For two-and-half days over the weekend of June12-14, the MN Parkour Community had the distinct pleasure of hosting the annual Midwest Jam in Minneapolis and surrounding area for the first time, gathering a group of more than 40 traceurs/traceueses to train, socialize, and generally have a great time.  Read on for a HUGE detailed description of the weekend.

In the early evening on Friday, a small group of people arrived at the house of Mitch “Skinny” Andrejka, gracious host and founder of the Parkour community in the Twin Cities.  A short run around Minnehaha Park along the riverbed served as a warm-up for the small group, with the Chicago guys arriving around 11pm.  A relaxing evening in the backyard around a fire left of few of us locals wondering if the small number of out-of-towners would be a sign of the jam on Saturday, but we were pleasantly surprised.   

At 11am Saturday morning, we converged onto the University of MN campus, in front of Coffman Memorial Union, our standard meeting place for all jams.  The weather was a perfect 70 degrees and sunny, and over 40 people were there ready to go!  Ryan “Cloud” Cousins from Aero Chicago led a quick warm-up/stretching session in the still-wet grass of the Coffman lawn, while others replaced the standard warm-up with some flips, precisions, and the age-old warm-up of sitting around in the sun, watching others warm up.  This was also the first unveiling of the new MNPK t-shirts, designed by Mycroft (sorry, don’t know your real name) and Matt “mospunk” Mitchell.  After Skinny and Matt returned from running back to the car to grab a few more shirts, we were ready to begin, although a few had already started with precisions, wallruns, and a few flips at the bus stop along Washington Avenue in front of Coffman. 

The group moved through campus, following the usual route for most jams, encompassing approximately five or six hotspots with a diverse layout of structure and architecture, ranging from loading dock to handi-capped entrance rail system to the “beer can” – a small circular concrete section of a building surrounded by the main part of the building, creating a fantastic tic-tac playground.  With such a big group, it was extremely fun to watch each traceur find new and creative ways to use our training spots, and challenge each other to accomplish new feats.   

There were two occasions on campus when the police approached us, causing a bit of tension, seeing as the U recently sent a letter to the U of MN Parkour and Freerunning Club stating that they would not allow us to train on campus after some of us had met with university officials to introduce ourselves, explain what we do, and create a relationship and awareness so that we could train on campus legitimately.  The first officer, a heavily tattooed man on a bike, stopped and asked what we were doing.  Seeing a decent number of matching MNPK shirts, I think his fears were allayed, and he explained that the university security force had met just the night before specifically regarding Parkour (strange coincidence, or karma?).  The official instructions to the officers were to express safety concerns to the practitioners and remind them to be safe and respectful, and then turn their backs.  Triumph number 1!  Later on, an officer on a motorcycle drove up and asked us what we were doing.  When we replied with Parkour, he mentioned how he had seen it in France a few years earlier.  We told him that we were moving on soon, and he replied, “I’m not asking you to move on.  We just had a call expressing concern for your safety.”  It seems that this has become the official line, and with that, we discovered that the U has covered its back, but will allow us to train.  It’s also difficult to see such a huge group as a group of trouble-makers, especially with so many matching t-shirts.   

Break for lunch in Stadium Village…some wallflips at the alumni monument to impress a few bikini-clad girls, and we were off to downtown. 

We hit up “the Pit” first – a monument to the bridges over the Mississippi, consisting of railings around a pit, with two little footbridges across it.  The beauty about it is that the pit is filled with pea gravel, which makes for a nice landing.  While waiting for the whole group to arrive, some of the guys played “Trick” and generally worked on flips and other movements.  The spectacle continued once the rest arrived, including a beautiful front flip over the railing into the pit by Cody, and a huge double-leg over the railing by Cloud.  From there, it was time to move on to Loring Park and the Greenway, on the other side of downtown. 

There’s a small playground with unique architecture at the edge of the Greenway with sand, where more flips, vaults, and tricks were practiced.  The area is littered with possibilities for everything from precisions to wallruns to freerunning of all kinds.  Once again, the police drove by (on a three-wheeled Segway no less), and said nothing!  My faith in the Minneapolis Police Dept. was heartily renewed.  At this spot we had our first semi-big injury.  Collin from River Falls went for a precision, his feet slipped, and he landed with the back of his thighs grinding against the ledge, leaving him with some nasty road rash.  Altogether, this was no big deal, just a whole lot of stinging Parkour goodness. 

From there we attempted to hit up plaza next to Orchestra Hall which we call “the Organ,” but there was huge blues festival going on and it was crawling with people.  After checking it out for a bit, Chad, Cloud and Brandon (Madison) did some flips on the corner, which drew the attention of a few photographers there.  Chad also did a wicked line of backflips down the street, finishing in front of a small crowd.  Of course he had to repeat it for the camera.  It was a fitting end to a great day of training!  We went back to Skinny’s for the BBQ with food by Mr and Mrs. Skinny and chicken and ribs supplied by Joe  aka “Vexar”.  After dinner, Matt Mitchell held a raffle for some prizes he picked up, namely an APK bag, APK water bottle, “Be Free” t-shirt, a long-sleeved APK T, a MNPK T, and a copy of District B-13.  During this time, Clark “Carcass” Anderson interviewed a few people for his documentary on the MN Parkour scene, set to come out next spring sometime.  Over the course of the weekend, he captured about 360 minutes on film.  The night ended with a showing of footage of the day, followerd by Ong Bak: Thai Warrior. 

Sunday.  We had discussed at the BBQ either heading to downtown St. Paul for the day, or up to Taylors Falls State Park along the St. Croix river, and I think no one regrets choosing the latter.  It was yet another gorgeous day, but much hotter.  Chad’s group (Madison crew) arrived around 12:30, with Skinny’s group (Chicago/Michigan/TC) arriving about an hour later.  We started out by exploring the area, working on precisions and simpler movements to get used to the uneven ground.  After Skinny’s group arrived, it was on!  It’s difficult to describe all of what went on, and how the terrain is laid out, sufficient to say that Taylors Falls is mostly rocky cliffs along the river, with amazing geologic formations called potholes, creating a vertical maze of adventure for climbers, hikers, and traceurs alike.  There was a massive game of Lava, in which we circumnavigated the whole park from one end to the other, free climbing and precisioning our way around, reconnecting to the starting point by catwalking the gate that closes off the main path/vehicle access.  One of the guys (Cody?) discovered a visually stunning precision drop (10-12 feet) down to a ledge that was surrounded by a 15-foot drop on either side.  Cody, Cloud, Chad, and Brandon all nailed it, with quite a crowd watching from above.  Other fun involved scaling down to the river, tic-tacing over the path at various points, precision jumping through the trees without touching any leaf, and some solid gap jumping.  To finish the day, one of the guys had found a wallrun to a small hold about 12 feet up on incredibly slippery rock, leading to a free climb up and out of a pothole.  This was the challenge required to earn milkshakes in town thereafter.  I believe it’s fair to say that we put Taylors Falls on the map for Parkour in a huge way! 

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