Take Flight

Deciding what Take Flight shirt, pant, or hoodie to choose can be difficult. We have so many items that the choice can be overwhelming! Something that can make it even harder is deciding what size to get. So in order to make your purchasing experience and decision a little easier, we’ve decided to provide some really good sizing recommendations from three of the guys that wear Take Flight the most. Here it goes.

Name: Joey Adrian
Height: 5’4″ (163m)
Weight: 140 lbs (64kg)
Shirt Size: Medium fits me perfectly! Not tight, and not too baggy. I love training in this shirt size.
Pant Size: Again Medium is my size of choice. They fit very well around my waist. They are baggy enough to be comfortable and flowy without being too big to the point that they drag under my heels. Even if you have shorter legs a slight fold at the bottom works great to insure there is no drag.
Hoodie Size: Same as the others, I rock the Medium here as well! If you like the baggy look I would go a size higher. I haven’t tried the large out yet since the medium has felt great so far! Unlike many other hoodies I can actually train in these. Most others I feel held back by the bulk of them and have to take it off before training lol.

Joey Adrian with a biiiiiig precision. Sporting the Original Parkour Pants.

Name: Adam Dunlap
Height: 5′ 10″ (1.78m)
Weight: 155 lbs (70kg)
Shirt size: Medium is the best best fit for me, no doubt. Not baggy at all, and not too tight. I just make sure to hang dry them because if I dry it and the shirt shrink then it’s just slightly too small for me. But if that happens I wear it anyway. The Medium is the best either way.
Pants Size: I prefer Large but Medium is great as well. The Large is a little baggier which I like, but quite honestly I barely notice the difference between the two. Both sizes give me ample room to move and the drawstring tightens well, so even with a larger waist on the Large pants I barely notice the difference between them.
Hoodie Size: I like the Large hoodie! I originally thought I was a medium, but I tried one and it was too tight for me. I don’t like baggy hoodies, but I don’t want them to restrict my movement or my style. The large is perfect no doubt.

Adam Dunlap with a big jump and landing. Dunlap is wearing a Take Flight Hoodie and Tee. Photo credit goes to Raphael Estorga.

Name: Nathan Jones
Height: 6′ 0″ (1.83m)
Weight: 180 lbs (82kg)
Shirt size: I prefer large because it’s not too tight nor too baggy. It provides comfort and the image of flow which is ideal for any Traceur.
Pants Size: I like Large / Extra Large I prefer the baggy look! The pants work well for all seasons. They look good, feel good and are Parkour specific. What more could you ask for?
Hoodie Size: Extra Large is the perfect size for me. Great for all seasons and looks good when training or in videos. It gives a very underground vibe which personally suits me best.

Nathan Jones flips for Take Flight. Sporting a Parkour Hoodie.

**We hope this article has helped you :-) If you are here, please leave us a comment and give us any and all feedback. Thank you!**

We all get bumps and bruises from Parkour. It’s just “part of the game” as I say. The key is to avoid the big injuries that put you out for more than a day. In 7 years of Parkour I’ve had four such injuries, and I present them to you here along with the lessons I learned from them. My hope is that you learn from my mistakes so you can avoid the things I did wrong and ultimately avoid injuries like the ones I experienced.

Injury #1: Bailing on an arm jump.

The Story: I had been doing Parkour for about 6 months, and there was a big arm jump I wanted to do. I knew I was physically ready for the jump, but I also knew I wasn’t mentally ready. So I starred down the jump for about 30 minute psyching myself up until I finally did it. The result? I bailed mid-flight and sprained my ankle. I hobbled home and was out for a couple weeks.

Lesson: Don’t stare down a jump for too long.

Explanation: I wasn’t mentally ready for the jump and having to stare it down for that long should have shown me that. I have a training technique now in which I don’t ever stare down a jump. But for those that like looking down jumps (and many do), I recommend setting a time limit. If you stare down a jump for more than X minutes (whatever that time is for you), then walk away and come back tomorrow. There’s no shame in doing a jump on Thursday instead of Wednesday. There is shame in being stupid and getting injured. I know first hand.

Take Flight founder Adam Dunlap doing a jump in downtown Portland.

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This was me for the first 25 years of my life:

My clothing was perfect when I bought it, and then I washed and dried it and it changed colors and shrunk! How do I keep this from happening?!

I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve asked yourself this too. Now that I’m a big part of Take Flight I thought it would be good to share my solution to these problems. Because, yes, because of countless washing and drying tests I’ve performed with Take Flight clothing, I’ve found a solution.

Here are the two practices I recommend for washing your Take Flight gear in order to make sure it stays as close to “new condition” for as long as possible. They really important and best of all really simple too.

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I’m going to make my view on this really simple and support it as simply as possible too.

My View: Parkour should always be capitalized. Meaning it should never be written like this —> parkour, but rather always written like this —> Parkour. The only exception can be artistic purposes like this —->

The Original Parkour Tee – an artistic exception to capitalizing Parkour.

