Jesse Danger: The Movement Creative, Parkour, Play, And Purpose

What if movement was your first language? We sit down with Jesse Danger—coach, builder, and founder of The Movement Creative—to explore how parkour can turn a city into a classroom and frustration into the felt sense of learning. From a rough ride through school to discovering parkour as a pathway to agency, Jesse shares the frameworks and stories that helped him build one of New York’s most innovative movement communities without a permanent gym.

We dig into a practical coaching model shaped by two axes—autonomy and complexity—moving through drill, exploration, challenge, and game. You’ll hear how this structure helps students manage difficulty, navigate fear, and stay curious, whether they’re learning a precision jump or rethinking how they approach any skill. Jesse also unpacks the idea of parkour vision, the mindset that transforms benches, ledges, and stairwells into opportunities. Along the way, we talk mental health, resilience, and why celebrating effort over performance changes the culture in classrooms, teams, and families.

Beyond philosophy, this is a builder’s story. Jesse explains how his team designed modular equipment for tight city spaces, launched weatherproof roaming classes, and partnered with schools to bring movement into PE and after‑school—then adapted during the pandemic with QR‑coded park challenges to shift how people see their neighborhoods. We even touch on a signature “impossible” challenge—backwards-crawling the Empire State by proxy—and the new parkour game card deck that turns hard‑earned pedagogy into playful, ready‑to‑run sessions for coaches and parents.

If you care about movement education, youth programs, urban design, or just seeing your environment with fresh eyes, this conversation will give you tools you can use today. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a spark, and leave a review to tell us: what challenge are you ready to embrace next?

Transcript

Meet Jesse Danger And The Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey Jessie here with another episode of Down the Rabbit Hole. We're back today with Jesse Danger. Jesse is one of the uh the founders and the owner of the Movement Creative, which is a movement parkour company in New York City. I wanted to get Jesse on uh for several reasons, to be honest with you. One, I've been following his work on Instagram now for the last four or five years. Um what they're doing in New York City is really cool. I mean, you wouldn't necessarily think New York City parkour just because of the the landscape of it being so urban, you know, with Central Park being you know kind of the main hub of nature, but not a whole lot else. Um but what they're doing there uh at the movement creative is is really freaking cool. Uh they're doing you know, we get into one why yes uh wanted to create the moving creative or how he got into it, we get into uh his his background. Uh that that uh you know sometimes sometimes movements and and things find us, and sometimes we find it, and uh we get into mental health and just his background, we get into uh his work that he's doing with the movement creative and and uh taking chances on on things, not sure if they're gonna work out, and uh you know just has now been doing this, I think he said 15 years, um, which is which is awesome for for any business, and uh they seem to be thriving in New York City. You know, um I I absolutely love what this company, what his company does, what he does. I mean uh they work with schools, they work with uh, you know, they do free pop-ups, they do free classes all around the New York City area, uh for for kids, for for anyone that wants to move, you know, uh, and I absolutely love that. Um the work that they're doing with schools for physical education programs, but also for after school education programs, uh the work they've done at parks around New York City area, the equipment they're making. You know, Jess has got an awesome little book uh that he wrote uh that I actually have a couple copies of. Uh one to learn out here at the gym and two that I've I've read by my bedside. Uh it's called Embracing Challenge, Models of Uh Learning That Help Us Thrive. It's his story and his journey uh to where he is now, and how um he viewed the education system didn't really fit for him. And so as a coach, the models and the psychology and what he looks for and how he teaches with his practice. Uh really interesting read. This was a really insightful talk. Again, we go into everything from mental health to movement to creativity to you know just everything. Um, I really hope you enjoyed this talk as much as I did. It was an awesome talk. Please give a like, a subscribe, and a share. Enjoy the talk, guys. Jess, it's a pleasure having you on, man. I've been, as I was just saying off camera, uh big fan of your work from afar. Um I think you guys are doing some awesome stuff, you and and your company, uh Movement Creative in New York City. For those listening that may not know who you are, your story, and how you kind of got here, man, can you you mind uh telling us you know a bit about yourself, sir?

From School Struggles To Movement As Language

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yeah. Um so when I was uh I guess 15, 16, I was in uh in high school. I wasn't having a great time. I got uh kicked out of one high school, and then um that was that was private school. I went to a public school, and there was this like striking chasm of uh of support between the two places. I think I had learned in freshman year and private school everything that I could have possibly learned in the four years um at public school, and by the end of the fourth year, I had an assignment that was something I had already done freshman year. So my senior year final English project was something I had done in freshman year. I could have turned it in and I decided I wouldn't. So I I didn't end up graduating. I did get my GED a couple years ago just uh just to prove to myself that something has changed about the way I relate to learning.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

And I think that more than anything, like that's what my story with movement and with parkour is. Uh parkour was a radically different environment for me. I started it at the same time that I was having a hard time in school. Uh broke in my skateboard and didn't really have the the money to get a new one, so um this seemed like a cool thing to try. We had a group of us going out almost every day, wandering around the town and and uh finding things to jump over and climb on. And um it was a it was a lot of fun. And I think in a way I I didn't understand um until maybe I was like 30, uh movement became my first real like language of self-actualization. Um I I I got to see that like by putting in the work, um but also by exploring, by having fun, by hanging out with friends, by playing games, like I would get better at these things that I was trying to get better at. And holding that in contrast to my experience in school, where um I mean I I I would test well, but I was I was bored, I wasn't really engaged, and I don't think my teachers thought very much of me. Like I I I think I saw that if I stayed in that kind of vehicle that I was being put in, like I would go totally nuts. So I I started uh work as a mover, not as a like a movement um practitioner or coach or anything like that. Actually, I had a huge resistance to the idea of being any kind of a teacher. So I worked as a mover six years. Um I think it is only now in my late 30s that I could say that I like what I do now more than I liked being a mover. I loved being a mover. It was like it was useful, it was helpful, it kept me fit. Uh I could grab like a couple 40, 50-pound boxes of books and run up a six-story uh uh apartment in uh uh in in New York City. Um I worked for uh a great little uh Japanese moving company and uh they paid attention to like every every detail of what we were doing. Um we could like completely pack up somebody's apartment and then put all of your books back the way they were, all of your cups back the way they were, like everything like that. And that was like that was fascinating, you know, playing the Tetris of loading the truck and um and and lots of lots of cardio, uh a decent amount of heavy lifting, you know, pianos down uh down five stories has happened, and uh and eventually um you know there were some organizations in New York that were kind of doing parkour things, and uh my girlfriend at the time was incredibly motivated uh to try to get me out of my moving job. Um she had convinced me to start driving, pay more, and I I think after the fifth time I asked and got it raised, I just said like okay, I gotta leave this. And she saw that I had these emails uh just like stacking up for people that were like interested in uh me coaching or performing or whatever, and I just like wouldn't really respond to anybody. Um, I look at the way that I talked back then, and that's one of the clues that like movement really was like the only way I knew how to communicate. That was my language. Um because you know, somebody would be like, Hey, can you build a really cool playground in my backyard? And and I'll be like, Yeah, you can do that, that'd be amazing. Um I I I I I look at the uh the opportunities I could have had sooner on, and it's uh it's it's funny that I I missed it. And uh I ended up starting the movement creative with uh that girlfriend and a really close uh friend of mine. So that was uh Caitlin Petrella, another really close friend of mine, Nikki Zanevsky. Um Nikki has had has since made another organization called Wildly Fit, which is uh also very cool. And Caitlin went on to uh be the executive director of Hardcore Visions, and we've all like been able to stay in in each other's lives, um,

