video from American Rendezvous 2013 in Boston, MA. Footage by travis Tetting and Natalia Boltukhova; Edit - Natalia

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One Nice Bug Per Day
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@pkgamericas
video from American Rendezvous 2013 in Boston, MA. Footage by travis Tetting and Natalia Boltukhova; Edit - Natalia
Anti Black Friday parkour training in Boston with Nick Anastasia, Claire Smith, and Natalia Boltukhova. Sorry we've missed you, but hope you'll join for the Christmas edition!
Nick Anastasia taking his new moves findings and explorations from Cambridge Community Gymnastics gym into parkour environment after class on Friday night.
Elle and Natalia
Dominic Willoughby and his sunsets in Boston, MA (Navy Yard)
Teresa and her son Imani (both regular attendees of PKGA classes) made it to Dom's farewell Off The Wall jam this past Sunday. A great parkour family that is definitely part of our big parkour family.
SANDER HARTMAND. THE MAN OF SKILL AND WONDER.
I am guilty.
Of eating too much burnt caramel ice-cream. Of watching three episodes of Burn Notice in a row when I should be sleeping (thanks, Andy). Of doing unnecessarily too many picknick table kongs (because it feels good to know I can) while I should be working on something that actually needs more work.
And I'm guilty of not posting sooner about an amazing instructor we were lucky to have this summer. Sander Hartmand, we miss you. And when I say "we", it's not the generalized "on behalf of...". It's a fact. All of us here at PkGenAmericas, staff and students, miss your presence and talent.
Sharp and skilled, Sander of Street Movement, possesses a very unassuming look, which can be deceiving. Once you witness the way he moves through the parkour environment (which, as I came to understand, can be any environment ["just add Sander"]), if you don't get an immediate urge of dropping to your knees and begging him to take you as his disciple, well, either you can't be helped, or you have already climbed Mt Olympus and joined the Pantheon. Which does not preclude you from being mesmerized by his skill.
Luckily, we didn't have to do the whole "drop to your knees and beg" drill (aside from when dropping to knees was part of a Dutch or French warm-up led by Sander). Personally, I can honestly affirm that it was one the best coaching experience I've had, from the perspective of a student and a coach-in-training. In addition to pure technique and strength exercises and drills, Sander has never failed to show the true parkour spirit, in training/instruction environment and outside of it. Always open-minded, driven, adaptive, and focused, he took every opportunity to explore the world around him, not without much help, encouragement, and initiative from his girlfriend Sanne (a beautiful, kind-hearted, swift-minded person who is missed by us just as much).
Below is the photographic evidence of the adventures of the two, as well as some examples of instruction and training by Sander. Please enjoy!
Cheesecake is the true parkour power-food! :)
Visuals and words by ze Tiny Russian (photos of Sander during class are by Sanne!)
We will soon present a full on disclosure of top secret files pertaining to the stay of DENMARK!'s best Sander Hartmand this summer, as well as the highlights of stellar training led by the Street Movement coach.
For now please enjoy a short video synopsis: it only took 74 video files, 9 hours, 2 large burritos, 2 extra large and extra delicious salads from Bloc 11, and only 4 beers.
As Sander puts it, "PARKOUUUURRRR!". Couldn't have said it better myself.
Parks to Kids = PK
A few weeks ago PKGA has participated in Parks to Kids weekend near Davis Sq in Somerville, MA. With the inherent inclination of "childrens" (a noticeable tendency among Boston and para-Boston high school teachers to lovingly call their students just that) to recreate Brownian movements, the mission of infesting young minds with the fundamentals of parkour was considered extremely successful.
Despite the danger of getting hit by the super-reactive tiny bodies, yours truly braved it with the camera to document this historic event.
Special thanks goes out to PKGA staff who made it happend (listed in no particular order): Fred Randall, Daniel Abraham, Clint Perry, Blake Evitt, Chris Keighley.
Logo creation by Elle Coleman. Get stoked for the best training, play, and fun!
Visiting coach profile: Chris Keighley (Senior Coach, UK)
Since I feel a little more than just a little self-conscious about my linguistic abilities in conjunction with this particular post, given Chris' native tongue and country of origin, I will resort to what I do best: photography.
Here is a little background on Coach Keighley:
Parkour Generations Profile
Please also keep an eye on the Denmark European Gathering which Chris is instructing at. The below excerpt is from PKGenAmericas Facebook:
"This week, running from July 15-19, we'll be coaching at the bombastic European Gathering in Denmark hosted by our good friends and partners over there, Street Movement.
