Take Flight

Today is the birthday of Take Flight Founder Adam Dunlap! And how does he celebrate his birthday? Well instead of having a party and getting presents, he actually makes it a point to give presents to others! He said it was something he saw his grandfather doing on his birthday, and now Adam does it as well. Yeah, our reaction was the same; that’s pretty much the coolest thing we’ve ever heard!

So what does this mean for you? It means you have the chance to get those giveaways! All day today on the TF Facebook page Adam wants us to give away tons of FREE PK clothing, gear, Parkour DVDs, PK posters, and more; so that’s what we’re going to do. All you have to do is check out the TF page for the details and you could win!

Please join us in wishing Adam a very happy birthday! We’re wishing him the an awesome day, and all the best in the years to come.

Joyeux Anniversaire David !

From all of us at Take Flight we are going to take this day (and weekend actually) to honor David as the founder of Parkour and inspiration for us and the discipline worldwide. Without him, none of us would be where we are today working down the path we are on. Our sincerest gratitude, respect, and admiration go out to David, and our warmest wishes for a happy birthday celebration.

-We are on the verge of announcing our newest editions to the Take Flight team of sponsored Traceurs (the Take Flight Street Team). The decisions that have been made were difficult, and as such Adam wanted to personally address the entire Parkour community regarding them.-

At Take Flight we have always been focused on spreading Parkour by David Belle and on making everyone new and old to the discipline feel welcomed and encouraged to train and pursue their dreams within Parkour and beyond. Building the Take Flight Street Team is one of the methods we have implemented to further this pursuit via supporting a select group of international Traceurs who both represent Parkour and David’s vision for the discipline through their training, outlook and personal endeavors. Unfortunately the downside to selecting a team is having passionate and skilled Traceurs apply for the team who are not selected. This is the part that burdens me, which is why I have decided to publicly address it.

This year we had hundreds of applicants to the Take Flight Street Team and we will only be extending a handful of invitations. Each new TF team member that receives an invite was selected for unique reasons, and each has his own personality, skill set, and personal story that we feel represents Parkour and Take Flight in a very special way. For this reason, we do not have a specific “Why not?” for every Traceur that was not given an invitation. However, I can confidentially say that the Traceurs who were not invited were all extremely heartfelt, skillful, hardworking, and inspiring, and I could not be prouder of how far Parkour has come in the last few years to see such a strong contingent of passionate Traceurs around the globe.

No one talks about Parkour quite like David, and I’d like to emphasize one of my favorite quotes from him. It not only speaks volumes about who he is, but it also speaks volumes about Parkour. David says:

There is no stronger or weaker. You are strong in the moment that you go right to the end for the cause you are defending.

Parkour isn’t about winning. It’s not about being better than someone else. It’s not about one-uping others, or being cool, or being recognized. Parkour is, as it has always been for me and David, a personal pursuit that is focused and routed in self-improvement. The Take Flight Street Team epitomizes those that have found this path for themselves by allowing them to join directly with us in spreading the discipline around the world. But all of us in the community are a part of this larger goal, and we become stronger when we are all together.

The true purpose of the Take Flight Street Team is to bring the worldwide Parkour community together and point us in a common direction – that being to spread Parkour worldwide. Regardless of who is given an invitation to the team I hope that we can realize this vision and work towards it as a community of Traceurs striving for something bigger. The Take Flight Street Team is just a small part of the Parkour world and what we do at Take Flight. So if we can think beyond this, and strive for or bigger common goal then we will really have something. And you don’t have to be a Take Flight sponsored athlete to do that.

I look forward to the journey we all have in front of us in the Parkour community and beyond. Thank you again to everyone that applied to the team, and I look forward to working with you all to continue to expand and grow Parkour around the world.

Sincerely,

Adam Dunlap
Take Flight Founder & CEO

The PK Splat Tee has its newest and most daring sibling. Purple. Here is a cool back story for all our faithful blog readers:

The PK Splat Tee – Purple was first produced in the summer of 2010 when the PK Splat Tee was initially released for the 2010 International PK Clothing Launch. The three inaugural colors were White, Green, and Navy. The Purple version was produced as a prototype color version specifically for and by the request of Take Flight founder Adam Dunlap for his personal collection. For 6 months he was the only one who owned the tee, and he wore it all the time. But in spite of countless employee requests for one he refused to approve the production of more. However, after this past season’s Christmas rush, the Parkour community was screaming to have the PK Splat Tee restocked, and given the timing some of our employees submitted a formal petition to Adam to put the white on purple version of the tee into production. After a few weeks of consideration Adam gave in and there you have it.