Building A Career And Founding The Movement Creative

SPEAKER_02 9:45

even though uh 2016 we um separated working as business partners. Um that first year, you know, I I think our first like uh pie in the sky goal was to work with a hundred different schools, and ultimately like when I saw an opportunity to work with kids uh that like maybe couldn't afford it but didn't have to pay for it, um, because uh a a school or uh an organization of the city would um support the work that we were doing. We we had uh a gym program the first couple years, we had after-school programs, we started working with some city festivals, and we ran like a couple of uh drop-in classes. And I still like really had a bone to pick around teaching. I think what I saw and and have like learned so much about like different ways of learning now, and you can see that in the book I talk about like the learning, the various learning models, uh, and that's kind of like how how I learned and how well I I I I think the biggest thing there is I saw a bunch of my friends who learned by hanging out with their friends, doing fun stuff, and like kind of fucking around really. Um, watching a cool video, seeing if they could do it, like it was it was relaxed, it was social, it was egalitarian, like it was it was so cool. And we had like such a a wonderful and diverse group of people, uh, age diversity, so economic diversity, educational background diversity, like people from all different walks of life, all different parts of the city and the surrounding areas, like coming in and and just training together. And then I saw like around the country, and of course, uh you know, not everybody learned that way, but many of many of these people did as soon as they were put into a teaching role, it it really became like uh you know, do this this way, and I know exactly what's what what has to happen, and now you have to do these reps and this this number of sets, and this is what's gonna make you great, and I know everything, and you know nothing, and you're empty, I'm full, and I you know it it's it's uh it's it's actually a really hard position to get out of as a teacher because uh as as I've also come to understand like a lot of people go to classes because they want a teacher to like to teach them. Um so I kept like pushing into that. Uh I've heard different concepts, different languages, like another language might might have something more like uh um like we're both the learners and we're both learning each other the learning. Uh and and and also make a distinction between like uh kind of didactic, like this is procedural, this is how you do this directly, and like uh the process of learning by doing. Um so we we have uh a pretty high emphasis of of exploration and and play. Like I think that in order for education to be liberating, we need to be uh really mindful of how much autonomy we give students. And if we're not giving them enough student uh uh autonomy that they're learning to make their own decisions, like kind of stand in them, then I think we're we're we're doing a disservice as teachers. We're creating a dependent relationship. And uh I would I I really like you know Carl Rogers' idea of like the purpose of education is to create lifelong self-directed learners. Yes. So if I've uh I've stepped in the way of of lifelong or I've stepped in the way of self-directed, then uh I need to I need to take a step back.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

No, I love that. Yeah, you go into uh some details about uh your models and and where you pull information from. And I in forgive me, I'm probably gonna screw up the quote, but the one that caught me was when you're talking about in in the book, uh, sorry for anyone listening, uh just wrote a book you can find on Amazon, you can find on his website. I I can put the in the show a link to the show notes, but it's called Embracing Challenge, Models of Learning That Help Us Thrive. And I forgive me if I screw up the quote, but you're talking about with that kind of like back and forth of should I teach or should I not? Like you you you got out of the schools because you didn't like the structure, you didn't like the teacher, but then you're asked to go be a teacher, and you had like this little back and forth with that. And uh no, I I as as someone I own a gym and uh I went to school to be a teacher. Um I I completely get that because you're trying to get away from what you didn't like, but then you're kind of thrust into it a little bit, and and you do have that. But I really like in your book the models and and everything that you go through. Um, you know, I stole your your mental coaching model for what I do with with kids here. Uh would you mind kind of explaining that to the listener what that is and and how you implement that, please?

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Yeah. Um and and I will say that like uh no the the goal first was that I could learn in any environment. I I saw that I wasn't learning well in school, and then I I look back and I see the things I could have learned that I didn't realize that I was learning. You know, for instance, a lot of my job now is navigating a bureaucratic hellscape. Like uh, can I get on the the phone for uh two hours waiting on hold and get 10 minutes talking to somebody? And can I be like really efficient and at getting this like small uh procedural box picked so that we can like run a new and different program or something like that? Like yeah. Um so I I I was trying to make sense of why um you know Nikki who uh and Caitlin as well, who both like uh Ivy League students um and and had great like uh educational experiences and really saw the value of having teachers. Like they wanted the class to have like a lot of drills. And uh and then I I was I was really resistant to

