Articles - American Parkour

The Michigan National Parkour Jam XII

September 26, 2019

For the twelfth year in a row, Parkour practitioners descended upon the mitten state for Michigan National Jam. Now co-hosted by the University of Michigan Parkour Club and APK Affiliate Phoenix Freerunning Academy, it remains as one of the longest running Parkour events in the US. The three-day event kicked off on Friday at Phoenix Freerunning Academy, moving to the legendary Flint Grand Fountain for Saturday, and finishing with casual training and swimming in Ann Arbor. With the Parkour culture…

Hilliard, the inspiring octogenarian traceur

September 3, 2019

Patrick Witbrod

Articles, Community Spotlight

“This is Hilliard Jones. He is a 76 year-old man with lung and brain cancer living his best life possible. He picked up parkour a few months ago; I taught him how to Kong vault today in class, and we had a long, meaningful conversation. We talked about mortality, how important it is to love and be kind to others, how everyone has different experiences at different points in their lives, and how important it is to appreciate and honor…

Getting to the finals of the World Chase Tag Championship 2019

August 29, 2019

Patrick Witbrod

Articles, Community Spotlight, News

World Chase Tag is a new sport based around the childhood game of tag, but with parkour based obstacles, timers, teams, and a whole lot more intensity. The court is 40ft x 40ft consisting of platforms, bars, and a slanted barrier around the perimeter. Athletes must try to evade for 20 seconds to score a point. Catch last year’s event on YouTube and stay tuned for this year’s final event where the American Team GNF (Going Nowhere Fast) makes it…

Parkour at the NRV Juvenile Detention Center.

August 23, 2019

Patrick Witbrod

Articles, News

By Elijah Bowen APK Ambassador and owner of affiliated gym Blue Ridge Motion July 2019, I was given an opportunity to spend 3 hours in our local juvenile detention center in Christiansburg, Virginia, teaching Parkour and leading a discussion on fairness (a topic the center assigned me), for character development. This is part of a program they host called “Character counts”. It was a small group of young guys between the ages of 13 and 17. None of them looked…

2019 North American Parkour Championship (NAPC7)

August 22, 2019

Patrick Witbrod

Articles

The 2019 North American Parkour Championship (NAPC7) garnered the highest level of competition in the world with bringing out top skill, speed, and style athletes in their respective specialties. With more than double the number of qualified athletes, we saw a much larger array of competition and many new faces in the sport parkour scene. In both the men’s and women’s divisions we saw an incredible display of talent with a couple athletes taking podium spots in multiple categories. In…