Until today the PK Splat Tee – Purple was the most exclusive Parkour shirt on the planet owned by only one man. Now thanks to the community and their desire for new tees and Adam’s willingness to give up his ownership of the only one, the PK Splat Tee – Purple now exist for the entire worldwide Parkour community to own.

Thank you Adam for the tee, and thank you David for Parkour!



Following is an article recently published yesterday in the L.A. Times discussing Parkour and its expected growth in the U.S.  Take Flight founder Adam Dunlap was interviewed for the article and is quoted in the piece.

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Will the acrobatic street sport follow skateboarding’s trajectory and find its legs in the popular culture? Parkour fans and athletes say it’s just a matter of time.

June 20, 2010|By Adam Tschorn, Los Angeles Times

For a glimpse at one potential growth area in the action sports arena, look no further than the Westfield Culver City mall on a recent June afternoon, where a handful of young men clad in baggy sweat pants, slim-fitting T-shirts and ultra-lightweight sneakers take turns flinging themselves off the shopping center’s third-story mezzanine, leaping from level to level, before back-flipping, belly-sliding and bouncing to a stop on the ground floor of the atrium, to the cheers and wild applause of some 100 spectators.

It’s the taping of the June 11 season finale of MTV’s “Ultimate Parkour Challenge,” a six-episode series showcasing the practitioners of parkour, a street sport that’s part gymnastics, part stunt work, and all about moving from point A to point B by any means necessary even if that means careening over a coffee kiosk, piloting a Segway scooter while doing a handstand or propelling yourself through (yes, through) the back of a mall shopping cart.

If you’re unfamiliar with the name (which has its roots in the French word parcours, meaning “route”), you may have seen the human pinball effect in the opening chase scene of the 2006 James Bond film “Casino Royale,” in which parkour legend Sébastien Foucan plays a baddie who leaps over, under and through every imaginable obstacle in his path, before scampering up a construction crane and through the scaffolding of a building like Spider-Man to do battle with Daniel Craig.

More recently, Disney’s “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” featured acrobatic fight scenes that had the cast careening off walls and leaping off roofs in parkour-style moves. (David Belle, the Frenchman considered the founder of the sport, worked on that film as parkour stunt coordinator.)

At its most basic, parkour, which Belle developed in France in the late 1990s, consists of running along a route and negotiating any and every obstacle as efficiently as possible. Some purists argue that the phrase “freerunning” should be used when referring to the iteration of the discipline that incorporates theatrical flourishes such as flips and spins, but used here, parkour refers to both. From France, the sport spread to the U.K. and then to the U.S. in the early years of the new millennium.

Despite being a below-the-radar discipline with a community that ranges from an estimated couple of thousand hard-core practitioners nationwide to maybe 10 times that number who’ve tried it at least once, some involved in the sport think it’s headed from a niche physical fitness subculture into mass consciousness — and that it will happen this year or next.

“I think parkour is going to be twice as big as skateboarding — it’s going to be huge,” says Mark Toorock, a Washington, D.C., fitness trainer and parkour practitioner who founded an online community called American Parkour (APK) in 2005.

“Skateboarding is the $4 1/2- to $5-billion industry it is because it’s not just [for] people who skate,” Toorock notes, “but people like my uncle who’ve never gotten on a skateboard but still own a pair of Vans [skate shoes].”

Toorock uses the skate industry to explain why he’s not just making a leap worthy of a traceur (as parkour athletes are sometimes called) when he forecasts freerunning is about to become a major force in the action sports arena.

“Skateboarding first came out of surfing in the late ’60s,” he said, “but took until the late ’80s and ’90s to become what we know it as today. It took snowboarding about half that time to become an Olympic sport, and the next thing you have that’s similar to that is parkour — which has been out of France for about eight years — so it’s close to that point.