Rethinking Teaching: Autonomy And Play

SPEAKER_02 16:50

that. Like I I learned through exploring, I learned through saying like hey, what about this or what else? Like I want to I want to have a dialogue with the space, like I don't want to be uh made to like write cursive all day, like I want to write poetry, you know? And um and and it and it was it was years, it was years of arguing with uh other other people that run gyms and other people that teach, and and and I think everybody in a teaching position like has to validate their position. They have to say, like, this is important, this is what I'm doing. And and uh one of the easiest ways to validate is like what has has worked. It's not looking at the broad scope of is this working for everybody or is this the only way? It's saying like what has worked. So you know teachers come from places where they were able to effectively learn from teachers, like it makes sense that they would like kind of subscribe to some of these things. Um so that they the the model really goes into uh sorry if I'm like getting out the weeds. There you go. The model really goes into like two different quadrants. And I will say that as before I had this model, I I have probably spent um, you know, maybe 60 times I had had like a four or five hour conversation with someone trying to argue for the the the value and merit of like exploration of clay and the learning process. I didn't know that's really what I was saying, but I was just like trying to be true to my experience, saying, like, I know I can learn by just like walking around, so I don't know what you're talking about. Um so the the two uh uh axis are uh kind of like uh autonomy and complexity. And if we have like a low autonomy space, a low complexity space, then that's something like a drill. That's like repetitive rote work, and uh I don't well, you know, I I don't really mean repetitive in like a denigrating way. You could say it's like iterative, you can still pay attention to the changes of each rep like you. But you're you're not uh doing like a ton of uh kind of max work or uh creative work, like you're you're just going in and doing the work. And I think uh all of these different quadrants also represent kind of like different um attitudes that we can try to embody in our practice. So for drill, I think uh that is like uh humility, like I'm gonna go in and do the work. Um you know um and and I love that. And then if we want to make that uh keep it simple, but make it autonomous um rather than teacher-directed, self-directed, you create a fairly simple environment, uh uh with some constraints maybe, and then you have uh people explore, kind of say like what's what's possible here? Hey, we just did that uh uh step water, we just did that precision jump, like you know, just basically on the floor 50 times. Uh could you find like a a bunch of different ways you could do that in this space? Now you're jumping up and down at different distances and different angles, and now you're like you're you're you're playing with it. Um and then and then we move to uh you know, maybe a challenge space. So that that would be exploration. Uh we move to like a challenge space that's lower autonomy, but it's higher complexity. So now uh, you know, uh we say, why don't you pick one of those? Uh it's kind of tricky, but you know you can do. Can you do it 10 times in a row? You'll just like start over if you mess up. And like now you have like a challenge. Um so you didn't really get to decide that challenge completely. I give a little bit of autonomy there, but you don't have to. You could say, like, here's this specific junk. I know you could do this. Uh I I believe you. Uh believe in you. Um and and and even if if you you know are encouraging as a coach or uh you know you could just as easily say, I bet you can't do this. Um because that that internal dialogue is happening in that challenge space. So you know, if grill is uh get in there and do the work, be humble. If exploration is like, hey, what about this? What's possible here? Um and challenge is like, I bet you can't do this. I bet I can't, like I'm gonna keep going. You can't stop me. Um and and and when I hear those. Phrases when I think of those different quadrants, like different parts of me come alive. And I I like that. I like the idea of trying to create a session where all of these different parts kind of come alive. So we have the challenge space, then we then we might have like a like a game. And the game is like high autonomy, high complexity. Compare like a drill, like dribbling basketballs to like playing the game of basketball. There's a lot of different elements of basketball. And then we want to be in some kind of a flow, some kind of a feeling of competence and confidence where we can we can move and act. And in all of this, like really the point of these different models is to understand, like, first of all, what kind of attitude we're looking for, and second of all, like how we can manage our frustration. So I I consider frustration the feeling of learning. Um and if we can create environments where students can always manage their own frustration, that's going to be a lot easier than us trying to manage a big group of people's frustration. Okay, like you know, basketball's too complex. Yeah, I I I was over overwhelmed. I have uh stigmatism, so my ball coordination's not great. I didn't have good verbal communication. Um, I was uh five foot ninety pounds, so I was not really like uh the tallest kid in school. So so there were a lot of things working against me. But if I could have figured out, like, oh, like, all right, this game I'm just gonna focus on passing to other people, or like this game I'm gonna I'm gonna work on getting into a good defensive position. And now what I'm doing is taking like play and I'm turning it into maybe more of a challenge or more of a drill, and I'm like moving my attitude and my relationship to that learning environment so that I I can uh you know not bite off more than I can chew, not be put in like a completely overstimulating, overwhelming environment where like I'm I'm set up to fail, and and that's like kind of my default position in my brain, or was a default position in my brain where like even if I

The Mental Coaching Model: Drill, Explore, Challenge, Game

SPEAKER_02 24:20

did well at a lot of things in basketball, I wouldn't be focusing on all of the things that I wasn't doing well, uh, all the little aspects. And if if I don't have control of the of that game, if I'm not saying what am I actually playing, what am I actually trying to do, then I'm not really like measuring myself. It's not really about like being honest or realistic for something, it's like the capacity for my brain to self-denigrate. And and if I can make it into the smaller game, if I can say this is about passing, like uh, okay, like how how did you do passing? And we try to ask some like kind of like the anthropology of self, like we're observing the the situation again, what happened, like how how did that go? And we try to get some some little measurements, like what what worked, like what didn't work, uh and it's feedback. And I think the other kind of like big key there, maybe key with a lot of this is like uh reframing um you know towards a culture of effort rather than a culture of performance. If we celebrate effort rather than celebrate performance, um effort is something we have a little bit more of a hand on the lever around. And um celebrating the things that people have like control of and are able to impact is is helpful. Um and along with that, like reframing that winning is learning and winning is belonging. So there's like a million ways you can play a game. Uh I I was a competitive chess player, and one time I'm sitting at the at the table, and the kid across from me like kicked me in the shins. And, you know, that made me upset. I didn't play as well, I won. Like, that's a good way to win a game, but it's it's not a way to like learn how to be a better chess player, and it's not a way to uh belong in the sense of like you know these bigger, like these infinite games, like if a finite game is uh has a beginning and an end, a winner and a loser, like a game of chess, then uh infinite game, like the goal is to keep playing, and uh that would be like being a chess player. So kicking your opponents in the shins will not help you be a better chess player. Um, it might win you a tournament, it might win you a game, um, but it's not gonna make you friends, and it's not gonna make you better on the board. So um thinking about those things, like can we learn to play in a way that like makes people want to play with us? Can we learn to play in a way that no matter what the outcome of it is, we're able to learn something. And if we can get those two things, then like then then we're winning.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Love that. Um so let me backtrack just a little bit, uh, if that's okay. No, that that was that was great. Um you kind of wrestle with it a little bit in your book, uh, but for those uh listening, if you had to give a definition to what parkour is, what would you say it is? And then would you say, because you kind of touched upon it in in the intro, you found parkour or parkour found you?

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Um I wonder what it said there. What's that? I wonder what it said in the book. My consistent, my identity.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

That's all good.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

Uh let's see.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

So you talk about what you know, right here, page 11, right? Uh for philosophy. One of the biggest hurdles of teaching or training parkour is to struggle to define or identify it. So I just wanted to see if that's changed since you wrote the book.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

Uh I I think I think it's changed. I think also like my like my frame has gotten like a little bit wider.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah. So how would you how would you frame it? Um I'll be honest with you, so I'm not a natural parkour guy. I I found it later in life. I have kids and I believe in parkour for athletes, I believe in parkour for for kids, I believe in parking. For adults too, but like for my children, and I've I've fallen in love with it. I I really have. Now, unfortunately, I have a uh pretty bad knee that needs to rip be replaced. So I am very hamstrung, but man, if I found it when I was younger, like I I was blessed to be grow up in the 90s, and I was just thinking the other day, if there was just one thing I could have prod over with this generation's 90s was uh YouTube. Because if I could have watched people doing parkour martial arts, man, like I would have been all into that stuff growing up. And uh I try to incorporate it with what I do with my clients. I just had uh an adult class in here uh and I incorporate it with my with my adults, 80-year-olds, and I was doing it last night with kids. Like, I I'm obsessed with it, and it's um it's it's opened up opportunities. I find it very opportunistic. Uh it it it's both from a movement standpoint, but from a uh perceptual standpoint, now it it helps people write the idea of parkour vision. You know what I mean? Like that whole like it it's it's the uh what what what it it allows you to see now in your environment, it just changes everything. And I and I I love that. So for me, it's just this it just it changes your opportunity now for action with your environment and how you interact with your environment. And I love that for athletes, I love that for adults, I love that for everybody. So sorry, I didn't mean to jump on that, but just maybe give you a little thought. So for me, I love parkour. I'm not in it as much as you are and what your business does, but I love those that do it, and I'm infatuated with how people got into it and and why you know your your story, why and everything. So that's that's yeah, anyways. So hopefully to buy a little time to get you to think about your your answer, man. But uh um yeah, I I I I I love it for its opportunistic nature in in providing movement and seeing the world different.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

