LGTBQIA+ community, and talked about how a lot of people in the world pronounce our names wrong, and it is indeed basics like names and pronouns that help people feel seen. So Jia Wei approached me with an idea – how about a community group that’s a centralised hub for queer people who do parkour, art du deplacement (ADD), and freerunning?

There are small chat rooms and groups on Facebook and Instagram (like ‘parqueer’ and ‘trans & nb pk pride🏳️‍🌈’), as social media can be a hub for people to chat, but there doesn’t seem to be a bigger hub for people to go to within our community with national policies and whatnot. So we thought, why can’t we do something about that?

We know some LGBTQIA+ people who do PK/ADD/FR around the world, and some seem ‘singular’. Why don’t we form something together to support these singular people which ultimately means the queer community? If we felt alone in our various pasts, then other queer people might feel alone too.

Jia Wei: It felt like there was a load of small, mini-groups, without substantial structure like a union. There doesn’t seem to be a unified community in which we could support each other, like the other way round to organisations recognising Pride campaigns, trans visibility days, etc. So with our Queer Parkour group, we are slowly building an agenda that creates support, for example, LGBTQIA+ awareness training and EDI policy specific to PK/ADD/FR, partnerships with LGBTQIA+ charities, etc.

Kel: It’s starting as a small community group, with the idea of expanding into regions and worldwide. I moderate the Women’s channel of Parkour Earth, and Mish (NZ) moderates the LGBTQ+ channel there. We’ve started building connections with the Australian Parkour Association and Aotearoa New Zealand, and knowing the United States Parkour Association (USPK) has already started making a change with their recent Trans Inclusion Policy for Parkour competitions (click here), we are keen to collaborate as we grow.

We want to start the hub in the UK, but we want to eventually empower communities worldwide. Parkour, Art du Deplacement, and Freerunning are all-inclusive disciplines, and nobody is alone in this. We come together, we train together, and start and finish together like how the Yamakasi founders began.

Louiseanne: We started combining our knowledge and lived experience on what hasn’t worked well so far in the Queer community for us 4, what we’ve heard from fellow friends in the community, and these motivated us to shape our values. For instance, Amy has a lot of insight in terms of the competition side of things and her experience, and we would love to translate this into an inclusion policy recognised in the UK, seeking support from governing bodies like Parkour UK and USPK. Basically putting lessons learned from our lived experience onto a legit bit of paper and making a change that way.

Callun: Am I right in thinking you have something going on with Fluidity Freerun at the moment?

Jia Wei: I run the Cardiff community group (Queer Parkour Instagram), we just started back in April, but interest has really been picking up. We’ve been collaborating with Fluidity and now we have a bespoke membership with them!

Weekly, we get about 10 people, there are regulars and there are new members. Our latest session had 5 new people come in, and there are regular inquiries coming in. Cardiff has a really proactive community, there are Queer skate communities and Queer football clubs, and now the LGBT+ Sports Network Wales has also invited us to join as well, so things are picking up in the Cardiff area.

Fluidity said that once we have enough people, we will be able to run bespoke LGBT+ sessions, and we are liaising with a traceur named Jake Hurley, who has done some outdoor sessions together with us. We always train in Fluidity, and it is nice to offer our members opportunities to train outside to utilise skills learned in the gym!

You can see the community feel in our photos on Instagram @queerparkourcardiff, all the smiling faces, some who are incredibly new to Parkour. We’re all coming together to learn a new thing. It’s a baby which came out of the four of us’ discussion, that will slowly branch out to different areas.

Queer Parkour Cardiff jam at Fluidity Freerun, April. Photo by Jia Wei Lee.

Callun: What Does The Membership with Fluidity Freerun Entail?

Jia Wei: I sought out opinions from the Queer community first, and then I found out that we actually had a substantial amount of people interested in starting a Queer Parkour community in Cardiff. So I started liaising with Otis Larkins, the Operations Manager of Fluidity Freerun Academy. Because a lot of our members are asylum seekers and refugees, and we’re very intersectional (trans, neurodivergent, disabled, etc.), lots really wanted to learn and try parkour – we reached out to Otis to see if we could have a bespoke parkour membership, that can give these people a chance to try parkour at an affordable rate.