“Just search for ‘parkour’ on YouTube versus ‘snowboarding’ or ‘skateboarding’ and you’ll be surprised. That’s what makes me think things are ready to pop,” he said. (As of June 16, a “parkour” search returned 351,000 hits, “snowboarding” 245,000, and “skateboarding” 684,000.)

Victor Bevine, an executive producer of “Ultimate Parkour Challenge” and a co-founder (with David Thompson, also an executive producer on the show) of the recently created World Freerunning & Parkour Federation, shares that view of the future. “I actually think it can be twice as big,” Bevine said. “Everybody under the age of 18 knows what this is.”

Adam Dunlap, who started a parkour-inspired clothing line based in Beaverton, Ore., called Take Flight Apparel, is more naunced: “Can this be as big as skateboarding? The simple answer is yes. But the people in the parkour community have been saying that this is going to be the next big action sport for years. But it’s taking a lot longer than I thought.”

Parkour as a launchpad for soon-to-be popular lifestyle brands is far from a universal opinion, especially since no specialized equipment or clothing is actually needed. While many consider sturdy, lightweight running shoes a basic necessity ( K-Swiss launched the first parkour-specific shoe in 2007), some think barefoot is best. Pants are usually loose-fitting enough to allow unhindered movement and offer some protection from abrasion, although here personal choices include running shorts, baggy sweats modified to mid-calf and cargo pants (so maps and other gear can be stowed in the pockets). Tops are soft, lightweight T-shirts.

“As a subculture I don’t think it will go too far past rock climbing,” says Cliff Kravit, the founder of a California parkour community called PKCali. “I doubt it will even reach the popularity level of yoga.”

But, as anyone who has ever heard the words “downward dog” can tell you, yoga begat yoga mats and drawstring pants, yoga-centric sweat towels and even yoga-appropriate tank tops with built-in sports bras. Now, just imagine the potential for the yoga community if MTV had decided to run six episodes of something called “Ultimate Yoga Challenge.” Kravit, who teaches a weekly class locally, said he notices a surge in popularity every time there’s media focus on parkour. “After ‘ Prince of Persia,’ the class was overflowing,” he said.

That brings us back around to the boys — and it is mostly, though not exclusively, a male sport — literally bouncing off the walls of Westfield Culver City on a Wednesday afternoon, a nine-pack of the sport’s best and brightest stars: Daniel Ilibaca, Ryan Doyle, Tim “Livewire” Shieff, Pip Andersen, Michael Turner, Ben Jenkin, King David, Daniel Arroyo and Oleg Vorslav, wrangled together by the WFPF to introduce the discipline (or a version of it, anyway) to the MTV generation.

MTV first aired “UPC” as a one-hour special in October, then picked it up for the six-episode run, which started airing in May. The show tries to balance the philosophy of parkour (which eschews the notion of competition) with the flash of extreme sports and graft it onto the story arc of an elimination-based reality show by pitting six of a rotating cast of nine against one another in each episode for a panel of judges.

While Bevine and Thompson have earned detractors within the community for giving parkour a competitive element, they’ve also managed to expose it to 1 million impressionable eyeballs. Which makes the zip-front hoodies, T-shirts and long-sleeve T’s emblazoned with the WFPF shield and the mantra “Know Obstacles, Know Freedom” noteworthy. Some are worn by the show’s crew, some by the athletes themselves.

“The shirts are mostly giveaways,” Bevine said during a break in the Culver City taping on June 9. “But this is what we’re really excited about.” With that, he bent down, pulled off his right shoe and brandished it for inspection.

Weighing in at 9.4 ounces each, the KO (“Know Obstacles”) Parkour Shoe feels like holding a piece of balsa wood (“It literally floats on water,” Bevine says). He points to the single piece of leather around the toe box that he says makes the shoe more durable, a sole that supposedly provides just the right amount of traction for the traceur, and a retail price of $39.95, an important factor, since shoes engaged in hard-core parkour get so much wear and tear, they need to be replaced every month and a half. (A fact acknowledged in the slogan: “the best shoe you will ever destroy.”)

