Art of Retreat - SPARKs

Niko Pal is the Director and head coach at Parkour Vision’s Portland program. He started Parkour in 2010, began teaching in 2012 and has made it his career ever since. Niko earned his B.S. from Portland State University in 2015, where he dual majored in Public Health and Exercise Science. Niko continued his education at Transformation Studio, a Specialty Holistic Biomechanics studio. There he learned about how the many systems of the human body work together to create function. In his down time he can be found adventuring with friends, playing Rocket League, or tapping around on a piano.The 2023 Art of Retreat is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: United States Parkour Association, Powered by Passion, Parkour Visions, Craig Constantine, Parkour Generations Americas, Enso Movement, Freedom in Motion, Urban Youth Park, and the Movement Creative.

Molly has many jobs and titles. She's a parkour coach, a business owner, a Certified Personal Trainer, a National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach, and a mom of three! She started as a coach in training at a gymnastics summer camp 23 years ago and found her passion for helping others overcome personal obstacles. She obtained her Bachelor's Degree in Exercise Science from Oregon State where she also coached gymnastics, cheered her senior year, and completed internships in cardiac rehab and fitness over 50. After college, she became a certified personal trainer, performed as a professional acrobat, had kids, and coached in corporate health for EXOS at Intel.  After attaining her Board Certification she opened The Movement Park, a Parkour facility in Hillsboro Oregon. Despite all these things, she still never wants to grow up and has personal goals to be a flipping-forty-year-old!The 2023 Art of Retreat is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: United States Parkour Association, Powered by Passion, Parkour Visions, Craig Constantine, Parkour Generations Americas, Enso Movement, Freedom in Motion, Urban Youth Park, and the Movement Creative.

Justin Taylor is the Owner of Firestorm Freerunning, which has two gyms in Southern California. Justin, along side Summer Sampilo, runs the West Coast Parkour Championships, the largest Parkour competition series in the U.S. Justin goes by @ParkourProfessor online, and runs a gym/business consultation service that goes by the same name. Justin primarily trains Parkour, Trampwall, Aggressive Inline Skating, and High Diving/Cliff Diving. Justin has enjoyed putting together all of these sentences all starting with the word "Justin". Justin thinks you are pretty awesome. Justin is weird.The 2023 Art of Retreat is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: United States Parkour Association, Powered by Passion, Parkour Visions, Craig Constantine, Parkour Generations Americas, Enso Movement, Freedom in Motion, Urban Youth Park, and the Movement Creative.

Garrett Moore is originally from San Diego and brings experience training across the United States, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. He finds peace and community through parkour, running, yoga, and rock climbing. Garrett is passionate about creating positive social change through nonprofit and electoral campaigns committed to human rights. He and his partner Kelly and dog Jackie are in SoCal on their way to Puerto Rico soon. The 2023 Art of Retreat is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: United States Parkour Association, Powered by Passion, Parkour Visions, Craig Constantine, Parkour Generations Americas, Enso Movement, Freedom in Motion, Urban Youth Park, and the Movement Creative.

Eric Rossi is a parkour coach and preschool teacher in Hillsboro, Oregon. Eric began his parkour journey in 2005 and has since worked with many different organizations to develop his coaching craft. He helped develop the toddler and preschool age programs as head coach of High Exposure from 2015 - 2017, helped strengthen the Melbourne Parkour classes for kids in Australia, and is currently developing programs with The Movement Park in Hillsboro, OR. Eric's current project involves distilling the knowledge and best practices around child development and classroom management to be shared in a structured way with the parkour coaching community. Eric hopes that this work will help inspire, improve, and grow early childhood movement classes across other gyms and parkour organizations while also helping those coaches involved see themselves as valued Early Childhood Movement Education experts in their community. The 2023 Art of Retreat is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: United States Parkour Association, Powered by Passion, Parkour Visions, Craig Constantine, Parkour Generations Americas, Enso Movement, Freedom in Motion, Urban Youth Park, and the Movement Creative.

Charles St. John is in the fortunate position of combining is personal passions with his professional skills. Through the combination of his degrees in Digital Media, Communications, and Business Administration plus his long-time passion of coaching parkour at APEX Denver, he landed a job at the gym software company Zen Planner as their Creative and Development Marketing Specialist. He has since pivoted to working for the online fitness publishing company Motion Impulse, known for the Handstand Factory and Modern Methods of Mobility online programs, where he serves as the Head of E-Commerce and Digital Marketing. In his free time, he volunteers his skills to USPK and advocates for the creation of parkour parks in the US.The 2023 Art of Retreat is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: United States Parkour Association, Powered by Passion, Parkour Visions, Craig Constantine, Parkour Generations Americas, Enso Movement, Freedom in Motion, Urban Youth Park, and the Movement Creative.

