This is Exo. Super nice guy. You may have seen him flipping off walls here and there around the island, followed by burgeoning parkour enthusiasts.
What’s parkour? It is “the activity or sport of moving rapidly through an area, typically in an urban environment, negotiating obstacles by running, jumping, and climbing.” Watch YouTube videos of people doing it from rooftop to rooftop and your stomach will turn.
Paul Freedman’s 6th grade Salmonberry class met him a few months ago on their final class trip to New York City and enjoyed their parkour instruction with him so much that Paul invited him to lead a one-week kids’ camp and some 3-hour older kid/adult evenings here on Orcas Island.
Since our 9-year-old is often doing couch acrobatics, it sounded like a great opportunity. Seventeen other kids thought so too.
On the last day of camp, Exo mentioned that his final adult class would be that night and that it’d be alright for me to take some photos, so here’s a little peek at what they were doing. (Don’t try this on your own without some instruction. The young man doing flips in these photos has been practicing parkour on his own for some time, and everything takes time.)
I’ll post the videos I have soon, and write more when I have a moment. All I can say is that I was jealous I hadn’t joined the class, as Exo had recommended. I showed up to take photos in a skirt and sandals and longed for my shorts and running shoes as I followed them through their urban-ish playground.
