Jump Mag Issue 8

8/8/2019 Jump Mag Issue 8

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/jump-mag-issue-8 1/160



Front cover athlete: Erik ‘The Viking’ Aleynikov - www.youtube.com/sony250295 Photographer: EzUF ad athlete: Gary ‘Surreal’ Lawrence - www.youtube.com/surrealmaniac Photographer : Ez

Welcome riends,

Heading over to Latvia to do the piece or this month, was something I wasreally looking orward to. Outside o hooking up with 2 o our All Starathletes (Djuxa and Pasha) again, I was keen to meet up with Erik ‘TheViking’ Aleynikov, who’d just been brought on board as a new UF sponsoredathlete.

During our initial discussions about the trip, the act that getting rom Riga

to Daugavpils or the blue bar experience would take 4 hours on a bus, wassomehow overlooked. This resulted in more travelling than was anticipatedand with the rainy weather ollowing me rom the UK, it was all looking likeit was going to be another grim experience. Luckily though, we were gitedwith a ew dry periods where we got to grab what was necessary and tomake the trip more enjoyable, I got to experience some ull blown Latvianhumour which is seriously as caustic as it gets.

Following on rom that shoot, a trip to Berlin awaited or the ParcouringEuropean Cup and I’ll be honest in saying that I was really excited about

heading over or another slice o competition action. Anyone who hasn’tyet experienced a live competition event probably won’t understand, butthe athletes involved rarely view it as such and simply use the opportunityas a perect excuse to train together, share experiences and showcase theirabilities in ront o many people. With this particular event, a air ew highprole athletes had been brought in and they denitely didn’t disappointanyone and put on a ne display.

What else is going on in this issue? Well we have an interview with the upand coming young gun that is JJ Goda, a pressure test with a Go Pro cameraand a bunch o other odds n ends.

A concrete way o lie....

Enjoy....Ez - Editor

[email protected]/ezstyla

www.urbanreefow.comwww.acebook.com/urbanreefowwww.twitter.com/urbanreefowwww.youtube.com/glyphmedia



C o p y r i g

h t

© T

h e

U r b a n

F r e e

o w

N e t w o r k

. A l l r i g

h t s r e s e r v e

d .

‘ U r b a n

F r e e

o w

’ a

n d t h e

‘ G l y p

h ’ l o g o a r e r e g

i s t e r e

d t r a d e m a r k s o

f U r b a n

F r e e

F l o w

L t d



Athlete: Dzuy Southham (UK) www.youtube.com/urbanrevolutionmediaPhotographer: Will Carmanwww.carmanography.tumblr.com



When I rst saw Oleg Vorslav moving about in one of hismany video edits, I earmarked Latvia as a place that wasdenitely worth checking out. One thing that really stood

out for me like so many other people, was the blue bararea which he completely obliterated and upon furtherdigging around, I found out that it was located in a towncalled Daugavpils. All well and good but to be honest, upuntil this point I’d never found a good enough reason tomake the trip over, so I’d simply put it to the back of my mind.

That was until the whole Jump Magazine idea cameabout. I had it noted as a place that I wanted to hit for a

feature, but it was through talking to one of the UF AllStar athletes, Andrey ‘Djuxa’ Turanov, that I was told thefamous blue bars were due to be demolished. Hecontinued that if I didn’t head over before the winterkicked in, that I might miss the opportunity altogether.So without further prompting, I booked a ight over andhoped that the weather would hold out long enough forus to grab something of note.

In addition to Djuxa, we’d be joined by two other UF

athletes. The rst would be Pasha Petkuns who likeDjuxa, is part of the UF All Star team. Being a residentof Daugavpils, he would be our guide for the duration of the visit. The second athlete who’d join us would be Erik ‘The Viking’ Aleynikov, who is part of the UFsponsored team. As a recently added athlete to the team,it would be the rst time I’d get to meet him in personand from our discussions prior to the trip, his sense of humour shone through strongly, so I was really lookingforward to the hook up.