I love that. I I get I guess there's a few answers. Like one of them is like I said that I have like a broader frame now, and that's that's like a little bit of an attitude of like let them have it. Um and and not in a in a denigrating way. Like I have like long kind of tried to stretch the frame of parkour to fit into all sorts of things that I've found like really helpful. So I I think there is a a version of parkour that is is being practiced now that is uh this is like very specific movements learned to like a high degree of technical uh capacity. And um and and and it's incredible to see what what people are able to do. You know, like somebody will work for 10 years and do a thing that nobody has ever done before. They'll release a video of it, and like the next year there will be a 14-year-old kid who's been training for six months who did it. So I don't think I've seen any kind of like exponential, like kind of technical, physical skill development um happen in in other places. Um uh I don't I don't watch a whole lot of other places, but I I know that is happening like in like skateboarding as well. Like um it's it's nuts what I thought was like impossible 20 years ago and what's what I what I think is as impossible now. And and I think that what what like what's what's impossible and kind of challenging it is like that's another kind of parkour. And you can train the technical skills without ever training that now, because there are like such environments and such support that you you don't necessarily have to learn how to feed yourself. Um and I think this kind of like feeding yourself and feeding each other uh is like a really powerful and beautiful part of it. Like there's a version of parkour that was like a group of like teenagers from suburb of Paris that uh were watching like Jackie Chan and Dragon Ball

What Is Parkour And Parkour Vision

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Z and saying like what would happen if we trained like that, and they were in a beautiful city for it, and and they were able to push themselves and each other to an incredible limit, like do like really powerful technical things. Um and uh you know, 20, 30 years into their practice, I've also seen um members of the Yamakasi like smiling and doing like uh like a bear crawl for two hours. Um and just like just smiling, like they're walking the dock, you know? And then I I I look at like what I want in my life, and it's like I would like to jump further, and I'd like to jump more technical, and I'd like to flip better, and I like to do these things. Like, I want to get from from A to B. But I also like there's this like attitude cultivation, um, this kind of like what like how do I want to show up in the world that uh I don't think is I don't think it's fair to say that that some of these things are like intrinsic to parkour, and I think that they they are so well uh they can use parkour as a conduit for that so well. Like I don't I don't think that uh everybody who trains parkour now um gets parkour vision, but I do think parkour vision is one of the most like beautiful and incredible things. Like, you know, there there's this that's just like there's a there's like a lens you put on and like it's it's like what's possible here and now.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

And um, you know, I was I was constantly shutting myself down as a as a teenager. I didn't think anything was possible, I didn't want to do anything, but like this practice of like what's possible now, and then uh looking at it over 20 years, like I don't think I can remember like a a single time. It feels hyperbolic, it's it feels like an exaggeration, a single time that I like saw a jump, felt this certain part of my like like heart move around it, like, and then wasn't able to do the jump. It it's nuts. And and uh and you know, it it it kind of has like resonance in uh in various mythologies and psychologies and that like you know, do are we able to uh really like recognize and identify a challenge that we're not able to face? And um and my experience is no, like if I see a challenge, that means I can I can overcome it. And it it doesn't it it it feels foolish, but I have too much uh like self uh experience for this to to discredit it.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Um yeah. Yeah, man. So what made you I mean what yeah, I know you said you were resistant to to wanting to teach and wanting to do that, like what kind of pushed you over the hump, and then you know, you you you you started the movement creative, like what's what's the goal of movement creative? What are you guys trying to do? I mean, you got some unique things. I I love your YouTube videos, I love your social media, you know, like what what yeah talk to me about kind of how what what finally got you to alright man, I'll do it, I'll do this shit. Like, alright. And then, you know, what what has kind of changed as far as your view from what is it, 2006 uh 16 you said? To 2026. You know, what has what has shifted as far as like, alright, you were resistant to it, and now like where are you at in in in the mindscape of of business and in in being a teacher?

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Yeah. Um great question. So I was I was uh suicidal throughout my teenage years. I had several attempts actually. My first attempt was when I was nine, my last attempt was when I was twenty one. It was on my twenty-first birthday. I had uh convinced um my ex-girlfriend to come hang out with me, and uh I had uh kind of figured out how to open up a space that I wasn't really ready for, which was like, I want to know what happened. You know, I acted present and calm, collected. I said I could take it, and ultimately it it took me a while to take it. Um I wasn't ready to take it at that time, and I was just like totally bummed out and beside myself. So I I attempted, and uh, I think one of the worst feelings I've ever had, you know, worse than the feeling the night before of wanting to kill myself was waking up and having failed at that. And I kind of sat in this like self I don't know, like kind of self-pity, woe is me, like, and I I just stayed in my room for months and I I kind of meditated on like what is what is a love, you know. Um we said we were gonna be f together forever and we had this thing and this did that, and and then and uh a couple things happened, you know. I really wasn't like eating very much, I wasn't taking like great care of myself, I was writing on the walls, and uh and the writing on the walls, like in in the end said that like ultimately um like my my love for that person stopped when I wanted them or needed them to be a certain way, um, when I stopped wanting to know more. And that that was a huge clue for me. Like I I see that like knowledge can be uh something that stands in the way of of love in that way. That like if we want to stay in this place of wanting to know more, then we we have to be willing to like go into that uh you know potentially uncomfortable place. Like I saw, I I I kind of saw through the trick that I played in myself that like I wanted to be able to sit with uncomfortable truths. I wanted to be able to hear something and maybe not do something. Um and so I so I got that that piece, like love is curiosity. Um now I would say it's like love is curiosity, like walking towards awe, um, because curiosity can go in any direction. And um, and then I would just hear these just like relentless assumptions that were coming up. I know I was saying like there's no way for me to be in this world, there's no way to run an ethical business, there's no value that I offer, there's no thing that

Why Teach And How To Build An Ethical Business

SPEAKER_02 41:20

I do that could positively benefit anybody else. And then ultimately, like I I've boiled this down since, but like that harrowing process, like kind of was arrested when my brain thought, like, have you tried? Like, maybe you're right, but like, did you even give it a shot? And uh and ultimately, like, that's what embrace challenge means. Like, that is uh like that that that kind of critical seed of an attitude, like understanding like death.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

I got you.