Adam’s business experience comes from his parkour journey, as well as his professional journey outside of parkour. In addition to being a Director at Parkour Generations Americas and the owner of Parkour Generations Lehigh Valley, Adam also works in the child care business and oversees 5 locations within the Lehigh Valley area. These locations collectively run in excess of 7 million dollars a year in revenue, with 130+ employees involved. Between this experience and running martial arts and parkour businesses, Adam has learned important lessons about the use of numbers to manage operations and become more successful.The 2023 Art of Retreat is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: United States Parkour Association, Powered by Passion, Parkour Visions, Craig Constantine, Parkour Generations Americas, Enso Movement, Freedom in Motion, Urban Youth Park, and the Movement Creative.

Jimmy Davidson is the Founder and CEO of Freedom in Motion inc. which has three parkour gyms in southern California. Jimmy began his parkour career performing live around the country in 2010. He's since shifted his focus to building a profitable business to support his family and to create opportunities for the growing movement community. The 2023 Art of Retreat is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: United States Parkour Association, Powered by Passion, Parkour Visions, Craig Constantine, Parkour Generations Americas, Enso Movement, Freedom in Motion, Urban Youth Park, and the Movement Creative.

Jesse Danger Co-founded the Movement Creative, an organization centered around helping people develop a healthier relationship to movement through the exploration of risk and the development of creativity. He is a coach focused on connecting people by bridging physical, mental, and social aspects in the programming he develops.The 2023 Art of Retreat is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: United States Parkour Association, Powered by Passion, Parkour Visions, Craig Constantine, Parkour Generations Americas, Enso Movement, Freedom in Motion, Urban Youth Park, and the Movement Creative.

Elizabeth Cunningham started practicing yoga with her mom when she was 13. She loves yoga because it has been an opportunity for her to connect her mind to her body and challenge herself in ways other activities haven’t. She loves teaching and has been teaching yoga for over three years. What she brings to class is fun, athleticism, and learning new things. Her favorite part of teaching is creating a space where all her students regardless of where they are at in their practice get what they need physically and mentally out of class.The 2023 Art of Retreat is brought to you by the generous support of our sponsors: United States Parkour Association, Powered by Passion, Parkour Visions, Craig Constantine, Parkour Generations Americas, Enso Movement, Freedom in Motion, Urban Youth Park, and the Movement Creative.

Sam Mcfarlane is a parkour athlete turned circus professional from Glasgow. Like many others he found Parkour back in the days of 'Jump London' and 'Jump Britain'. Since then Sam has made himself a career out of movement and has been a full time performer and coach for the last 6 years.Art of Retreat LIVES are off-the-cuff conversations recorded live with an online audience. Lead by John 'Hedge' Hall of Access Parkour.

Sebastien Foucan was among the pioneers of parkour in Paris in the 1980s. As a teenager who struggled at school and had difficulties at home, climbing, jumping, running, playing and interacting with the landscape became an escape for him and his friends. The passion and the dedication for his craft led him to be invited to participate in several high profile performance roles with James Bond in Casino Royale, Madonna, Nike and K-swiss amongst others as well as the world famous Jump London and Jump Britain which ignited the Parkour movement worldwide...Sebastien always put all his energy into his passion, which led him to achieve things he never expected. Through these opportunities came belief in himself and the inner potential that lies in all of us.It always has been his desire to be able to share what he has learned over the years with the children, to see them flourish via his academy.Art of Retreat LIVES are off-the-cuff conversations recorded live with an online audience. Lead by John 'Hedge' Hall of Access Parkour.

Damien started training in 2008 after making friends with Barnz (arguably NZ's first practitioner) who was in the same Sport and Exercise Science degree. Damien turned his excitement for parkour towards his studies to make it more practical and hopefully helpful to the parkour community. He helped to found Parkour NZ in 2011 and has been its CEO since 2013. Although still an active practitioner and coach, his research interests shifted from biomechanics to sociology. In 2019 he completed his thesis 'Making the Jump: Examining the Glocalisation of Parkour in Aotearoa New Zealand' at the University of Waikato - an exploration into the implications of parkour's 'glocalisation'. During his thesis studies, he also became involved in the development of Parkour Earth and took over the CEO role in February 2020. He now works full time for Sport Waikato, a Regional Sports Trust. When he's not working he tries to be a good husband to Nicole, a doting dad to their two daughters, and continues to muddle his way through his Christian faith."Art of Retreat LIVES are off-the-cuff conversations recorded live with an online audience. Lead by John 'Hedge' Hall of Access Parkour.

