The Rochester Community

Upstate New York has, in the span of a year, become a bustling and lively community. Since the launch of Rochester Parkour, exposure has sky-rocketed and more and more people are coming out to see what parkour truly is.

Rochester is a great example of what can happen to an area with just a website and a couple of motivated practitioners. It is a new community, barely a year old, and already boasts over a hundred followers. Within this year, we have also been given wonderful opportunities to get media coverage ranging from TV interviews to newspaper articles.

As the school year came to an end, I wondered what, if anything, would happen to the community. The community here is mostly college students, who leave during the Summer, either back home or abroad. I was more than prepared to keep advertising, but settle for smaller group sessions of 1-5 traceurs.

This is where the power that just one strong media piece can bring shines. Our first Summer session jam had 15 new arrivals, 8 more on the second. Most of this group of 23 found us through our local newspaper, The Democrat and Chronicle or the Rochester Insider. The rest had done a simple google search.

Rochester really shines in the Summer, and the extra free time has allowed the group to travel more and experience other spots in the city, rather than our home location of Manhattan Square Park.

I am proud to say that the Rochester community is alive and kicking and is no longer a group derived of RIT friends, but a sustainable and growing city wide community, with influence reaching through universities, high schools, and now several businesses. I am eager to see where this next and upcoming year will take Zac and I, and also Rochester as a whole.

Charles Moreland