Jake: Hello! I have a few starter questions. How old are you, and how long have you been training?
Kenneth: Sure, I am 25 and I have been training for about 5 years. Admittedly though much of that time has been in medical school, so my training was nowhere near as rigorous as many traceurs out there.
Jake: Of course, I get that. But you first started 5 years ago?
Kenneth: Yep.
Jake: Why?
Kenneth: Well, at the time I was in Japan, studying some Chinese acupuncture and I had some down time. During this time I discovered the David Belle videos from Rush Hour, and did more research as it was a natural extension of my background. That's when I found out about Ryan Ford and his interest in starting Colorado Parkour as we know it. As soon as I got back to Colorado, I started training with Ryan, and the rest is history.
Jake: You're in Colorado?
Kenneth: Yes.
Jake: Awesome, I didn't know that. Where are your favorite training spots?
Kenneth: Of course Cat Fountain, relatively any hiking trail, and actually... I love gyms. (safety first) Colorado Mines is great too.
Jake: I've never been up there. Where in CO are you?
Kenneth: That's a good question. I grew up in Fort Collins, Went to CU boulder, and now live in D-West Golden area. But I am setting up my clinic in Lafayette. So, almost everywhere nowadays. I travel a lot.
Jake: Such is the life of a traceur, eh?
Kenneth: Absolutely.
Jake: So what does your PK training look like?
Kenneth: Now? Mostly at home and local stuff. A lot of basic training. More than anything, I'm studying various techniques, and the muscles/joint function behind each technique to better understand each motion, and the ideal way to perform each technique. To be blunt, setting up the business has taken priority, and my training is starting at ground zero again. So on a normal day, I may focus on core exercises, and jumping/landing techniques. Monkeys, kongs, all the basics. A lot of quadrupedal exercises.
Jake: Well, best of luck on the business. Work before play right? When you first found out about Parkour, what were you like in regards to your training? What were the beginnings like for you?
Kenneth: I would say that I was fairly talented. I had a background in martial arts, a lot of physical sports. And I had more guts than sense at the time. I found myself learning very quickly, mastering very little, but performing a lot of highly difficult techniques. This led to lack of safety and rashness, and like many people, I had to learn the hard way to be safe. Which thankfully I did before anything major happened.
Since then I got married, and studied a lot more about the body, and if anything I am over-cautious now. Its been quite a mental challenge for me, one I never thought I would have to deal with as I was used to learning things very naturally.
Jake: Being over-cautious is a mental challenge for you? Or were you referring to something else?
Kenneth: Over-cautious IS a mental challenge. Nowadays, all I think about are mechanics, long term damage, and physiology. Plus, I have to represent safety, and there is a lot more at stake than just me when I perform a technique. It becomes a future, a life, and a family. This responsibility has led to a lot of doubt, and therefore I am over-cautious, even though I KNOW I can do something, since I have in the past, I have to fight myself. In an odd way, its almost as if mentally I tell myself to fail to teach myself to be MORE cautious. A vicious circle really.
That is as clear as I can make it I think. Maybe it is just age.
Jake: Hah, okay I get it. I just wanted to make sure I had read it right.
So, what kept you training Parkour?
Kenneth: Parkour is in my opinion, one of the BEST of not THE best physical form of training
It is very functional, it is whole body, it is neurological, it is useful. This is the way man was meant to move naturally. What was NOT natural was the pavement, the flat surfaces, and the hard surfaces at the end of a fall, not to be redundant.
But besides that, I am searching for a way to work with APEX gym and set up a special non-parkour parkour class that most my patients won't be intimidated by, because of all the major benefits of training in Parkour. I believe that traceurs as a general are the healthiest people I've seen yet. Not as a rule, but physically, as I've seen it, a trend.
Jake: So you have a bit of a unique perspective of Parkour, with being a Chiropractor (Congrats, by the way, I remember reading on the APK forums not too long ago about it). How do you think your profession relates to the Discipline?
Kenneth: Thank you. Chiropractic in a very general way deals with functional neurology and the joints/muscles of the body. It is the specialty of Chiropractic. How it relates to Parkour is that Parkour is also all about function, efficiency, and development. It is my belief that a lot of the obstacles traceurs face are important, but some others are unnecessary. For example, if there is a technique pattern that a traceur needs to learn to do well, he should train until he gets it. But if there is a injury a traceur needs to train AROUND, this can cause BAD technique due to adaptations of the body during the training. This is a pattern we do not want to develop.
Chiropractic specializes in dealing with the daily and regular issues of the body, to catch adaptations before they are apparent through pain.
It seems obvious to me that to prevent injury due to bad technique, the body would have to be functionally optimally on a structural and neurologic level. The unconscious body you might say.
Jake: So then a good Chiropractor can help prevent Injury?
Kenneth: Absolutely. Just as a bad Chiropractor can create injury. But that's a whole different topic. The thing is, with proper technique traceurs can prevent a lot of agony in the future. But we all learn, and we don't always have perfect technique. The body heals itself, but there are times that the body adapts rather than heals, and the substitute is never as good as the original. A lot of Chiropractic is about stimulating the body to heal itself, working within the natural systems. I could go on, but then I would sound like a TV-ad, which is not my intention. Suffice to say, I think that a lot of benefit could come from a good pairing of Chiropractic care and Parkour, both major and minor benefits.
I particularly love working with traceurs, because they respond very quickly and I can easily say "Go do a cat leap and come back and tell me how it felt". Someday I would love to work on major traceurs like (dream on) David Belle etc etc. Just to work with their bodies would be exciting in itself
Jake: A question I’m sure many people have mulled over at some point in time, and one that I have been thinking about a lot recently is this; If you could ask any of the "Legendary Traceurs" (Say, David Belle just for example) any question, who and what would you ask?
Kenneth: Hmm. What comes to mind first is "how are your knees?". But no seriously, I would probably pick their minds on form and technique. I would definitely ask them if I could record from several different angles their movements and also see if they would be willing to let me study them some. Most people would ask about philosophy or something, but, I have to be honest with myself. ;)
Jake: Do you think you will ever wind up in France to meet some of these guys? Or London?
Kenneth: I sure hope so. Hopefully with enough reputation on working with various traceurs, someone will bring me up and give me a chance to work with them. That's the dream of course.
Kenneth: If anyone has any questions they can also e-mail me at dr@vitalbalancechiropractic.com I try to make sure to give traceurs special attention.

For those of you Colorado traceurs, Dr. Kao will be opening a Chiropractic Clinic in Lafayette.  More information on that later.