Kelley Glaister has been coaching parkour since 2014, mostly in Scotland (her favourite place in the universe) and has been arguing with Hedge about incivility and diversity in some form or the other for even longer than that. She moved back to Melbourne in 2016 and now works with Melbourne in Motion. Outside of parkour, Kel is a visual artist with a MFA from the Glasgow School of Art. She doesn’t like shoes that much and recently developed an interest in throwing heavy things around.Art of Retreat LIVES are off-the-cuff conversations recorded live with an online audience. Lead by John 'Hedge' Hall of Access Parkour.

Charlotte Boenigk is a yoga-loving, aerial-silks-dabbling, triathlon-trying, freerunning, weight-training girly-girl and the director of Free Your Instinct. FYI is a charity that helps those with mental health support needs by delivering parkour classes.Art of Retreat LIVES are off-the-cuff conversations recorded live with an online audience. Lead by John 'Hedge' Hall of Access Parkour.

Nina Ballantyne is Scotland's favourite Parkour Gran. She sometimes teaches Parkour for fun but mostly lobbies government(s) to make changes to social security, housing and employment, where they’re needed most. Nina’s a director at Parkour Outreach, helping to deliver the first ever Coach Europe event last year, and recently launched a community directory of online training and classes available for parkour practitioners during lockdown. She used to work as a postie.Caitlin Pontrella is a founding member and a current director of the United States Parkour Association, executive director of Parkour Visions and the director of the Art of Retreat. Over the past 10+ years she has worked in both private and public sector, founding parkour companies, leadership events, working with city governments to incorporate play initiatives, and building over 40 pop-up playgrounds along the way. She has a degree in architecture, is a play researcher, a burner and a prolific writer.Art of Retreat LIVES are off-the-cuff conversations recorded live with an online audience. Lead by John 'Hedge' Hall of Access Parkour.

Craig Constantine is a student of Art du Déplacement, podcaster, blogger, avid reader, casual mountain-bike cyclis, programmer, system administrator, and problem solver. It's clear that he lives a busy life. Craig is most famous in the parkour community for his Movers Mindset podcast.Art of Retreat LIVES are off-the-cuff conversations recorded live with an online audience. Lead by John 'Hedge' Hall of Access Parkour.

Christopher Keighley is a senior coach at Parkour Generations and serves as board member of both ParkourUK and Parkour Earth. With his extensive travels across the world, Chris is heavily involved in parkour internationally. He's probably best known in his role delivering the ADAPT qualification worldwide.Art of Retreat LIVES are off-the-cuff conversations recorded live with an online audience. Lead by John 'Hedge' Hall of Access Parkour.

Mark Toorock is the founder and CEO of American Parkour and a director of the United States Parkour Association. With an early career in finance and technology - Mark discovered Parkour while living in London in 2003 helping define the discipline with many of the movement’s founders. Mark has brought Parkour to the mainstream media through television, high profile performances, and advertising for major brands. Mark’s latest venture involves bringing parkour to schools and designing equipment that supports the joy of movement that early parkour training can bring to kids. Mark’s curriculum and equipment can now be found in 45 schools throughout Washington DC and Maryland. American Parkour is also beginning to implement parkour programs and facilities in summer camps.Art of Retreat LIVES are off-the-cuff conversations recorded live with an online audience. Lead by John 'Hedge' Hall of Access Parkour.

Brandee is a humanimal who has been practicing parkour since 2006. She has over ten years of teaching experience with the non-profit organization Parkour Visions and has led classes, seminars, and collaborated with parkour communities and organizations worldwide. As an instructor, she’s known for her attention to detail, creative approaches to training, and for bringing boundless playful energy into her sessions. A curious human and avid doer-of-things, Brandee is also a juggler and poet, deeply values the mindset of living through utility, and can often be found hanging about at twilight in the trees.Art of Retreat LIVES are off-the-cuff conversations recorded live with an online audience. Lead by John 'Hedge' Hall of Access Parkour.