As for the trip itself, it would be a three day one wherethe rst would be spent in Riga with Djuxa and the restin Daugavpils. What follows from here is a mish mash of stuff which is mostly image led and is accompanied by aninterview that was conducted at my hotel....

WELCOME TO

LATVIA LET’S HANG OUTWORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY EZ



Djuxa, as main spokespersonhere, tell us a bit about theLatvian Parkour & Freerunningcommunity.Djuxa: The Latvian scene is still

very young. It’s maybe 3 or 4 years since people have beentraining in this active lifestyle.

Practitioners were training alone back then and nobody really knew each other, so in 2006

we started to come together to become organised and create acommunity. From there Parkourstarted to become morepopular in Latvia and beganto really develop. When somefriends and I started the old

parkour.lv website, it was anattempt to bring together all thepractitioners in Latvia and alsogetting more people to be awareof what Parkour was about.

Our rst hook up was a longtime ago in Estonia of all places.Give us some background infoabout that.Djuxa: It was my 1st or 2nd year

of training and I found out thatthe Urban Freeow team would

be visiting Estonia as part of atour with Nokia, so we decidedto travel there to meet up with

you guys and hopefully traintogether.

How far was that to travel?Djuxa: About 5 hours on the

bus.

Damn! <laughs>Djuxa: Not so bad really, youkinda get used to it <laughs>.Back then for us it was a once inthe lifetime opportunity to meetup with really well known people

within the Parkour scene, so Iknew that it was a trip that we

just had to make.

Well I appreciate the fact that you made the effort.Djuxa: No problem. It was worthit.

Sitting on the couch next to youis Anton who I rst met at the

very rst Redbull ‘Art of Motion’event in Austria. How did youguys hook up?Djuxa: Anton and I rst met in2005 and the thing with himis that I’d only known him for

about 10 mins but had already invited him into the team. There

was something about him andI knew that I had to get him on

board. Oh yeah, back then theawesome thing about him wasthat he was the only person whocould cat balance on really thin

bars and nobody else could dothat <laughs>. Now after allthese years I know that I wasn’t

wrong about him because all theothers no longer train but Anton

is still here.

He was the one person whocertainly stood out from thecrowd at the AOM event with his

crazy sniper run. Anton, whatthe fuck was all that about?

Anton: <laughs> For me I feltthat I had to put on some kind of show and make it interesting forthe people there in some way.

It was denitely interesting<laughs>.Djuxa: His skill wasn’t the

greatest back then so he felt thathe had to do something crazy tostand a chance of really standing out from everyone else.The skills of the other athletesthere was of a pretty high level.

I actually thought it was really funny at the time and couldn’tstop myself from laughing, butin his second run he did exactly the same thing and that wasovercooking it.Djuxa: <laughs hysterically> Oh

well, shit happens.

Anton, you also beatbox, right? Anton: Yes I do.

Djuxa mentioned that you’reone of the only people in Latviadoing it in a particular way. Idon’t really understand, pleaseexplain?

Anton: I combine musicalinstruments into my beatboxing.I’ll give you an example. *Antonthen pulls out a harmonica andtreats us to a quick set which

was sick.

That is fucking awesome! How did you even think about comingup with that?

Anton: I saw some videos on Youtube of people using

instruments like a ute and feltit wasn’t cool enough <laughs>so I tried to do something a bitcooler. Djuxa: As you can imagine,

whenever Anton is around wehave lots of cool music to listento <laughs>.

Ok so bringing us back up to

speed now, you mentioned tome earlier that you’d set up anew organisation called ‘UrbanSet’ with 3 of you heading it allup, right?Djuxa: Yeah we are just 3 guys

who had an idea to make anorganisation for people whodo street arts like beatboxing,parkour, freerunning, trial bikes,

bmx or whatever, because thesepeople aren’t getting enoughattention. Obviously the people

who do these activities arepassionate about what they aredoing but in Latvia, we have

“As you canimagine, wheneverAnton is around we

have lots o cool

music to listen to”



Wet conditions and only 3 days to hopefully grab someaction shots. Great start....Not! To make matters worse,none of the guys were driving so it was either sponsored walks everywhere or using the tram system.



