Fishboys, Boulders, Plyos, and Lightning McQueen
Hey everyone! Hope you had a great week and got the chance to sample a few of the wildly enjoyable videos that came out last week. We’ve got a handful of others to share for this week’s newsletter that should help give you some movement motivation while you’re out training - so let’s get into it!
Impeccable Witchell-ry
Most of you will have already heard of the next video on the newsletter, so I wanted to start with this piece by David Witchell that flew a bit more under the radar. The Witchell bros have been movement experimenters for years. They were some of the first Brits to start playing around with the “Dino” style after videos like Parkour Imaginatively and Pink Clouds took off, and they have always had a style that combined the best elements of classic British pk with whatever new things are cooking around the community. This holds for David’s recent training video as well - it’s a wonderfully integrated mix of straightforward Brit, flowy Spanish reverse vault transitions, and newer wall plant redirects…all with a really cool soundtrack and some excellent meme references. So give it a watch and give some of those combinations a go in your training this week!
Fishboy and Dr. Eel
You’ve probably already seen the trailer for this one get shared around but if you haven’t taken the step to actually purchase it yet, please do it now. Fishboy and Dr. Eel is the collab between Matt McCreary and Kevin Franzen that we never knew we always wanted. It’s $8 but for about 8 minutes of content but don’t let that stop you from feeling like you’re getting a bargain…it has about 8 years worth of training ideas to try and learn/play around with so in that sense it’s an absolute steal. Biggest pros and cons for me? Pros are Matt and Kevin. They’re insane - such good vision for movement and so good at finding ways to scale their creativity to different objects/heights/levels of acrobatic ability. They come up with a ton of challenges that are surprisingly approachable from a skill/technical perspective and I love that about them. It gives someone like me space to work on their concepts without feeling like I need to spend 10 months hating my life on a trampoline trying to learn how to triple full. The cons? My wrists after trying to train like Matt McCreary and the goddamn fisheye. Seriously, if I took a quarter of the impact Matt takes to his hands I’d be out of commission for a month haha. He has spent a ton of time breakdancing in the past and has built up some incredible strength in those wrist joints, so if this video motivates you to play around make sure you give yourself time to build that strength up as well. And yeah, I wish it hadn’t been filmed quite so heavily on a fisheye/camcorder. I love The Commons and Kipa to death but lord am I excited to see a piece from either of them that doesn’t look exactly like one they just dropped a few weeks earlier.
Athletes of the Week: Ratfish and Mark Mudra
I had to keep the nautical theme going and use this first athlete’s handle instead of her actual name. Victoria Leat (@ratfish101) came up on my feed recently after being reshared by @parkourover40 and I’m so glad she did. She’s an absolute unit living in Thailand and shares regular content from the gym over in Bangkok. I’m not sure how long she’s been training, but her technical level and confidence both seem very high regardless of the fact that she’s in her 40’s. I’m looking forward to seeing more of her in my feed and hope you give her a follow and some support as well!
Our other athlete feature this week is Mark Mudra (@markvmudra.pk). This Italian beast is also a proud member of the over 40 club…and if I can have his level of power/technical ability in my 40’s and 50’s I’ll be pretty damn stoked. His clips are straightforward and full of the basics done well - while some people might take that as an insult, to me it’s one of the highest compliments. Watching Mark train feels like eating really, really good pasta. Anyone can toss some spaghetti into boiling water and throw a cup of Prego on top of the finished product. But it takes a master to turn that basic dish into something transformative.
Hannah Morris, Toby Segar, and Johnny Dawes
This is one of two parkour-adjacent stories this week, but it was such a fun watch I couldn’t not include it. Hannah Morris hosts a popular YouTube climbing channel and had Toby and legendary British climber Johnny Dawes come together to put up some parkour boulders at a climbing gym. It starts out the way most of these videos do, but quickly devolves into what I can only call a parkour training session on a climbing wall. By the end of the session, they’re playing around with funky traverses, descents on different volumes, and trying to stick purposefully awkward positions. It’s something I’ve always done at climbing gyms with friends but it was so refreshing to see a climber like Johnny Dawes instigate climbing that felt…completely non-task oriented. Toby also does some pretty wild dynos - big surprise - but the highlight for me was watching each boulder set turn into a jam session flipped vertical.
Plus Plyos x Tim Champion
Matt McInnes Watson (@plusplyos) and Tim Champion - do you really need me to even tag him? - have been collaborating on a plyometric program geared toward parkour athletes and it’s finally out. It dropped on the 11th and includes free access to a back-to-health plyo program if you’re not currently in peak shape. After skimming through a handful of the workouts for upper and lower body, it seems like it’s going to be a great resource…especially if you don’t have the free time or desire to go through Callum’s Instagram stories and slowly collect his exercises into a cohesive program for yourself (definitely not speaking from experience on that one).
Megan McQueen
Megan McQueen (@meganmcqueen_) has been training at APEX Denver forever (she was six when she started parkour) and I’ve been stoked to see her transform from a kid who was interested in parkour to a teenager going out daily to tackle new challenges and push herself. As if that weren’t enough, she’s also spent the last two years dealing with a Type 1 diabetes diagnosis and figuring out how constantly monitoring blood sugar affects everything from her energy levels to how many gummi bears she needs her mom (@mel2toes) to throw at her mid-session. I was stoked to get to ask Megan a few questions before the short film she’s been working on with Zach Wiegert - another Denver local - drops later this year.
Hey Megan! So easy stuff first, how old are you, where are you from, and how long have you been doing parkour?
I am 16, born and raised in Denver, Colorado, and I’ve been doing parkour for 10 years.
I'm really excited to see the piece you have been shooting with Zach Wiegert. Would you mind telling me how it came about and what the concept is?
In December 2022, Zach came to me about potentially making a film about me. We started frame working it, and ended up on an idea about how my autoimmune diseases have affected my training mentality and fear issues. We have now been working on the film for a while and can’t wait for it to come out!
How has it been shooting stuff for a bigger project?
Filming for a larger project has pushed me to the limit with my mental and physical capacities, expanding my skill set and what I believe that I am capable of in my training.
Folks might know you from SPL's speed comp last year. What's it like to train speed in Denver?
I love training speed in Denver, specifically at Apex. I take time trials every Thursday and sometimes on Saturdays. I love the class so much and working on speed consistently makes me feel stronger and keeps my skills sharp.
Outside of the gym do you have any favorite skills/style of training you're loving right now?
Recently I have loved working on descents and roof gaps, building up more mental game. I also have enjoyed working more on flow and funky techniques!
What are you working on in your training for 2024?
I am working on speed, strength, and flow in 2024. I am currently on a training program with Ryan Ford, and am consistently training to continue building my skills. I also have been working on knee rehab to eliminate some nagging pain that I’ve been feeling.
Quick three parter - favorite athletes to watch, favorite shoe, and favorite training spot/city.
I love watching Rachel Gough and Kevin Franzen, I wear Strike Mvmnt Haze Trainers, and I loved training in Brighton when I was there this summer!
That does it for this week’s newsletter! Hope you enjoy the videos and athletes this week as much as I did. Odds are good I’ll be missing the next week or two but if that happens, I promise I’ll make it up to y’all with an extended edition by the end of the month. Thanks for reading and have a great week of training!
Max & Sean
Point A