SPEAKER_02 42:02

Um yeah, so like rip really understanding, like you know, have you have you tried? And and then you know, countless, countless struggles, countless arguments with myself, with other people, how to teach or how to organize a business, big, big conflict, little details, and um, and we are, you know, still like we're like we we we may be the largest uh parkour organization in the world that doesn't have a gym. Um and we've we're we're definitely up there on hourly pay, and we're like and we have uh a tremendous amount of like team input on how things are are are operating. And uh, you know, th those are all like little answers to like how do we run an ethical business? And I I can I can look at it and say, you know, it's it's not ethical, and I can look at it and say it's more ethical than it was, and I can look at other organizations now that I've like learned how to look for those things in the business environment, like, oh, it's really nice that they do that. Like I like the way that they're they're treating people there. It looks like they're focusing on you know building uh healthy long-term sustainable relationships rather than trying to grab a quick buck. Um, you know, those those kind of questions of like how do we how do we get along? Um also happening in in tandem with uh like who am I? So this this who am I, this uh love and curiosity, and if I'm gonna love, I'm gonna love everybody, I'm gonna love myself, I'm gonna love you know these different concepts, like then I have to.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

keep that curiosity stoked and uh and and notice where it's up against something and then uh you know uh uh what what I'm saying when I I'm I'm saying uh you know what's my place in the world and is it is it worth it and can I positively benefit anybody like what what I'm saying is like uh I don't know who I am and what I do know I don't like and I don't think there's any way for us to get along and uh and that's that's kind of the the landscape you know so you're in this landscape and I've I've I've never been in a landscape an environment where like some movement is impossible you know movement of of thought movement of attitude movement of of uh body um all all all of that relevant so a parkour to me is like being able to get like a total honest uh view of the environments that you're in social environments the physical environments the mental environments and ask yourself like what's possible and like what's gonna like what's gonna get me where I'm going dude I love that so alright ten years in now right or right rough rough roughly ten years in that one of the questions you already answered is do you have a facility that you practice at because I've seen you do videos where you're in this really cool looking indoor place wherever the hell that is that place looks sick with the moss on the walls and stuff man that place looks awesome I didn't know if that was your place because that's a beautiful setup man but uh yeah talk to me about like well aren't you correct me if I'm wrong you're from New Jersey? So what made you want to go to New York City to start parkour? Because I mean having lived in New York City for 10 years you got Central Park and that's about it man. There's not a lot so like why New York City and then like talk to me about these pop-ups and these events that you guys have what uh NYC moves events and stuff man because you got some awesome videos there. Again I I'm I love from afar Jess like I really do uh the the stuff that you guys do. I I really would love to bring that to Pittsburgh we have more parks than New York City um we actually are the only city that has a national park in the city um but like just like yeah why New York City and talk to you about these pop-ups, these events like how yeah how are you these this large parkour organization that doesn't have a place yeah I'm I'm I'm trying to remember whether Christ has like a Halprin fountain uh from my understanding there's only two places here that do parkour there's a Steel City Parkour which is an awesome awesome place but the problem is in Pittsburgh there's no direct routes anywhere so even though if you look on the map it says like 18 miles it's about an hour drive for me. But I take my kids there as much as we can I absolutely love it but it's a it's a huge indoor warehouse that does great stuff but there's nothing there's really nothing out here man because I love parkour I want to get my kids into it. I've tried to get my uh my my clients where we where we we uh hire them for like a Saturday and we bring like I bring all my clients there and I teach them parkour skills like I yeah I we need stuff like that uh you need moving movement creative here in in Pittsburgh but again why why New York City man like you know what where are these pop-ups like how do you how do you operate so just kind of curious as far as that stuff yeah so we we so it's been 10 years now since uh Caitlyn and Nikki left we had five years before that started 2011 okay 20 26 so we're fifth 15 in and I think the the biggest thing is that wanted to create the kind of learning and training environments that I had when I was uh grow growing up so I uh I've gotten out on almost every like subway stop and like wandered that that area like finding finding spots and I I coach at a Tuesday night session if anybody's ever in New York uh Tuesday 630 to 830 all ages all all abilities um we're we go out to a different different spot every week okay um we call it weatherproof and uh that's what we're that's what we're up against we want to cultivate like a playful resilient attitude no matter what kind of conditions are around us but we and and and we've heard and like I I I hear you you say Central Park we've heard uh you know people say like it this has helped them fall in love with the city because we know all of these like beautiful uh you know landscape architecture different places that like you would never go to if it wasn't in your neighborhood but you go there and you're like oh I want to climb on that I want to jump on that I want to balance on that like oh there's this this challenge so we for for Tuesday nights we go to like a different one every every week so we might not be back at the same one for 10 or 15 weeks and you're gonna get to see like okay now it's a different season I've been training or I haven't been training like what's what's different here and uh it it kind of stops

New York As A Playground: Programs And Pop-Ups

SPEAKER_00 49:30

uh what I notice if I do the same environment like time in time out where I start to uh get expectations for myself around the environment um so we we our biggest program this is like 90% of what we do is called parkour adventure and parkour adventure is uh you we either pick the kids up from school or uh we work with schools or parents drop the kids off at the park we have two coaches there they wander around the neighborhood doing various uh parkour exercises um and uh then they end up back at the spot and and that's the that's the that's the show it's a 20-week uh program when we run it ourselves when we work with schools we work with whatever kind of weeks they give us um you know some schools we can go to a local park some schools say you can use this as a classroom and you we bring in some phone blocks um that I would say is not not really like a parkour adventure program like it's still really cool we can have a great time um and I think there's something really special of like reimagining classroom benches and curves and rocks and uh I think I think it's a little harder to develop the parkour vision when um when you're used to like couple foam foam blocks that you jump over. So how many schools are you currently working with I think that's that's that's awesome and I want to talk more about that.

SPEAKER_02 51:10

Yeah uh so you know I had that original goal of 100 and um in COVID so 2020 it's just nine nine years in we had gotten to 14 programs um public schools and private schools title one schools and real real nice schools schools that are like incredibly like strict and demanding uh expecting like disciplined students and schools that are really like kind of creative and accepting and uh expect uh the individual students um students to really be them be be their their totally own person and all of those create like really different environments. We're only in a few schools right now we have like some cherished relationships like when all of those stopped uh we really didn't know what to do that was the main model uh we really hadn't run our own after school program um and during that time we we got up and we met every day said I'm gonna I'm gonna be up and meeting at nine like you know to trying to connect with like how we know that we're meeting a critical need with the work that we do and we know it's not possible in this environment and like what can we do? And we got we got some cool opportunities we tried to do some things online and you know we actually got uh one of the park contracts uh shifted from a a class series to us putting up a bunch of challenges around the park with QR codes and videos showing like different ways to use a different area um you know there's like a there's a a a version of movement creative that has like sparked the local groups to create like tens of thousands of different movement challenges in every park in the in and and then and then goes to goes to city orgs and and says like hey like a new playground is expensive but changing the way people see the existing environment is is is cheap. We're gonna go in we're gonna I mean it's not gonna be cheap cheap but it's not you know two million dollar playground yeah expensive like and and uh yeah I I I I really like to work with schools above the the those cherished partners I would say you know the greatest one of my one of my proudest accomplishments is that when I was a teenager I was being like picked out of parks for doing parkour and I was like really checked out of school and not participating and I didn't pass it myself. And now like we've worked with a a high school in the city where those kids are going out with us jumping around outside doing parkour and it counts as high school food. That's sick so the the the it has gone from uh you know scram to wait come back here like let me pay you for this like this is really good yeah you know and it and it's just like one little instance but it's that like once something like that happens it becomes like undeniable and uh and it's like rooted it's like how could we make this happen more that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 55:14

So are these all after school programs or are some of them like kind of during during school like PE type of activities or or both?

