2023 Recap

Welcome to 2024, folks! It’s Max, and I’d love to welcome you to Point A’s newest project - this weekly newsletter/blog - with a look back at some of my favorite moments…plus a few you may have missed.

2023 In Review

Don’t worry, I won’t try to rehash the Storror awards here. But I do want to bring up a few of the athletes, projects, and events that folks may have missed after a huge year in parkour.

Let’s start with Ciudad de Puentes from Los ke Saltan, a supergroup of parkour practitioners in Bogota, Colombia. As far as I know, it’s the first long format piece that the South America community has produced and I loved getting an inside look at Bogota’s community, culture, and approach to training.

It’s been quite the year for parkour in South America, which has had a massive parkour community for ages but has been largely passed over by the Euro-American scene. With athletes like @lambo_pk and @cris_lechat getting more recognition worldwide, it’s just a matter of time until the next feature! Big ups South America and the Spanish parkour scene (@whatparkour I’m looking at you) for all the hard work y’all put in this year. 

Next up, Gefam produced the best 90 seconds of parkour adjacent media ever. The framing, lighting, script, and overall German-ness of Gefam Town were just *chef’s kiss* …it was so good, I almost bought some of the clothes. Almost…I lived through the 90’s and I’m not sure I’m ready to embrace the clothing choices I made in elementary school again.

Speaking of clothing, there were too many good drops to name this year. As a working adult who gives off big Peter Pan energy wearing baggy street-style clothes, I wasn’t a big fan of some of the more popular lines. But there were others I absolutely loved. A few of my favorite pieces were Skochy’s Slim Motion Pants, Matttma’s Treppen/Balkon shirts (couldn’t pick just one), and Storror’s Tech Joggers. If someone in the US can sort out a wholesale/resale situation and save me $30 on shipping every time something new drops in Europe I’d be very appreciative. 

In the solo athlete video genre, it’s hard not to overlook some gems. For me, the biggest standout was MuvMag’s Drops from the Top with Julius Porter (@jooluporter). With beasts like Dylan Baker, Nick Ortiz, Phil Doyle, and Joe Henderson all taking a pass on the top level Julius finally completes Colorado’s most iconic descent - Illegal Yeets. Kudos for breaking such a legendary challenge, and just as many kudos for coming up with the perfect name. 

Thirty and Thriving, Homo Snugglesiensis, and Sunshine were top notch, quick views with some wildly creative and difficult movement choices. Seth Ruji (@sethjumps) puts on a tic tac masterclass, and Friedrich Walliser (@friedrichwalliser) needs to chill on those overhang muscle-ups. Like…really? You’re gonna do an overhang muscle up on a ledge with 6 inches of clearance and a wall in your face? The flex is real and I love it. Miranda Tibbling (@mirandatibbling) killed it across Europe in Sunshine, and I was so glad to see her win a well-deserved Storror award for it. She has to be one of the most underrated athletes in our sport, so if you’re not following her you should definitely change that. 

For a feels good watch, check out Storror Tribute by Uncle Jeff Climbs Dallas - a 60+ year old Storror fan who finally decides to give parkour a try and takes his camera with him. For a different kind of feels, make sure you watch Unbroken. It’s been mentioned in most 2023 wraps, but I think artistically and emotionally it’s the most touching piece we’ve seen in parkour for a long time. So grab some coffee or tea, leave your phone in another room, and really give it the hour to experience a beautiful story about resilience in the face of grief.

2023 ushered in parkour’s newest meme - pole slides - courtesy of @joescandrett but there were some other technical developments. Daan DeWinter (@dewinterdaan) quietly evolved the splat/pounce game on poles at Hal5 this year, incorporating pole pounce to rail dive kongs and lache pole pounce into some wild lines. His 2023 gym compilation is an absolute must-watch for technical parkour geeks and one of the most boundary pushing videos we saw this year. 

Outside of videos, big things happened at SPL2 and Kings of the Concrete - the year’s biggest competitions with Red Bull taking the year off. Elis Torhall (@elis_torhall) broke every competition he was in, constantly setting a new bar for what style parkour can look like. For one line, he even seemed close to making FIG’s time limit and course restrictions make sense, which is a task I thought too monumental for any athlete. Calen Chan (@calen_chan) and Kaito Onuki (@kaito_pktk) came close seconds with some savage world’s first, including quad full on hard ground. And Ryan Abiang (@ryry.abiang) showed what the future has in store for the US comp scene with some next-level runs at the tender age of 15. 

The ladies bracket threw down this year as well, with world’s firsts for Elise Bickley (@elise.bickley) on cork pre and Nene Nagai (@naganegionene) on triple full. Lilou Ruel (@lilouruel) and Miranda Tibbling both destroyed the hybrid athlete game in competition and on the street, and the women’s scene overall represented in a big way. With the Takeover videos at Hal5, female representation in most major video projects of 2023, and the upcoming Gatecrashers project, the momentum for recognizing all the strong women in our sport is finally moving in the right direction. 

Here in the United States, USPK ran the first successful national competition circuit we’ve seen…and implemented insurance coverage with their membership, which is a huge step in a country without universal healthcare. Mel McQueen (@mel2toes) became our sport’s first viral 40+ practitioner, Rafe Kelley (@rafekelley) was on the Jordan Peterson podcast, The Commons showed a successful third party video-hosting platform can exist in parkour, and Josh Dohy (@jdohy) made us laugh and cringe with The Movement. 

2023 really does seem like the year that parkour became international. I know these communities around the world have been going strong since the late 2000’s, but many of them finally broke into the Euro-centric consciousness of parkour’s social media community this year. 

With Ciudad de Puentes and Lambo representing for South America, Arturo Torres (@arturopinky) taking home second place in Men’s Skill at SPL2 for Mexico, Ryuya Shirai (@shirai_japan) popping off with features in Kipa, Gefam, and Shaman videos, Louisa Chang (@louisaparkour) from Taiwan grabbing second in Women’s Skill and smashing it in Gatecrashers (you’ll have to trust me on that for another few months), Red Bull hosting parkour events with Noa Diorgina in Kenya and Egypt, MuvMag featuring a piece on Team Overway in Cuba, Vanarshala (@vanarshala) bringing parkour to men and women of all ages in India, and Theo Tanchak sharing a YouTube piece on Chinese iron man @sun.j_urbanmonkey it feels like the level of access to the global community now is greater than ever. 

It wasn’t all good. 2023 is also the year we saw athletes like Amir Al-Gharbawi (@amiralgharbawi) start to document the war in Gaza. It’s the year that saw a hush fall across the Ukranian and Russian parkour scenes as major Eastern European athletes had to stop sharing and engaging with social media regularly. So while we appreciate the joy that parkour has brought to so many, let’s also appreciate that for some it’s become a lifeline. And we, as an international community, get the chance to be part of that lifeline. 

We don’t know what 2024 has in store for everyone. But we know a few things it has in store for us, including at least three new releases, some new merch, and a weekly newsletter. So if you want to keep your ear to the ground, subscribe to our newsletter moving forward. We’ll be covering events, athletes, culture, and training tips…all in the amount of time it takes to finish your morning coffee. 

See you next week,

Max Henry & Sean Endres

Point A Parkour