Topic: UF's Response to "The Freerunner" Magazine

[Gabe Arnold]

Recently Urban Freeflow came out with their own online magazine, Jump Magazine. It has two issues out so far and claims a viewcount of over one million.

On a video celebrating their success and the newest issue, called "XXX Sexy Jump - Parkour and Freerunning," they were asked the question "I thought APK already had a magazine...? " by DundeePK. Their response?

"That thing produced by APK looks nothing like a magazine. It's basically just a blog page that pitches itself as an online mag. It couldn't be any further from the truth."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaUZgaW_YyQ

Not posting this to cause anger or anything, just wanted the community to see what other organizations think of our work.

[Ashley McC]

Really, it doesn't matter. The Freerunner is great, and I love the content. With UF's Jump Magazine I like the pictures. But honestly it doesn't really matter.

[Jacob Siler]

Free runner is a good magazine. I don't think it was a response to the freerunner, but at the same time it is low of them to slam freerunner by that statement.
"That thing produced by APK looks nothing like a magazine. It's basically just a blog page that pitches itself as an online mag. It couldn't be any further from the truth."

[/shane/]

Haha, wow.  I've lived in Europe and considering how much they hate Americans and our lack of manners they're generally pretty hypocritical. APK has much more friendly/intelligent discussions in my opinion, while they seem to put a lot more effort into trying to be "cool" and publicity. Don't get me wrong I think Urban Freeflow rocks, I just think they should have a little more respect for everyone interested in PK/FR and quit acting like APK and UF are somehow rivals.

[Ashley McC]

^ Agreed Shane.

[Zoolu]

Agreed.

Not to mention - we'll be getting our first "print" magazine soon.

[Leon Mederos]

To be honest, TFR was meant as an online newsletter. That's totally different from an online magazine. We've been taking slow steps towards becoming an online magazine but we want to make sure people are satisfied with the content first. If you've got cool pictures, ... well you've got cool pictures! How's that going to help people train better? Not bashing it because I think it's really freaking cool, but it has a different purpose. I feel that their magazine is made to inspire people and draw attention to how cool they are. On the other hand... if you've got good content written by some great authors... now you're doing something that can tangibly help people! We give out all sorts of unique training information in TFR, most of which you won't find elsewhere. The other bits are exceptionally written articles by members of the community and we help shine light on those people's blogs, etc. because we feel their content rocks!


I'm not terribly sure about this because I don't visit UF all that much, but does their Jump Magazine feature community traceurs, or are all the articles written by the UF team?



...Oh, and a TFR "magazine" format will be out any day now... 

[Ashley McC]

...Oh, and a TFR "magazine" format will be out any day now... 

Yay!!! That is exciting.

[3run]

Guy's just keep doing what your doing .....if you ever require any behind the scenes like pictures from Chase's up comming movies Beat the World or Death Race 2  or any of the 3Run adventures we  have .
We would be happy to give you exclusive  (For your magazine only ) pictures and information.

Keep up the great work .
peace out.

[ZacharyCohn]

Haha, thanks Cane! We'll be in touch soon...

[Janine]

Wow guys, I'm more and more in love with our community as this thread lengthens.

Let me just start out by saying that I've got nothing but respect for what UF is doing with their magazine.  When I heard that they'd be printing, I didn't think to myself, "Shit! They beat me to it!" or wish them any ill will. I was excited to see where they'd go with it.  - it's like watching a friend at a jam nail a move you've been working on before you do.  You don't hate them, or get jealous.  It doesn't mean that when you nail the trick it'll mean less to you.  You'll get that move, if you keep workig on it, and you'll put your own twist on it too.  I'm confident enough in our community, our writers, Leon, and myself to not be threatened.  That leaves us in a place where we can enjoy their work, while working steadily and whole heartedly on our own.

Secondly. I don't see any reason to namecall over this.  UF has a beautiful piece of work, so do we, and they're completely different things. Plenty of room for both.  If UF can inspire kids to go train, to tack up posters of traceurs doing amazing things on their walls and idolize people who push the limits of the human form instead of the latest pop star .. Well that's great!

My goal for The Freerunner was always a little different though.  When I took the position as editor, I imagined the piece as a yearlong extension of the late nights at national jams.  I wanted a place where leaders of their communities could kick off their proverbial shoes, sit back, and tell us what they've been working on.  Too often, great things go down (like rochester's amazingly successful leave no trace jams, or the parkour park in Texas) that the nation as a whole has no idea about.  The Freerunner is meant as a megaphone to rally us to do good, and do well. I wanted a way for us to get to know each other better, to include up and coming communities, to highlight traceurs who are doing good things in their communities using parkour. Every once and a while, we get pretty pictures too... But I hoped to use The Freerunner to inspire through a medium of action. 

Sidenote: please excuse any typos. This was written on an iPhone because I was too impatient to wait to get to a computer.

<3
Janine   

[David Jones]

To be honest, I have liked UF's magazine. Of course, it with no doubt has gotten it's influence from skateboarding magazines- not surprising (And not necessarily a bad thing either). I like the photos a lot, and on top of that I think their articles are actually quite informative.

~David

[Ashley McC]

Wow guys, I'm more and more in love with our community as this thread lengthens.

Let me just start out by saying that I've got nothing but respect for what UF is doing with their magazine.  When I heard that they'd be printing, I didn't think to myself, "Shit! They beat me to it!" or wish them any ill will. I was excited to see where they'd go with it.  - it's like watching a friend at a jam nail a move you've been working on before you do.  You don't hate them, or get jealous.  It doesn't mean that when you nail the trick it'll mean less to you.  You'll get that move, if you keep workig on it, and you'll put your own twist on it too.  I'm confident enough in our community, our writers, Leon, and myself to not be threatened.  That leaves us in a place where we can enjoy their work, while working steadily and whole heartedly on our own.

Secondly. I don't see any reason to namecall over this.  UF has a beautiful piece of work, so do we, and they're completely different things. Plenty of room for both.  If UF can inspire kids to go train, to tack up posters of traceurs doing amazing things on their walls and idolize people who push the limits of the human form instead of the latest pop star .. Well that's great!

My goal for The Freerunner was always a little different though.  When I took the position as editor, I imagined the piece as a yearlong extension of the late nights at national jams.  I wanted a place where leaders of their communities could kick off their proverbial shoes, sit back, and tell us what they've been working on.  Too often, great things go down (like rochester's amazingly successful leave no trace jams, or the parkour park in Texas) that the nation as a whole has no idea about.  The Freerunner is meant as a megaphone to rally us to do good, and do well. I wanted a way for us to get to know each other better, to include up and coming communities, to highlight traceurs who are doing good things in their communities using parkour. Every once and a while, we get pretty pictures too... But I hoped to use The Freerunner to inspire through a medium of action. 

Sidenote: please excuse any typos. This was written on an iPhone because I was too impatient to wait to get to a computer.

<3
Janine   

After reading what Janine said I've realized I do have more respect for UF. And they were they ones that got me into parkour as well, other than Jump London. Man, I've let other peoples opinions choose for me. I think I need some time to reevaluate some things.

[Jon E]

I didn't know about APK till after I found UF so I was reading the first issue of Jump and I thought it was great. I liked the interviews with different Traceurs. But now that I've seen the Free Runner, I think they're both great!

Sidenote: I don't think they should have ragged on APK though. That was a little disrespectful.

[Muhammad]

In case any of you haven't heard of it yet, there is another magazine called "SPIKED Parkour and Action Sports" that is on it's fourth edition.. it's both online and print.

http://www.getspiked.co.uk/