Take Flight

Today (Monday, the 29th) is a most momentous day. It is David Belle’s birthday. And not just any birthday. Today he turns 40!

In celebration of Mr. Belle’s very special birthday day we are doing two things:

#1. All day long we are posting rare David Belle photos, videos, and content through our Facebook page. Stay tuned for that!

#2. We are going to have a one day 40% OFF sale. Seems fitting, right? So here you go:

• Coupon code: Belle40
• Discount: 40% on select tees including… all David Belle Line Tees, Simply Traceur Tee, Parkour DNA Tee, Parkour Limitless Tee, Roof Jump Tee, PK Jumper Tee, and the Trace Your Path Tee.
• Dates: April 29, 2013 (ONE DAY ONLY)

It’s the least we can do for the founder of Parkour. We hope our postings and sale adds a little bit of joy to your Monday and helps you remember how special this day is :-)

Take Flight.

Happy 40th Birthday to the founder of Parkour – David Belle.

The Go Train Tee is launched! We previewed it last week and it spread through Facebook like wildfire.

The Go Train Tee. Designed by David Belle. Distributed by Take Flight

The reported story behind the tee is this:

One day David Belle looked at Take Flight Founder Adam Dunlap (also Belle’s brand manger and developer) and said, “One day I want to make a shirt that says, ‘Nothing happens by accident. Go train.’ ” And Dunlap looked at Belle and said, “Ok, sounds like a good idea to me.” They got to work and a month and a half later this shirt was made.

We are pleased to have the privilege to have this tee in our store, and we hope it inspires you to Go Train.

We recently created image ads that have been circling the web in the Take Flight name. In blog post part one, we showed you our “Official Clothing of Parkour” images. In this blog we wanted to debut a few of our other series known internally as our “Endorsed by David Belle series.”

Take Flight – Endorsed by David Belle

David Belle Sunset Ad

Parkour Master and Founder David Belle

Our DB Silhouette Ad

Four images paring the founder of Parkour with the official clothing brand of the discipline. All brilliantly simple, and stunningly bold. Keep your eyes open because if you haven’t seen these yet then you’re sure to see them soon on websites everywhere.

On Friday September 8^th David Belle held his 3^rd Q&A session on Twitter. Here is a transcript of the questions that were asked and which Belle responded to. We’ve put them 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.

You can click here to see Q&A session I.
You can click here to see Q&A session II.

David Belle Twitter Q&A

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For a very short time we are putting the entire David Belle brand on sale! There are 3 total inaugural designs, and 6 total tees in the David Belle line, and for the moment we’ve marked them down to as low as $16.

One thing you’ll notice with the David Belle line is unparalleled quality in every aspect. With embossed hang tags, woven sleeve labels, and featuring the name and image of David Belle, each one of these shirts stands neck and neck with any brand out there. Even world renown brands like brand Jordan.

The David Belle Brand is on sale. Get the most amazing shirts in the Parkour world at an incredibly affordable price.

This sale is a deal that can be seen through the web screen, and it’s a deal you will fell the first time you put each one of these shirts on. So pick one up before this speical price discount is gone. The only place in the world that you can currently buy a David Belle Brand tee shirt is through the Take Flight site, and the shirts are now on sale so you can’t go wrong.

Go Train.

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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This blog is continued from Part 2. Click here to read Part 2.

David does not like the limelight. He is a very private person and mostly keeps to himself except for spending time with close family and friends. That’s who he is and it won’t change, but it doesn’t make his influence or history in respect to Parkour any less powerful. You can’t separate the man from the discipline. To want to change David is to want to change Parkour, which is why we are having this discussion at all: people keep trying to change both.

Now as fate would have it we have been coaxing David out of his shell for some time, and now he is giving more! His Facebook and Twitter are two places where he does this, his brand is another which donates towards to underprivileged kids in Senegal and gives money towards the construction of Parkour City (another project in the works), and he has some new film projects and other Parkour specific projects we are working are that we are really excited about. In all, David is now more open and public than he has ever been! But it’s worth noting that he isn’t doing any of this for those who feel entitled, or for those who feel they deserve it, or because some people feel that he should be doing it or that he owes it to the Parkour community. He is doing these things because he loves it, and he is doing it for those that love Parkour, and for those that love and respect him for who he is.

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This blog is continued from Part 1. Click here to read Part 1.

Here is a post David made on his Twitter that talks more about some of the relating issues. Take Flight recently posted this on their Facebook too, and you can click here to see the full comment from David. I’ll quote two of the parts that are most relevant to this post:

Today one of the reasons I am more quite today is because I don’t believe that my philosophy is meant for everyone. It’s more important to follow your own path than to follow someone else. Everyone has their way of doing things, and it doesn’t necessarily work for everyone else. So be careful of philosophy. Everyone is going to find a way to express the same thing. In 10 years there may be 30 different philosophies of Parkour. One could say, “Always grab on” for example as a new philosophy. But those philosophies don’t change what Parkour is.

What David shows in this post is a few important things:

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The last blog I wrote for Take Flight was Should Parkour be in the Olympics? Absolutely. Part 1 of this post received a comment that I felt deserved a response because I don’t think the sentiment behind it is unique in the Parkour community. And it’s a negative sentiment. This blog is my effort to help put to rest many of the disrespectful and self-entitled thinking that still seems to frequently permeate the Parkour community worldwide.

The comment that was posted was this:

Yes, David Belle is important for obvious reasons but he said that his word shouldn’t be treated as gospel. That desire and his actions of, essentially, deserting us makes his opinion far less critical and relevant…

I’m going to respond to this comment in a very simple way, and in that hopefully dispel many of the most common misconception about David Belle, his discipline, and his legacy:

David Belle is the founder of Parkour, and he doesn’t owe you anything. It’s that simple.

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