The WFPF website includes glowing testimonials from the star athletes (“Perfect grip … the lightest freerunning shoes I’ve ever worn,” Shieff is quoted as saying). Bevine said the shoe was off to a good start. “We started selling them a few days ago and sold 400 pairs in the first three days.”

As with other issues, the parkour community has a difference of opinion on the idea of using the discipline to move merchandise and make money. Kravit thinks it runs completely counter to everything the sport stands for (“Telling you what clothes are right for parkour is putting you in a box,” he says), while Bevine and company see themselves as providing an environment and an infrastructure for the emerging sport as it finds its legs in the popular culture. “We’re helping them with the storytelling part,” said Francis Lyons, an executive producer of “UPC.” “But those guys are the stars. It’s going to go wherever they want it to.”

The crowd gathered at the Westfield Culver City shopping center for the taping doesn’t seem to suffer from the same conflicts. Several of the tweens and teens watching with slack-jawed awe are already sporting parkour-related T-shirts.

Three of them, friends Matt Leonoudakis, 16, of Northridge, Kenji Kang, 15, of Canoga Park, and Cameron Cudiamat, 16, of Grenada Hills, take parkour classes at White Lotus Martial Arts Center in Northridge. Leonoudakis wears a red T-shirt, with the word parkour in white letters across the chest, and several tiny men in silhouette vaulting over the letters. “I made it myself on the Internet,” he said.

Cudiamat’s white T-shirt depicts a man back-flipping over a city skyline that spells out the phrase “I’d rather be freerunning.” His was a gift made by a friend.

When asked if they’d buy parkour-related gear, Leonoudakis bobbed his head enthusiastically. “I already ordered a pair of those new KOs,” he said. “Have you seen those? They’re going to be here in 12 weeks. I can’t wait.”

Asked about the appeal of parkour, Leonoudakis didn’t hesitate a second.

“It’s like skateboarding,” he said. “Only without the skateboard.”

Daniel Ilabaca wearing the Original Parkour Tee by Take Flight.

Recently, pictures surfaced of Daniel Ilabaca wearing the Take Flight clothing! The photos were taken during shooting for MTV’s Ultimate Parkour Challenge in L.A. Soon after the pictures surfaced footage was also released by Daniel through the IlabacaVideoBlog YouTube channel of him wearing our clothing while flipping on the rooftops of L.A.

Two weeks after this video (below) was posted, Daniel wore his Take Flight tee on national TV during MTV’s Ultimate Parkour Challenge. The shirt Daniel sported in all these appearances was none other than the Original Parkour Tee – Cardinal produced and distributed exclusively by Take Flight.

To clarify any confusion that may have been created by the surfacing of these images and videos, we would like to state that although Take Flight founder Adam Dunlap has communicated with Daniel and his representation on multiple occasions we do not currently sponsor Daniel nor have we yet formed any official relationship with him.

Today is David Belle’s birthday. Without David’s passion, direction, and example the discipline of Parkour would not be in existence today and influencing so many people. At Take Flight all of us owe much of who we are and what we do to him, and with that we extend our heartfelt thanks and our warmest wishes to David on this exciting day.

Joyeux Anniversaire David !

At Take Flight are always working to build partnerships with Parkour communities and organizations. Whether partnering with a statewide Parkour community, a nationwide Parkour site, a Parkour company, team etc., our mission to spreading Parkour stays true and is fully developed in our pursuit of these partnerships and in the creation of these relationships. One of our partnerships is with Parkour academy and Parkour consultation firm Revolution Parkour.  We have been a partner of this organization for a few weeks now, and we thought we’d announce it here with an official blog post.

Revolution Parkour and Take Flight founder Adam Dunlap

The partnership between Take Flight and Revolution Parkour was always somewhat expected. Both organizations were founded by Take Flight founder Adam Dunlap, so the strong ties and relationship have been there from the start. But even if Dunlap wasn’t a part in the inception of either organization, Revolution Parkour is a model Parkour company that we would have still desired to be associated with.