The rst day was spent in Riga and due to the bad weather, there was little to doother than wait until Djuxa’s evening class in the gym. For me, gym sessions areabout as boring as hell photo wise, so when we headed off to Daugavpils, I wasamped. However, it was a 4 hour train ride away and we could only hope that it’d bedry upon our arrival. When we pulled into the station, Pasha was waiting and after walking off to the rst spot, it started to rain heavily and due to having no realundercover places to train, we had to make do with this tunnel where we tried tomake the best out of a crap situation. We failed but Pasha continues to smile.



Previous to this reverse wallspin, Pasha had attempted a jump from height outsidethe tunnel. It looked shit and he landed as heavily as an elephant. Then to makematters worse, Djuxa attempted a series of tic tacs off of this grafti wall. That too,looked terrible so we decided to pack up and do some urban exploration in hope thatthe rain would ease up long enough to allow us to capture something of interest.



A few minutes walk away from the tunnel and we found this abandoned buildingthat looked promising. Both Djuxa and Pasha spotted some interestingopportunities that might work well for some shots, so we had a good look around.



Pasha tries to convince everyone that his latest book about Freerunning andcowboys is a sure re hit and will sell well. No comment....



It was quite frustrating having to wait about for the rain to stop but here, Djuxadecides to tough it out and precision from the still wet beam. Underneath Erik spotshim in case he slips and heads South of Heaven.



Being the creative one of the group, Pasha opted to stay insidein the dry and swing about on some electric cables (as you do).



Swinging around like a monkey is thirsty business.



many people who are very goodat what they do but because they don’t get the recognition they deserve, they are forced to goand do some shitty job in orderto live. After work they thengo and train. Our organisationhelps to showcase their talents

and help get them work.

Interesting stuff, I hope it worksout ok for you. Going back tothe subject of Parkour in Latvia,

you reached a peak in terms of interest but as with most placesin the world right now, thecommercial side has been rinsed

by the media and that spotlight

has faded. How has this affectedthings for you here?Djuxa: About 2 years ago theinterest in Parkour was really high and we had many peopletraining but the level wasn’t sogood. At that time it was like afashion thing and all the schoolkids wanted to do it. It was agood sign of popularity but as aresult, you could see many

videos on the Latvian Youtubethat were bad and showedpeople who were also bad, so the

wrong idea was being given tothe society. Everyone thoughtthat Parkour was just stupidkids jumping around onrooftops and hurtingthemselves. So I guess that thepopularity it generated, came at

a high cost.

And how have things changednow?Djuxa: It’s a double edged sword

because another fashion thingcame along called ‘shufe’ whichis some stupid drum & bassdance <laughs>. Now all thekids are doing that shit.

So it helped to take the heat off of you guys then?Djuxa: Yeah, at least theattention and hatred fromsociety was directed towards this

drum & bass bullshit <laughs>.So now we are left alone topractise seriously and to get

better. As a direct result, all thekids who did it as a fashion thinghave moved along to somethingelse while those who really

wanted to practise Parkour,

continued and got better. Sonow we have a smaller scene butthe people who practise really are dedicated, so the overalllevel is much higher.

Was it frustrating for you as aprofessional athlete, who duringthe surge or popularity, musthave found it tough beingtarnished with the same brush?Djuxa: Yes of course but whatcould I do? Was I supposed to

shoot all those stupid kids?

You could have got Anton on thecase with his sniper rie.Djuxa: <laughs> At the time

there was nothing we could doabout it but now things aregetting better and the attitudefrom potential clients is much

better too. However, when theeconomic crisis came, there

weren’t so many invitations orproposals from businesses. It

was a tough time for everyone.