Argument #1: Parkour is important and special to all that do it. Capitalizing it shows this by making it a proper noun and distinguishing the discipline from normal nouns like shoes, city, and training. If for no other reason than the pride I have for the discipline I practice, I think Parkour deserves this proper noun distinction. Don’t you? (continue reading…)

Have you ever heard anyone say this?

I’m going to go train.

If you’re a Traceur you probably have. It’s the standard announcement which signifies “I’m leaving to go do Parkour/Freerunning.” It makes sense to say it. If nothing else, it sounds cooler than the tongue twisting, “I’m going to do Parkour.”

The exception I take to this statement (“I’m going to go train”) is that 99.9% of Traceurs don’t actually go train. They go have fun and jump around with friends, and laugh, and work on “techniques.” But none of it is actual Parkour training in the Pure Parkour sense. That’s why I’ve titled this blog Parkour PURE vs Parkour FUN. I’m going to explain to you what Parkour PURE is, and you’ll see the difference.

Before I move forward I want to take a few steps back to provide a foundation for what I am about to say:

#1. The definition of Parkour is NOT “getting from Point A to Point B…” Parkour by definition is a training method.
#2. More specifically, as David says, “Parkour is a training method for warriors.”

Sit on that for a few moments before reading further.

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The founder and brand manager of Take Flight is Adam Dunlap. Since the founding of the company he has remained very quiet and has rarely spoken publicly about the company or its actions. When we asked him recently why he had chosen to do this he said:

I wanted to let the company and brand speak for itself. Take Flight is a community organization and conglomerate of passionate individuals and Traceurs that work together with a common vision. I’m the founder, but I just help steer it. I don’t think the worlds needs or wants to hear my opinion on everything.

In a recent change (a New Year’s resolution, maybe?) Adam has decided to be more accessible. And in a move we never thought he would do, he has decided to make his personal email public so that anyone can contact him. Here it is:

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What is a Traceur? That’s not a question I’ve consciously thought about very much over the past seven years. That’s because I always thought I knew the answer.

A Traceur is someone who practices Parkour.

Simple, right? Hmm, well not entirely. You see, I don’t believe in that definition anymore. Before I give you my new definition, I’ll explain some of the things that led me to it.

David [Belle] is a good place to start. He was my inspiration to start doing Parkour, and getting to know him as a close friend and learning the discipline directly from him has completely changed my view on Parkour and what it means to be a Traceur. There are two things I’d like to share from him for the sake of this writing.

First, David doesn’t train anymore. When he feels the need to move, he does. When he is inspired to jump, he goes. And when he is surrounded by good friends he will often venture out and test his détente. But for the most part David has finished his training. He was and still is one of the most capable athletes on the planet, but that’s not why he has stopped. He has stopped his training because he doesn’t feel there’s anything left to learn through it. We’ll come back to that.

Second, one of many things David has taught me about Parkour is that contrary to popular thinking today, the purpose of Parkour is not to keep doing it. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite. David has explained this to me on multiple occasions:

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Took us about a year to make sure they were perfect, but we finally have them and we’re thrilled to bring them to you. Parkour Beanies.

Our inaugural beanie is the Flight Man Beanie. We’re offering it in four colors including black, gray, royal blue, and silver. Regular price is $12, but as we often do with new products, we have it on sale for only $9.95.

Pick yours up today and it will arrive in 3-5 business day. It’ll keep your ears warm, keep your head comfortable, and let everyone know that you do Parkour.

Take Flight founder Adam Dunlap in the Royal Blue Flight Man Beanie. When asked why it took us so long to launch these he said, “We’ve been working on these on and off for like two years! But we never were able to produce something I was happy with. We finally got it right about two weeks ago so here they are!”

Brand David Belle has been out for almost two months now. Three designs and 6 total shirts strong, this line is the quintessential combination of Parkour passion and philosophical simplicity. All designs were created by David Belle, and each one sports the new David Belle brand logo silhouette.

One of the Big 3. The ParKour Tee in Noir.

One of the Big 3. The ParKour Tee in Blanc.

One of the Big 3. The Parkour Origin Tee in Vert.

One of the Big 3. The Belle Tee in Royal.

One of the Big 3. The Belle Tee in Rouge.

One of the Big 3. The Belle Tee in Argent.

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Just yesterday (August 31) at 11am PST, David Belle held an open Q&A via his Twitter. This was the first time he has addressed questions publicly since his last Twitter Q&A held 9 months ago in November 2011.

The questions responded to by Belle seemed to be split pretty equally between personal questions, Parkour questions, and a career oriented questions.

• He responded to a couple question about his personal life including mentioning his hobbies and his son.
• He responded to a couple question regarding films, his current work, and his future film aspirations.
• As we always hope and expect, Belle responded to questions about Parkour including discussing training locations, competitions, and other ideas.
• And in the midst of all of that Belle alos referred to Take Flight in two different answer streams including answering a question directly from our social media and specifically mentioning Take Flight founder Adam Dunlap

Here is a transcript of the questions that were asked to Belle to which he responded. They are in the order asked and answered, and we’ve also included our best translations and corrections for spelling and other things as we thought appropriate.

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