Revolution Parkour is a Parkour academy and consultation firm that first opened its doors in 2008. As one of the first Parkour schools in the United States, Revolution Parkour was a pioneer in the developing and establishing the Parkour class model that we are now seeing taking root in cities across the country. They have made huge strides in bringing Parkour to the U.S., and they have always been dedicated to using the discipline of Parkour to positively influence others, especially young people. Since its inception, Revolution Parkour has given presentations for numerous groups, and run public and private Parkour programs for schools, athletic facilities, and non-profit organizations.

In addition to teaching the discipline of Parkour, Revolution Parkour has also made its mark by providing choreography and consultation for firms around the world. Working with companies from the U.K. to its home town in Oregon, Revolution Parkour has worked in television, advertising, and has collaborated with local to internationally companies including athletic faculties, book packagers, talent firms, and internationally recognizable apparel brands. Revolution Parkour has experienced enough success that they recently opened their new Parkour training facility which is the largest Parkour gym ever opened in the United States.

Ever more important than the success and reputation Revolution Parkour has experienced and garnered, the organization has always maintained its focused on staying true to the roots of Parkour by David Belle. Says the Revolution Parkour Facebook Fan Page very simply:

“Revolution Parkour is a Parkour academy and consultation firm that adheres to the teachings and philosophy of Parkour by David Belle.”

It is for all these things, the passion Revolution Parkour has for Parkour, their dedication to community involvement, and their pioneering spirit coupled with the unwavering devotion to Parkour by David Belle, that we have entered into a partnership with Revolution Parkour. Every one of us here at Take Flight is excited to be working with Revolution Parkour. We are looking forward to working with them and helping them further spread Parkour in their community and beyond.

You can read more about Revolution Parkour on their website and social sites via the following links:

http://www.RevolutionParkour.com
http://www.RevolutionParkour.com/academy
http://www.Facebook.com/revolutionparkour
http://www.Twitter.com/revolutionpk
http://www.MySpace.com/revolutionparkour

Let’s face it: Parkour is fun. There are no ifs ands or buts about it. No matter your personal reason and motivation for doing Parkour, the truth is that if you didn’t enjoy doing Parkour you probably wouldn’t train as much.

The fact that Parkour is fun doesn’t make it any less purposeful for practitioners or any less powerful as a medium to promote change. After all, enjoying what we do is at the core of our existence and motivation. In fact, when looking at the positive side effects of practicing Parkour, if anything the fact that doing Parkour is fun makes it even a more powerful discipline.

Of all of the changes that Parkour promotes through its method, philosophy, and example set by its founder David Bell (including mental acuity, focus, and a positive attitude) probably the most immediately recognizable effect Parkour has on practitioners is the physical effect. The physical demands required to run, jump, climb, crawl, balance, and roll all naturally and quickly increase the physical condition of practitioners.

With the enjoyment of practicing Parkour clear, and the physically positive changes naturally promoted by the discipline obvious, I was inspired by the opportunity to bring Parkour to an international audience when I came across the fun theory. The fun theory is an idea and contest put forth by Volkswagen. The description of the theory and contest is this:

We believe that the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better is by making it fun to do. We call it the fun theory… The fun theory award recognizes the thoughts, ideas, and inventions that help prove [it].

Without any hesitation I entered Parkour in the contest where it is now displayed for the public to view and rate at the following link

http://www.thefuntheory.com/searching?keys=parkour

The contest can be found at the above link where you can view the Parkour entry and others. For the next 3 days the public has the chance to rate entries. The top 10 entries will move on to the finals where a fun theory winner will be selected by a jury.

I have no doubt that Parkour, in part as a proof of the fun theory, is one of the most positive and powerful methods and motivators of change in our time both as a focused training discipline and a fun activity that naturally supports advancements in physical health and other aspects of life. Whether we are producing new Parkour clothing to distribute around the world, donating money to Parkour non-profits, or working hands on in the community to spread the discipline of Parkour, these positive effects of the discipline are just one part of the message we strive to pass on in all that we do at Take Flight.

In honor of Veterans Day and on behalf of myself and everyone at Take Flight, I’d like to extend a heart felt thank you to all those that have so honorably served America in our armed forces. Thank you for your patriotism, bravery, sacrifice, and willingness to serve for the common good of those both in United States and in countries around the world.

Sincerely,

Adam Dunlap
Take Flight Founder