Everyone felt it hard, so you weren’t alone.Djuxa: Yeah, at the time we only had teaching jobs to rely on butit’s starting to pick up againnow. The only problem is that

most businesses now makeproposals but expect you to

work for free, which is bullshit.They even expect us to supply the obstacles too. It’s impossibleto work like this.

Bullshit indeed but keep hope

alive. Talking of obstacles, whenanyone in the scene thinks aboutParkour in Latvia, the one placethat will get mentioned straightaway is the blue bars as featuredin Oleg Vorslav’s video edits.

You mentioned yesterday thatthey can be found all over theplace. Is this for real?Djuxa: That’s in Daugavpils

where yes, they are all over theplace. We were there lastsummer and we tried to countall the bars but we couldn’t.Here in Riga those bars that

were left from the Soviet Uniondays are gone. Because of all theEuropean playground standardsthat are in force now, they wereconsidered to be dangerous and

were taken down.

Why wasn’t Daugavpils affected,is the place considered a bit

backwards then?Djuxa: There are a lot of Russianspeaking people there and

because it is so close to theRussian border, it isn’t a placethat falls in line with EuropeanUnion stuff and it isn’t such a

progressive place.

The original purpose of the bars were as recreation stations forkids. Is that right?Djuxa: Yeah, basically aplayground for kids and at thesame time as exercise stationsfor schools. Almost all of the

bars are situated right next to

schools.

Do kids actually use them?Djuxa: Yes they use them a lot

but maybe we can ask Pashaabout that. *Djuxa and Pasha

“Our organisationhelps to showcasetheir talents and

help get them work”



The rain showed no sign of easing up so we decided that we’d head over to the blue bar area regardless, in order to have a look about and maybe get some lifestyleshots. To get there we had to jump on a tram where the conductors were womendressed in dodgy looking camo uniform.



A ten minute ride away from the town centre and suddenly we started to see the bars all over the place.



Random advertising inside the tram and upon closer inspection it wasclear that Pedo bear was being used to sell furniture. Disappointing!



This is the rst bar set we came across but because it was still raining, we couldn’tdo much more than look at it as we walked by. If only we had sets like this in the UK.I’ve already approached the Daugavpils authorities to get a copy of the blueprints. As they say, if you want something done, do it yourself. Blue bar set up at the next World’s? hmmmmmm



This spot was situated right next to a school and when we arrived, a class of kids had just nished a session. Luckily for us, it was dry enough to move around on so Djuxaand Pasha wasted no time and got stuck in. Here Djuxa decides to y the ag of Latvia while the kids out of shot cheer him on.



Here Pasha tells me that he plans to get someairtime and indicates which direction he’ll beying in.



discuss it at length in Russian before Pasha responds with asimple “Yes.”<Everyone cracks up laughing>.

Is it true that when you stayedin Daugavpils in the summer, allthe little kids were destroying

you guys on the bars?Djuxa: <laughs> Oh man! Onthe bars there is a big lacheopportunity and we have a guy called Andre, who’s about 6ft 2”tall and he tried 3 times to dothat lache and failed. Then as he

was preparing himself for onelast time this little 9 year old kidsteps up and does it with one

swing <laughs>. Andre just said“Oh fuck it!” <laughs>. Seriously though, in Freerunning we try totrain all round withacrobatics, bars, precisions,climbing etc but in Daugavpilsfor them it’s just bars and notconsidered Parkour orFreerunning. To them it’s simply “swinging on bars.”

Pasha, you’re best know for being a native of Daugavpils whoproduces videos with a uniquestyle. On the competition circuit

you also placed really well in the2010 Redbull AOM event (3rdplace and winner of best trick).Give us a bit of background on

you and what makes you tick…Pasha: It all started with

watching District 13 and fromthere I started to train insandpits trying to land someips. I also have a set of barslike the blue ones right near my house, so it’d be impossible toavoid using them.

