Hivemind, Helle, Splasha Powell, and more
Welcome back folks! Big couple of weeks in parkour media and I’m excited to share my thoughts and favorites with you. Before we jump in, I hope you all got to check out our teaser for Embrace Challenge - our next short film about The Movement Creative’s rooftop parkour festival MoveNYC. This was my favorite event of 2023 despite spending 80% of it shooting/eating amazing vegan food at a deli next door. For real though, MoveNYC is one of the rare events that has a space for everyone. They have 3-4 massive scaff builds with one open full-time for training and the others rotating in and out of workshops. That combined with cookouts, film screenings, and live music gave it such a unique and welcoming vibe. I can’t wait for you to learn more about it when the full 10 minute piece drops on March 21st!
“Some of the highlight clips, like Laine’s hurdle drop precision at Hamilton Fish, will probably go years - if not a decade plus - before being repeated.”
Unknown Hivemind
Sticking with the New York community, I wanted to share my thoughts on Hivemind with y’all. First off, it’s paid content - available on their website for $10. The format is a little different than other parkour films and at first I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. The film is delivered through vignettes focused around single challenges. It would have been easy for it to feel disjointed, but honestly I really liked how much time it gave me to absorb each challenge and get to know the athletes.
I’ll also say this for the athletes - if I didn’t know firsthand that they are some of the loveliest, most encouraging people I’ve met in parkour I’m not sure I would have gotten that vibe from the film. By focusing so much on challenges at the limit of their ability, you get a look at the more frustrated/aggressive end of the training spectrum. That’s not everyone’s vibe, so if that’s a turn off for you I’d encourage you to watch it from the perspective of people operating at their limit and experiencing the end range of their emotions. It’s raw and incredibly authentic. I love that they put themselves out there and were willing to be vulnerable in a way that is true to who they are and how they practice.
On the movement side, it’s insane. Some of the highlight clips, like Laine’s hurdle drop precision at Hamilton Fish, will probably go years - if not a decade plus - before being repeated. Inside the montage sections, there are other challenges just as gnarly and overall I’m not sure there’s been an American parkour video with this much difficulty since Myrm.
So give it a watch and embrace these folks for the lovely, loud, aggressive New Yorkers they are.
Finnish Capital
“Turku is the capital of Finland!”
While it may not be strictly accurate, the Turku scene has thrown down hard over the last few years and it was awesome to see Finns from all over band together for Capital. I loved how much diversity there was in terms of athlete style/spot choices and it overall brought such a fun summer vibe. For those who don’t know the Finnish scene much, they’ve been quietly influential for a long time. Folks like Joenkkoe and Eetu helped develop the tekky non-spot style and the Finnish Parkour Association SPY was the first national governing body for parkour in the world. Good to see the next generation of Finnish parkour athletes carrying that torch forward with Helle - Capital and I can’t wait for the next banger!
Boypower, Kong Double Gainer, and Splasha Powell
For those of you who don’t remember Rafa Mateus (or never knew his name) you may be familiar with him as the kid that pops up in a lot of Marcio Filipe’s videos. Well, he’s been training hard since then and showed off his new teen height/power/strength recently with a nice rep of Manpower in Evry. If you’re not following Rafa, you definitely should be - he’s been training nonstop for years with some of the best technicians in the game and I can’t wait to see what he gets up to as an athlete now that he’s entering his teens.
Another really nice rep - on a move done waaaaay less often than the Manpower drop - happened this week too. Cameron Eckberg became the fifth (??? that’s going to need a fact check from Alfred Scott) person in the world to land kong double gainer, joining the OG Travis Verky, Elis Torhall, Calen Chan, and either Shea or Aiden Rudolph…the world will never know until they start hashtagging which parkour twin is which on each post. Congrats on landing such an insane move really damn well Cameron!
Finally, if you didn’t see Splasha Powell’s redemption in last week’s Storror video you should give it a watch. It’s been a really beautiful meta-story watching Sacha’s recovery from his leg break/subsequent gnarly healing process two years ago and it was great to see him score a big win on a sketchy wall run challenge like this one. While Storror are known for throwing down some of the coolest lines parkour has seen, Sacha’s injury has given everyone a chance to also slow down on occasion and celebrate the little victories that day to day parkour training is made of. Many of my favorite moments from Storror over the past year or two have been the little wins on weird or technical challenges…those are the ones that don’t get you likes on social media but really stick with you and keep training joyful and alive. Sacha stomping out this wallrun after three failed attempts was definitely one of those moments so give it a watch if you haven’t already.
Athlete(s) of the Week
Since I missed another week - surprise, surprise - I’m going to feature two awesome athletes in today’s newsletter.
First off, we’ve got @maya__gz out of Vigo in Spain. I think the first time I saw Maya, she’d been featured by atowherever and I was really impressed with how solid everything about her movement was. She’s smooth, powerful, and technically proficient. She definitely has major aspects of the Spanish style but seems to have absorbed a bit of the British style as well with her linebuilding - it often is a bit more linear or direct than you’d see from someone like Phosky. So if you want regular drops of flowy and powerful parkour, give Maya a follow.
Down in Chile, @topper_pk has been throwing down hard. He definitely has a comp style, but comes up with some really interesting power transitions between moves and throws some absolute bangers - including the nicest looking a-twist in/back out I’ve ever seen. I’ve heard how epic the scene is in Santiago/Chile as a whole for years but haven’t been able to find too many athletes from there creating consistent content. Topper is definitely a standout there and hopefully continues to make bigger splashes on the international scene this year.
That’s it for this week. We’ll be back again soon with more community updates, athlete interviews, and news…not to mention a new short film on March 21st. See you soon!
Max & Sean
Point A Parkour