SPEAKER_02 55:22

That one was uh in in school PE uh we we run typically we run after school we've run we've gotten a chance to run like several different PE programs over the years. We are like we're we're we're looking to do more of that because I'm also working on a on a business level um going from like can we pay like the best hourly to like uh such a uh strange concept for me I've always like or or I had always like looked at like excellence and I read this book by Sven Brinkman uh uh Dane that talked about like the value of being mediocre and uh you know he's sitting in his in his like Aarhus uh college and with the other teachers there and they're all talking about how they're gonna be the best in the world and um and he can also see that like well there needs to be like that could be a little better like and and I think what what happens is sometimes when we're pursuing like excellence in one lane we allow and kind of like let let to to to follow like so many other things in our lives and that's like the that's the price of the pursuit so that this was a this was just a striking thought for me. I'm not like you know pursuing mediocrity uh everywhere but but seeing that like uh you know I want to be like like I had felt so firm in like we pay the best because we pay you know the best hourly that I had missed that like you know what about pensions what about benefits what of like uh what about health insurance what about uh so so now um I'm trying to figure out how I can like regularly create the job of a physical educator and and pay more than the average physical educator makes in New York City. So I'm not saying like I want to pay more than anybody but if I can pay more than average then I can I can I I can attract talent um without having to have them compromise their opportunities.

Schools, After-School, And Pandemic Pivots

SPEAKER_00 58:01

Yeah for sure now one of the uh the things I I find super interesting with you and your business is you seem to make your own equipment right now has that always been you've always been kind of like a woodworker you've always been interested in like building stuff man or is that just something that kind of fell into your lap where like there's this need of like alright I'm doing parkour but we need some stuff like I can only use a bench you know we need we need something you know I mean I can't hang like I don't know about the regulations for some of the parks but like I can't hang from every tree because I'll get in trouble.

SPEAKER_02 58:35

You know so I gotta create some kind of rig or you know um yeah well uh I for first of all I think if I had if if this if my company existed when I was a kid I think I might work for me. And I think that's pretty cool. That's really cool yeah for sure uh because because I I I wanted to have a job as a coach like I didn't want to learn how to become a salesperson. I didn't want to learn how to like do uh design or make make decisions or like you know any any anything like I wanted I wanted to like okay like uh I can't make it doing the thing like maybe I can make it teaching the thing or something like that. Like that's probably about as far as it went but if I looked around I could see my friends that were teaching these classes sometimes there's 40 kids in the class and we're we're like looking at the prices and it's like 20 25 bucks like it was like 2006 2007 and uh and my friends making like 12 bucks an hour or like maybe 14 bucks an hour. It's like I can't what what can you like that's that's not gonna work like that's not so it's like okay like we have to make a job that could work a little bit better than that and it's like the same thing with the equipment like my my I have to get a lot of credit to my mom um she had all of her father's tools and she taught me how to use them and uh and the the rule was always like if I had a plan then I could build a thing. So I I was building ball boxes when I was like in my teenage years uh I was um I was I was pouring concrete and like building uh like walls and things to swing on and stuff in the in the backyard. Like I I liked working with my hands and there there wasn't like an an option for what like we needed um that I saw out there. Like I I think I probably could have we probably could have gotten it together to get some like foam blocks. Like we you know we use those now we'll get like a a four stack trap trap trapezoid uh foam set and we can roll that in and um it it doesn't weigh that much people can move it around um but I yeah I I kind of uh all all the equipment we made was kind of like what's the what's what's gonna work in these like New York City classrooms and what's gonna work in these like New York City spaces. So um the vault box was this like quintessential parkour piece of equipment it's just like you know maybe three feet high or four feet high and you can do different faults on it kind of like a portable wall and I show up to my school program uh one of my first ones at a school called Quest to learn and I um try to roll my three foot vault boxes in that's 36 inches and um they were also 36 inches wide on the bottom and the door was uh 28 and a half inches. So so then then like okay like we know there's like a little angle there this doesn't fit but what's the highest we can do so we did 30 inch vault boxes I had to go back didn't have equipment that we built new vault boxes like got them in and I think that was the last school or one of the last schools that we like brought vault boxes to so we started asking like what what could we do and like we have these like now like long boxes and short boxes that we can fit bars into we can like take those out and we can build a playground in a classroom in under 10 minutes we can put it back down put it away and it's like off to the side many years another crazy thing we would do is like take that 400 pound box and like tilt it on its side and then it's like a whole playground literally in a 12 by 12 square. So one square foot yeah like held held a playground but um it required like the the kind of stupidity of somebody like willing to throw a 400 pound box up on its end. Well that's where the moving experience comes in right yeah see everything comes full circle though um yeah and that those those trainers I think I got the idea from uh hub part parkour training center and uh kind of like the shape and I I just wanted something that was like a really clean just really clean shape uh for for practicing as like a learning uh like a balanced spot or like a landing target. Nice so when you do like your pop-ups or the NYC move or when you do every you teach every Tuesday I mean do you just have like a truck you just throw all this equipment in and you guys just drive the truck around or is it kind of like you know there's food trucks everywhere do you have just like a parkour truck that you just kind of that have and oh there goes the movement collective and we just know when you see that truck man yeah so I have a I have a van I've got a uh uh the longest and tallest uh uh ram bromaster that you can get so I can stand up inside of it um and we've got a little like solar setup and deck up on the roof so people can jump off and flip off the roof and got a got a fridge in there and um and then we can we can get a really decent amount of uh equipment in there we can get it it's a 12 foot bed um a lot of uh uh the pre-mates equipment is four feet um wide so you know I can I can get several different sets of that stuff and the stuff I build is all like four four feet wide so I can just like really stack it in and then for like move we get a so that's like a huge festival that we do in lower reside every year Memorial Day weekend um we get hundreds of people out and we fill up a full soccer field with like all sorts of different bars we have like it's gotta be like 25,000 pounds of equipment or something we get a 26 foot truck uh we're loading the van too sometimes we're taking like multiple trips uh for several years we were doing this up on the rooftop of a school which required like every single piece to be hand carried up the stairs um you know it took hundreds of of uh people hours to get up there and now we you know we're usually like right outside the door of the field we can roll everything in and then um build it up and change it up and it's all like a giant game of of uh like Lagos and uh we're playing with Kinex.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:59

Uh We we do have like a plan beforehand which is kind of like b begrudging to me. I had the opportunity to work in uh Shenzhen with an organization called Playable Design and like one of the things that they do is just dump a hundred thousand Legos into a town square and then like let people build whatever they want. Like all like it over the course of a week, people will build just a million different things. And I imagine what it would be like to just drop all of these different components and have everybody just like build something that's never been built before so we can do something that's never been

Designing And Building Portable Parkour Equipment

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

done before. Um, so all of that is stored up on a property here. Um a couple years ago, I took over my teacher's land, it's seven acres in Westchester. We run retreats here. We have uh we have a little cliff that we can climb and bouldering area. We've got like a dry stream bed for jumping around on, we have a wood fire sauna. Um, we've got a lot of a lot of woods, trails, we're building a sweat lodge, like we're and we have a big uh parkour park. Um I guess it's all it's all a parkour park, but we have all of the equipment from that event and stuff that we bring to our various city events and schools, and uh we can just build it and play with it however we will.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