The annual event is always held at the amazing and prestigious Gerlev Sports Academy just outside Copenhagen, which boasts one of the first and still coolest parkour parks around. This year senior coaches Chris Keighley and Pete McKee will be instructing throughout the event, alongside some other great coaches from Street Movement, and as always several of our team will be along just to train, hang out and enjoy the fun."
And I am sure all of you know how to use search bars on youtube and google for further research should you feel inclined so.
Chris has arrived to the US of A in early spring and sprang right into action with training and sharing his extensive experience in parkour. Much exploration has been instigated, resulting in some commercial shoots (not the first for the holder of the bright thighs title unofficially awarded by the NC cohort), adventures, and, naturally, handstands. A lot of handstands.
No better way to manifest your dominance than flying over the city skyline.
And that's what domination looks like on the down low. Crossfitters are a tough crowd, but this is one of many reasons why parkour is great: there are always challenges for any level of skill and fitness.
Nick (the yellow-shirted locomotive driving this insanity train) is a guy of many a wonder, which you will become privy to, should you choose to follow the development of this blog. This photo alone should tell you something about Nick, if you knew that the guy in the back (Chris) acting as an e-brake in addition to a pretty strong fellow (Christian) can easily lift two-Nicks worth of weight.
Light conditioning after a workout.
Despite Chris' self-proclaimed inaptness [might have been a British manifestation of modesty] of dealing with the little ones, they seemed to flock around him like bees around honey and take up on his instructions with little to no struggle with the accent.
Parkour training sometimes involves actual trains...
Because he can.
Did I mention handstands? Did I mention lots of handstands?
And then all of a sudden, he took off...
...and landed in his homeland, Superman style. Because that's how it's done, kids.
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words and visuals by ze Tiny Russian.
A little snippety video from the Tea Party Workshop by PKGenAmericas. Enjoy!
Tea Party, PKGA style
[side note: please forgive our tumblr appearance while we are working out the details of our fine decoration, but by all means, do enjoy the content]
PKGenAmericas may still be a bit young, but in the true spirit of the practice itself, the projects undertaken are delivered with the best possible efficiency, grace, and precision. A stellar example has just been set this past week, on June 30th, in Somerville, MA.
With Chris Keighley (senior coach at PKG who has spent roughly three months in the USA helping bestow the secrets of parkour upon PKGA disciples; expect a separate post on this bright bouncing British bloke next) bowing out in a couple of days following the workshop, and Sander Hartmand (a Danish coach that we lucked out to train with this summer) having just arrived, it was no surprise that our very own Blake Evitt, Chris, and Sander whipped up a hell of a workout for a 50-person crowd with a balanced mix of technique, strength, and conditioning for all levels.
The day started with a Danish warm-up, which, while inherently begging for some sort of a pun, is better explained in the photos than words, so please refer to the photographic evidence supplied below.
Both fun and challenging, the warm-up primed the willing and able bodies for the next stage indoors, where the PKG trinity, with the help of many coaches-in-training, has put together an enormous scaf structure. Precisions, balancing, lâches, kongs, vaults, jumps, and pretty much anything you would do anyway if you were a kid.
Participants were split into three groups according to their parkour experience and abilities. Coaches and groups rotated and switched stations indoors and outdoors so that each group would meet each coach.
At the end of the day, after participants have gone through the announced movement, strength, conditioning parts of the training, dessert was served under the "MDK" tag. Mmmmmmm. De-li-ci-ous. For those if you who have never played action video games and are feeling way too lazy to type in the three letters into a search engine, let me do you a favor. It stands for "Murder. Death. Kill." Or, in the workshop terms, it stood for "10 high jumps, 10 pull-ups/muscle-ups/negative muscle-ups, whatever the ability. Times 10. In 30 minutes." Let me just say that water and ice cubes from the cooler were extremely popular.
Special shout out goes to Unium and Mike Curtis, for providing the much needed and appreciated space for such a big and great prancing crowd.
The event would have never been a great success without the help of coaches and coaches in training:
Daniel Abraham
Cristian Lopez
Jackson Manz-Siek
Clint Perry
Fred Randall
Nick Anastasia
Aaron Cantor
Andy Keller
Sander Hartmand
Chris Keighley
Blake Evitt
Extraneous and invaluable help provided by:
The Unium
Mike Curtis
Maya Nitzberg
Brandon Wilson
Elle Coleman
Natalia Boltukhova
Like the photos? See the rest of them on flikr (temporary, while we are creating the PKGAmericas account)
Show your love to your photographer (Natalia Boltukhova) by checking out her websites: Pedal Power Photography and Tiny Russian Studio
And again, while we are working out the details of final look of our tumblr, complete with all the social media links and buttons, please bear with this old school linkage:
Like us on Facebook
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words and photos by Natalia Boltukhova
Parkour Generations Americas