Build a parkour gym - teach to overcome obstacles

Kids and adults in the Puget Sound region have been running from the SADness of dark northwest winter at our Seattle gym and on their own elementary and middle school campuses.

Our after-school program is running strong, with a new middle school program running this term in addition to the middle and elementary school programs we ran in the Fall. Kids are braving the rain and training fundamental parkour skills on their own school playgrounds and adjacent parks, learning to see their environments and themselves in new ways.

Our building team has been busy coming up with all kinds of new obstacles like Bowser, a mini-cage, weird little turtle-shaped stride/precision trainers, and have been recombining our structures into really interesting configurations that allow for fresh exploration every time people come to the gym. You can see some of our stuff in action in our Always Changing gym showcase video. This past week, we built a squishy staircase to learn the intricacies (and fun!) of falling down stairs.

The new schedule at PKV has allowed lots more people to learn parkour in a structured way from our world-class instructors, and more importantly, your donations have helped build equipment and recharge our scholarship and outreach funds, which has allowed even more people to explore the discipline of overcoming obstacles.

Thanks for all you’ve helped us do so far. We’re looking forward to expanding our offerings in the Spring. Stop by next time you’re in town, and in the meantime, keep training!

Links:

• Parkour Visions website
• PKV Youtube channel
• PKV Facebook page

This past Fall has been a really exciting time at Parkour Visions, and thanks to your support, we've been able to extend our reach, build some cool stuff, and open more classes!

We've been sending our coaches to three local elementary schools and a local middle school regularly for after-school parkour programs, and the kids have been loving it. The programs run outside in the real world on and around school playgrounds, so the kids are learning to see and interact with their environment in creative, fun ways.

In the gym, we've built low and high wall sections that are more analogous to obstacles we see outside every day (complete with concrete coating!), and have made interesting springy toys and new boxes that open up lots of parkour possibilities and allow us to teach particular movements more effectively. You can see some of our new equipment in action in the video from our Halloween Obstacle Course event. 

This December, we're rolling out a major schedule change at the gym that opens up addtitional classes in our young kids (ages 6-8) and regular kids (ages 8-13) programs, increases the number of adult basics classes, and changes the flavor of our intermediate and advanced-level classes to allow more focused training.

As we enter the season of gratitude, gifts, and new beginnings, we thank you, our donors, for helping us get where we are today. Your continued partnership with us will help us keep expanding our reach and teaching safe, effective parkour practice to people in the Seattle area. 

Links:

• Parkour Visions Gym
• Parkour Visions' YouTube channel