That's awesome, man. Um did I hear correct somewhere that you uh crawled backwards up the Empire State Building? Yeah, uh why and how'd that go and how far did you make it?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

Um yeah, so uh that's one of those like crazy ideas, another example of like you can't you can't almost like you can't think of something you can't do. Uh let's talk about like friend Craig Constantine, and we kind of joked about how there's uh Empire State Building run, and we're like, uh what if we QA'd that? So we started like emailing them like pretty regularly, and um and it like we just weren't getting anything, and I think at some point I finally, you know, it's just like how do I change my communication strategy? I finally got someone to respond and say, like, that's really cool, and we can let you do that. Um I was like fine, whatever. Uh maybe, maybe one day I will get to do it on in the actual building, but we decided that we would go to uh Central Park and Bethesda Terrace has like these two like 20 sets of stairs. Just like they're nice stairs. And so that's that's 40 stairs, a I want to say I think it's like 1581 or something, like 1576. Um so if you did like 40 40 times backwards up, um that would be 1600 stairs. And we got there at 7 a.m. We had 15 people show up, and this was uh this was uh uh one of our one of our bestogis. So every year we try to do uh an impossible task, like invite everybody to like go up against the impossible because uh it's such a nourishing experience uh to find the place in yourself that can like keep pushing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:48

You know, that's that's like a place that I would visit quite often in my early training, and um I think I did it so much that maybe I maybe I hurt myself or I didn't I I didn't grow in the ways that I wanted to. But as I started to like let go of that, I I knew I couldn't let go of it completely because it had taught me like too too much. Yeah, like I think it is really beautiful to watch the ego shift and like the motivation like it's stripped away, like you know, I'm gonna keep going because I look good. It's like, well it doesn't look good anymore, buddy. Yeah. You gonna keep going? It's like, yeah, I'm gonna keep going. Like, you know, could you do it if it mattered? Could you do it if you had to do this to save somebody? Could you? And you know, and it just like it just unkeals the onion and it like shows you like what really drives you. So we ended up doing uh like a couple different options there. I think we also we calculated the perimeter of the building, and there's a nice climbing traverse at Bethesda Terrace. So if you did that climbing traverse 40 times, then you climb you're climbing around the building, and then uh reverse crawling like up the building. Um and and you know, like I I'm I'm stoked. Like we gave ourselves like a hard, I think it was six hours or something, and uh I was able to go like to the left climbing around the building, to the right climbing around the building, and and backwards up. Um Christina uh Petitci was uh who's who's our uh programming director, she was the first person to complete it. Um Deepak, who showed up uh like an hour late, and like two days after a breakup, was the second person to complete it. And and then there was some like kind of like social game, like if you had completed, you could continue and kind of like take reps off of other people so we could all finish together. Um and like I would say if I completed it, it wasn't really an impossible challenge. So I I really admire someone who I saw they took the the student Iris, like they took it it might have been like 30 minutes to get up the first set of stairs. And it might have been another 45 to get up the next. And then they had like I think I think they were at like 15 or 20 by the end. Like something had shifted and they were able to push like so much easier. And that was just really, really fascinating. Um another guy didn't finish, like he decided he was gonna do a push-up on every stair. That was Joseph. Joseph, like so every time he took one step crawling backwards up the stairs against the feet, he would do a push-up. And it's gonna be 1600 push-ups on top of the 1600 stairs.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:57

Um the next day.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:03

I feel good. Yeah, I don't know. There there's that like the we're blistered and calloused and sore all over. I I feel a deep peace in in exhaustion and uh No, I I mean I yeah, I think I have pretty tough hands. Like I made it one of my my missions like pretty pretty early on that I wanted to like dog pause. Like dogs can dogs can crawl. It's not a big deal to them. They're not like showing how tough they are, they're just having a good time. And um and and and ultimately, like I think you know, this practice and when it can be helpful, and and a lot of practice, uh, a lot of why I like um these things that wake up parts of our mind as we're practicing, is like there's there is no repetition. Like every single one is different, and if we can develop the sensitivity, then we can like adjust. Like so, you you can run a mile in a way that hurts your body, and you can run a mile in a way that makes you stronger. And um, I think I think it's kind of like our our job, you know. I I'm I'm crawling and I'm uh across the bridge during another one, and my shoulder is just like aching, right? But like, by my shoulder, why not my other shoulder? Why am I putting too much on that and not enough on this? And like, can I do this a little different? And like imperceptible shifts in the body, and then the tension moves, and I put it somewhere else. It's like, okay, like can I become aware of that? Versus like no pain, no gain, tough, tough through it.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:48

Um yeah. Okay. Um yeah, I'd be remiss if I didn't sorry, circle back to uh talk about equipment and everything that you made. Uh recently you came out with deck cards that's just got uh I don't know how many cards are, there's a lot, uh, that have games and drills and challenges,

The Van, The Festival, And A Field Of Bars

SPEAKER_00 1:15:10

right? That whole that whole um what we're talking about earlier with the mental coaching model. You made it into a deck of cards, and on top of it you also have modifiers, and it's really one beautifully done. So I don't know the company you went through or if you made them yourself. They're they're really, really nice. And then two, like, what a great idea, man. Like, what the hell? Where where'd you get the idea for that? And like, I mean, they're so fun. I use them with with the kids in here, I'll let them, you know, they come in, pick, pick your cards, whatever it is, man. Let's go. Um, you know, it's just it's simple, it's fun. Kids look forward to doing it because it's I mean, shh, I don't I I didn't count, but like there's what, 50, 60 cards here, man. Like, what where'd you get the idea for that? What what a great idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:57