Otis then curated this membership for us that includes 8 hours of either open sessions, “Funky Fridays” which is a creative movement class, and soon – bespoke LGBT+ sessions specialised for the group. You can choose to join any session you want, and it’s affordable for all members. It’s an inclusive way for those who might want to join Parkour, but it might be too expensive for them, so it allows them to come and experience parkour and find community there. It’s worked for us really well so far.

It’s early stages, but you can really see the community and the friendships growing. I live to see this, where people of kindred spirits come together, train, and strive together.

Callun: Is this something you can see other gyms adapting? As it develops, would you work with other gyms to create a similar sort of thing?

Jia Wei: That’s one of the things that Queer Parkour wants to do. As well as being a community hub, we want to have resources that are able to inform teams and gyms to help them be more inclusive. We don’t want to just be there to exist as something that just runs events once or twice a year. We want to be able to support the community to its fullest. That’s why we are taking it slow and steady, to make sure we are able to know exactly what documents we want to draft, what infrastructures already exist and what is lacking, and which organisations share similar visions so we collaborate with them and make this something that can be as sustainable and drive itself for the long run.

Amy: I want to take this to a place where it serves a purpose. An infrastructure that allows different avenues for diverse members to have a safe space, including policy routes and a hub that the community can go to when faced with discrimination. At the moment, it seems that no one is held accountable when discrimination happens at events and there is no support for either party, it sucks. I do feel like there needs to be somewhere you can go to, and that they have your back in that sense. Having small community groups isn’t enough. What happens if you’re excluded, or challenged away from these groups? Where do you go from there? It will be cool to have some involvement with that. I’d also love to branch out, like finding funding to help people afford trainers/shoes for parkour. It will enable them to participate in the sport that way.

Having an infrastructure can support many other avenues too like Parkour-related jobs, such as an athlete. What if you’re discriminated against on set? What support do you have? Having something like this in place would be great.

Louiseanne: I echo that. We want to take the time to do our field research. How many of these small communities are there, and can we chat with them? It might be a tall order but it’s essential for inclusion no? Find out what this region’s community saying, what is that community saying, etc. When things go big, they tend to go general which has pros and cons, especially when being a queer person your lived experience is so personal. We want to minimise people feeling left out, so we want to engage with individual communities.

Amy: Some things that we want to implement may not necessarily be right, and some people may not agree with it. Their input is important, as they could potentially bring something greater to this that we previously overlooked. I think it would be wrong to jump straight into it, without speaking to the people/community it affects.

Louiseanne: Yeah, speaking to the people, for the people. As much as it is about empowering people to integrate into a group, it is also about encouraging the group to provide a more inclusive environment. I vouch for the values Esprit Concrete stands for. Take their annual event (pre-covid) Les Dames du Mouvement for example. Their aim is to open up a safe space for everybody regardless of their background, experience, gender, identity, age, faith, etc, encouraging all to come together. Representation matters, true integration takes time and effort but is not impossible.

Esprit Concrete Les dames du Mouvement event 2019 photo by Joanna Markiewicz

Amy: It’s the perfect way to go. In Manchester, we have the Proud Trust. I don’t know if they branch out elsewhere, but they’re a big LGBT+ group in Manchester. I’ve always wanted to offer parkour sessions with people like that, but this is why it’s such a big thing to take it at a steady pace and not rush things for Queer Parkour. This is important, especially when it comes to the legality side of things. There’s big stuff planned, but it wouldn’t be fair to jump straight into that.

Louiseanne: Starting from finding out what’s already happening, asking people who attend jams/ events/ city takeover / structured classes / open gym sessions/competitions, like the upcoming Manchester Women’s and Enby jam run by Amy, about what they would like to see in the future, how are they currently being supported as a queer person, and what’s missing for them.

Manchester Women’s and NB Jam 2023 design by Amy Harcourt.

Following the call with the Queer Parkour group, we discussed the next steps, and what Parkour UK can do to help.

Parkour UK is working with Queer Parkour to get some information and guidance on our website with useful resources, links, and helplines for the queer parkour community. This can be expected to go live on the website soon.

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