You only got into Freerunning asrecently as D13? Damn, I really

thought it was much longer thanthat. How often do you use the bars to train on?Pasha: I use the bars ss often aspossible. It’s now secondnature to me.

How important is Parkourtraining within your ownregime?Pasha: Not so much. It’s moreabout bar work for me.

Hmmm that’s both interestingand disappointing to hear. As

mentioned before, you placed well at the AOM event. In fact,after the rst round of that event

you were placed atnumber one having scoredhighest with your run. This wasagainst some very accomplishedFreerunners, so there must bemore to your game than just bar

work?Pasha: I watch lots of videos andmovies and if I see somebody dosomething on at ground, I ask myself if it can also be done on

an obstacle or on a bar. So I takethose moves and try to adaptthem to suit my own style.

Who inspires you most?Pasha: Andrey ‘Djuxa’ Turanov <laughs>. I really like bboy Lilou. I like my friend Stas

because his style is just busting tricks and hisfearlessless inspires me. I alsolike Danny Ilabaca and ShadeZlat.

With all the experimentationstuff do you suffer many injuries?Pasha: Mostly sprains butnothing major. Even when I bailI attempt to make a trick out of

that fuck up and sometimes itcan lead to nice lookingtechniques being born.

Djuxa, how about you, you’recurrently carrying a knee injury aren’t you?Djuxa: Yeah, tendonitis so no

more big jumps like back in theday. But if I warm up properly I’m ok. Anyway, it’s well knownthat if you jump off of a 5 storey

building you’ll be ok if you do 5rolls after landing <laughs>.

Obviously! Pasha/Djuxa, do youguys enjoy competing?Pasha: I don’t like so muchthe idea of competing and thefrustration that goes with beingagainst somebody. But I lovethe experience of meeting otherFreerunners, sharing ideas andtraining with them.Djuxa: Back in the beginningeverybody was saying thatthere’s no competition inParkour or Freerunning and

you don’t have to do it blah blah

blah. But nobody had ever triedit out. So even though I may have been cautious in the

beginning, I still wanted to seefor myself and it was more ashowcase of skills instead of a

big competition. Theatmosphere was just great andthe fact that you can hang andtrain with so many good

Freerunners makes it so special.

Djuxa, you’re probably the mostcelebrated Latvian in terms of competition, seeing as you’vecompeted in 3 Art of Motionevents and 2 World FreerunChampionships. The biggest of all was the World’s at TrafalgarSquare in 2009. What was it

like performing in front of 8000people?Djuxa: For me, I didn’t really think too much about the crowd.Regular people don’t really know

what they are looking at in terms

“I have a set o barslike the blue ones right

near my house, so

it’d be impossible toavoid using them”



A quality dismout where he ies like a bullet.



I noticed this graff on the way to the blue rails and had to grab a shot.I’m a massive fan of street art and would never ever dream of hatingon anyone for their throw ups but this is SHIIIIT!!



Finally we arrived at the holy grail of bar set ups. Made famous in Oleg Vorslav’s video edits, this place is denitely on the wish list of any seasoned practitionerto get a chance to session on. Funnily enough though, it seems much smaller inreal life.



Again, the rain was a problem and even though it was only spitting, the bars weretoo wet to session on safely. However, the guys did try their best and here Djuxaattempts to dry off the bars for Erik to play on.



Even though he isn’t from Daugavpils, Erik was clearly athome on the bars and moved around effortlessly and withcondence.



I’ve seen Pasha move around plenty of times before butreally wanted to see him destroy these bars. Because of the wet conditions, today wasn’t going to be that day.



We didn’t hang about too long as our options were limited. I managed to grab a bunch of standard issue shots and before we were to head off, I asked the guys toget on top of the frame for a group pic. Out of nowhere this random guy that nobody knew appeared and decided to get in on the action. Gotta love the art of blagging.