Um I want to kind of marry two like stories and and concepts here into this. So so one, like my first teaching opportunity that I I didn't really feel like I could say no to and really opened up um us in into um working with schools and uh me seeing that this could be a good thing was working with uh Institute of Play and Quest to Learn in New York City. So Institute of Play was a uh educational think tank that worked with a school called Quest to Learn and made all of their uh programming in like uh into game-based learning. So they had a little boss level there, and the first one was like uh they did a parkour boss level, and it was like as you imagine a parkour class could be. Um just just like in parkour, I'm I I'm looking at what's uniquely possible. I I want to say like what can only we cook together, you know? So uh we talked about that, and the next time we ran a parkour boss level, we made it a movement game design um uh week. So we talked about the elements of game design, we talked about the games that we knew, we uh put those into this framework, and we like created games that would help us get better at the things that we want to get better at. And that's a big route to this. And then another route is seeing Il Chile talk in at at Columbia in uh 2015, uh, I think. And Il Il Chilee had just written a book called I've Decided to Live to 120. Um he's uh South Korean and he uh had started a school that uh didn't believe in teachers, uh curriculum, um tests, grades, um, any any of those things. And he put put kids in this environment, um, and then kind of said, What do you what are you gonna do? And the kids came up with their own project. We're gonna walk across Korea, and like by doing that, they had to have all sorts of uh language skills, they had to have all sorts of uh of math skills, like budgeting, like uh negotiating, talking with people about what to do, making a plan, like learning how to read a math. Like they ended up uh outperforming their peers in other schools. And we I I I resisted a curriculum for a really long time. I really thought like, you know, let all the coaches go out and do whatever they think is best. And uh and now I would say I I can very clearly see the difference between like a floor and a ceiling, and I see a curriculum as a floor. Like we're gonna raise up the floor. This is these this is tools, like it should never be worse than this. Uh, here's uh a platform. If you're not feeling inspired today, like uh you shouldn't suffer, or your students shouldn't suffer, here's here's some ideas. So we've we've spent various ways of like creating curriculum over the years, and uh, and I still felt like when I go out to a spot and I think about what I'm gonna coach that day, I'm thinking about like what I'm passionate about, and I'm running through this like list of hundreds of different activities. And I'll even say, like, what activity could I never play here? And I'll figure out like how to make it work. Uh, there's no way to do tag with two people, and you figure out how to make it work. Uh uh so so this deck of cards is like it's like a portion of it's kind of like some of our greatest hits, is things that like the team has enjoyed that they've done pretty well, and we felt like could also work for people that didn't have a lot of parkour experience. Um this is kind of like how my brain works when I go out to a spot. I'm kind of looking through the cards. And now I can actually physically look through the cards, um, which which I I love. And I like I want them to be changed, I want them to be like wrestled with, I want them to be, and uh, and I feel I feel good about them. Um it's also something like, you know, we made it, we have no idea if it's gonna work. And we we they're uh you know, they're America-made, printed, and they're PVC, so they're weatherproof, um, they'll they'll last. And it's uh it's intimidating to order a bunch of uh hard product and and say like let's see if this works. And uh in the past few months we've like almost sold out of our first batch. It looks like we are gonna re-up, which is also intimidating. But uh, I think you know the big validation is I see it kind of being used also by our team. Um you know we have a team of coaches, so if our team actually uses it, then it might be it might be good.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:40

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:44

Well, Jess, uh they're awesome. I think um there's so it's such a cool idea to just like just put it down in a deck of cards. I mean, we'll it's it's the gamifying your your thought process already, which is something you talked about kind of doing. Um, you know, you you you got it there, so if someone doesn't know what to do, it's it's just chance and it's random and they're all fun. I've gone through all of them. Uh they're they're it's super cool. Uh it's just such a great idea. Um so kudos to you and your team for that, man. Um but uh listen, I don't want to take too much more of a time. We're running on an hour and a half, brother. Listen, I want to say, and I'm gonna give you your flowers here, man. I and I'm not just trying to kiss your ass to kiss your ass. I I mean this sincerely. The work you're doing's awesome.

Impossible Tasks: Backward Crawling The Empire State (Sort Of)

SPEAKER_00 1:22:30

Please continue doing it. You're doing a great service. You're helping people outside of New York City. Um, as someone who's watched you from afar now for a few years, you know, dude, you the stuff you're doing's awesome. I I used to live in New York City. Uh I wish I I haven't been there since 2010. So uh I I wish I knew about I wish you were there when I was there, man. Um, you know, you're you're doing awesome stuff. You're helping people, you're introducing movements, you're you're creating challenges. I mean, we're not this day and age society. We don't need to get into that. That's a work a whole other fucking podcast. We're not moving enough, man. And you're doing uh it's a it's a service well needed. Helping kids, helping people move more, man. I I love anyone that's doing that. I wanted to get you on because I I'm very inspired by your story, I'm very inspired by what your company's doing. Um so I want to say thank you. Continue doing it, man. You're doing good shit, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:33

Wow. Cool. Thank you. Yeah, that's that's really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:40

Yeah, now you just gotta restock your shirts so I can buy a shirt or two. You don't have any more shirts in my size, man. Uh get some more equipment. I I keep wanting to get some equipment for you guys. It's all out of stock. You you make listen, this this is awesome. This is uh I have uh a trainer for anyone fucking listening to this who can't hear what I'm holding up. Uh these trainers are awesome. I use them every day with my clients, whether with the kids or my adults, they're really well made. They don't slide. Uh you got the nice rubber flooring, uh, which is great. I know you make them for uh uh for lots of reasons, but for people who have apartments in New York City paying fucking ridiculous amount of money for small apartments that you know, um, you know, they're they're they're awesome, man. So no, uh thank you. If you could restock so I could order something, that'd be great. But other than that, just that's my that's my two cents, dude. You're you're you're doing awesome work. Please keep it up, moving creative. I'll uh I'll link all that stuff in the show notes to to people listening, man. But you know, last last few words, man. Uh my podcast is called the Down the Rabbit Hole, and it's all about these rabbit holes that we we we find ourselves down, man. And you know, you kind of use the phrase stoke your curiosity, which to me just is another way of saying down a rabbit hole. So, what currently just is stoking your curiosity here in 2026?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:04

Well, I think the yeah, the uh I I I love that man. And I really love this experience. This has been um pretty wild, you know. I uh really try to make sure I'm not just like you know repeating the same sound bites and whatever. Like it really feels like uh I I came alive here. I got to look at those parts of myself and get earnest with it. Um yeah, I what's alive for me now is like I have um more models, like ones that are like not as relevant necessarily to to movement that look into kind of like how we show up in in life. They've come from like different uh different like kind of lineages that I've studied in, and I I've tried to kind of like dissect these different exercises and still them and um I'm making these like big uh mind maps. You know, the the first one I did was with my wife, and I didn't really think very much of it. I thought maybe this could be nice, and I I did it for one of my retreats that I run, and she did it for a retreat that she runs. And then uh you know, I showed my therapist, and he's like, oh, that's really good stuff, started asking questions, sort of like unpacking. I showed it to one of my mentors, and then I showed it to my business coach, and everybody's like, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen, like this is amazing, like cool. It's like, you know, this is like a like uh this is a real life character sheet. This is like understanding what your values and priorities and motivations are, and like and uh goes through like a series of some of the most powerful exercises I've I've ever done to like understand myself and to also like align and be congruent within a within a group. So this is a a really big and and right um new thing in my life. I I've been working with my wife for 10 years now, basically, some capacity. Uh and I I realized that I I you know hear that she wanted to do something, and then I would like kind of go on my own and try to help make that happen. And uh doing this exercise helps me understand like what she values about that thing, what experiences she's had in doing that thing that have like really brought her uh a sense of self and like what kind of experiences she's trying to create, but what uh what the project can't look like, absolutely not, and what what it has to and look like, and what she really doesn't want to do, but she knows is important, maybe somebody else. To do. All that kind of thing. So I started doing that with more clients. I have my my whole Fluid Creative leadership team coming up here this weekend. So we're going to be visioning, revisioning the company, working on our various like projects, but we're also going to be doing this mind map as individuals and uh as a as a group to get us all to realign. So that's my rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:28

That's awesome, man. Very cool. Well, thank you for sharing that. And uh again, thank you for your time, man. I know we're we're we ran a bit, but uh it was it was well worth it. You have a great story, man. You're doing beautiful things. Uh I love it, man. Keep it up. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:44

Thank you.