Take Flight

Just last month Keegan Swirbul of the Take Flight Flow Team placed 2nd at the USA Cycling 2011 Mountain Bike XC Nationals! Now we know where he gets his leg power!

After hearing this news we thought it’d be a good time to point out the benefits of cross training. In fact, most of the TF Team excels in other sports too and it’s no wonder because diverse training is a great way to learn about your abilities and push your limits while training in other areas. A few other examples from the Take Flight Street Team:

Pasha Breakdances!

Ruslan Dzhavadov practiced Taekwondo.

Nikolay Stasolik practiced breakdancing and bouldering.

Trevor de Groot played hockey and soccer growing up.

Having knowledge of your limits and capabilities is a cornerstone of Parkour.  Playing sports, dancing, and martial arts all require you to learn new kinds of movement which make them great cross training sports. By doing these you explore the capabilities of your body in new environments, new situations, and with new obstacles. These other aspects of movement will also help you improve your overall fitness, give you a better understanding of yourself, as well as help you hone your personal style and training/movement focus.

Even though Parkour will always be #1 on our list, mixing other sports in addition Parkour training is a-OK with us. In fact we encourage it. Be like members of the Take Flight Team and integrate your sport of choice into your exercise regime, and see where it takes you.

We are excited to have Jevin Dulak as our latest sponsored athlete added to the Take Flight Street Team!

Jevin first discovered Parkour in 2009 and has been a Take Flight fan since his beginning. In him we see a passion for Parkour that is rare and his loyalty to Take Flight is second to none. These are the exact qualities we look for sponsoring athletes, but Jevin wasn’t chosen for sponsorship just because he loves Parkour and Take Flight. Jevin is also an excellent role model for Traceurs and he is constantly giving back and contributing to the community by teaching others and spreading Parkour throughout his city and beyond.

One of Jevin’s current projects is helping develop Legacy Parkour and Freerunning; a team dedicated to reaching out in the community, and spreading the philosophies of Parkour to people young and old. He believes that much of his progress is due to the great Parkour community he has locally, so helping develop this team is a way for him to give back.

We are proud to sponsor Jevin Dulak and bring him on board as the newest member of the Take Flight Flow Team. Please join us in welcoming him and keep your ears peeled for more from this committed and giving Traceur.

Click here to watch Thib in Brazil!

Thibault “Thib” Granier has officially become a sponsored pro athlete of Take Flight! Standing 6′ 2″ this 24 year old is taller than most Traceurs or freerunners. But don’t let his height fool you, he is just as quick and agile as any other athlete out there.

Known as ‘Thib’, his huge moves and smooth control make him stand out far more than a little height advantage. Thib started Parkour in 2004, so has been practicing Parkour for over 6 years now. Being from Paris, he doesn’t live far from the birth place of Parkour; Lisses, France. The opportunity came early in Thib’s career, to meet some great Traceurs like Seb Goudot and David Belle. He met David in 2006 and now considers himself one of David’s friends.

We should be so lucky, the early influence of these great Traceurs really shows in Thib’s form and passion for Parkour. It is great to have Thib join our Pro Street Team.

Take Flight‘s latest addition to the Street Team comes in the form of 16 year old Keegan Swirbul. At 123 pounds Keegan says he feels too skinny, but there is more than enough power in that wiry build as evidence by Keegan’s big moves and solid control.

Parkour is an obsession for him, and Keegan was “super stoked” to get sponsored by Take Flight. But Keegan excels in many other areas that he devotes himself to. He is currently a National Champion in mountain biking as well as a top US nordic skier. He has always loved doing flips and his background in freestyle skiing helped him with his acrobatic ability in Freerunning.

Keegan had a few words about making the video seen below, “it makes me sad to see a person that had a burning passion for something quit. :/ So the message of this video is to be passionate and stick with it. A lot of Traceurs call Parkour “training” but if you are having sooooo much fun with it, its not training! Training is doing endless sit ups and pull ups (which I need but)…Just go out and LOVE MOVING! Someday you will look back and regret parts of your life, but I will never regret my passion for movement :) Be safe, have fun, enhance your skills and go JAM!”

Very well said Keegan, it is that level of passion that we look for in Street Team Athletes, and we are proud to have you among the ranks.

The Take Flight Pro Team has a new member: Nikolay Stasolik! We have been in contact with Nikolay for sometime now and we are excited to now have him as our newest Street Team member.

Since he was 8 years old Nikolay has been actively training. He was inspired by people like Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Van Damme and The Ninja Turtles. Nikolay started doing stunts and martial arts after watching Jackie Chan movies and now he is a stuntman and performing artist in cinema and theater. “Obviously it’s all the “fault” of my inspirations,” he says.

Nikolay told us, “I enjoy the movement… The challenge of new paths, the difference of styles… Parkour is a necessary part of my life; it helps me to keep moving despite anything in my whole life. It’s like a food for my body and mind. The way to communicate with this world, the natural language of my body. Even though I still suffer the pain in my right wrist because of the broken scaphoid bone since July 2009 – I keep training and adapt my body to the style of movement for it.”

After traveling all over the world for Parkour he said, “I enjoy traveling to see other cultures, different places, meeting new people, training together and share experience to help each other improve. It’s amazing to see how people change once they start to learn about Parkour and how far their mind and body can evolve on their own path of exploring the art of movement.”

Nikolay already has a host of great videos on his youtube channel and we are sure the best is yet to come.

-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