He claims not to be so much into Parkour training infavour of bar work, but Pasha couldn’t resist crankingout a nice precision before we left.



of technique, so you could throw a simple backip and they’ll belike “wow!” <laughs> but thefrustrating thing that worriesme, is how the other guys view my performances. If one of theother competitors comes up tome and says that they liked my

run, I’m satised. Of course, if Ido all the things in the run that Iintended to do, I’m happy but if one of the guys likes it too, that’seven better. The funniest thingabout performing is that we areallowed to choose what music

we run to but to be honest, in allof my runs I’ve never heard any of it. I think it’s because I was

concentrating so much on my moves.

How about you Pasha, at theTrafalgar Square event you werethe very rst person to run andthere were high expectationsfrom you, but you didn’t makethe nals. Was it a disadvantage

being rst to run?Pasha: A big shock. I really

didn’t want to go rst. There were more people at thatevent than there are living inDaugavpils, so it was really scary <laughs>.

Well you made up for it in Austria for AOM, where youperformed really well. Djuxa,

your own style in recent times,

seems to be more inuenced by dance with all the spins and footplacement. Is that a fair view?Djuxa: Well, I’ve always thoughtthat I’m not really built for big

jumps because I’m small. Even with ips, I started to learn themreally late so I felt like I had todo other movements to standout and I always looked at

Parkour as a way of expressing myself and dance hasalways been around.

So are we talking ShufeParkour then?

Djuxa: <laughs> No! I alwaysthought of my way of moving asdancing with the obstacles, soI’ve tried to implement some of the dance type movements intomy game.

Are you still producing videos?

We haven’t seen anything from you for a while.Djuxa: Not as much as I usedto but I make an effort to keepmy skills in place. I’m still very active in the local community and as time passes, I nd myself getting more involved in theorganising side of things.

You also run a teaching class,right?

Well you know yourself thatParkour started as an

underground movement and it was hard to nd any properresources. For beginners itseemed like it was all big jumps

accompanied by a lot of injuries.So with youngsters still

wanting to get involved in thesport and not having thecorrect info at hand, I decidedthat I didn’t want them to follow the same route I did. So I set upclasses where I can pass downmy knowledge.

Is this run through thegovernment?I teach at a private gymnasticsclub that is owned by ourOlympic champions. They started their own private club

because the government isn’tnancing gymnastics enough.

How often do you teach at theseclasses?Djuxa: I teach 3 classes per day 2 times per week so it’s 3 hoursof teaching twice a week.

Is teaching something youenjoy doing?Djuxa: Yes but sometimes it getsreally frustrating because thegym is in a closed environmentand you don’t have all theopportunities you’d nd outside.Sometimes it’s hard to nd new things for the students to do.

You see, when you train yourself and run out of ideas, you can simply go and drill allthe techniques you already know

with no problem. But when youteach others you need to makeit interactive and make it fun tohold their interest. In order todo this, you need to keepchanging things to keep it freshand in a gym it can sometimes

be difcult.

Ok but if we ip things, teachingoutdoors would bring a bunch of other issues. For instance, we’rehere to shoot over the next few days and the weather is grim.Right now it’s pissing down withrain outside. Is this common?Djuxa: Yeah, the weather is a big

setback for practitioners here.During the summer it wasreally good. In fact it was toogood <laughs> because it was sohot. For us, we probably get only 3 months where we can really train extensively. In the winter if it isn’t snowing, it will be rainingand the conditions are too cold.

Don’t you have training spotsunder cover?Djuxa: Not so much. We haveone place which is undercover

but even so, in the winter it isstill too cold. So in effect, the

“I teach at aprivate gymnastics

club that is

owned by ourOlympic champions”



Unfortunately Djuxa had to head back to Riga after day one inDaugavpils and endure the 4 hour journey home. Just afterseeing him off at the station, we decided to shoot some moreas the rain had now cleared up.



During our time in front of the media, we’ve been asked thousands of times to do dual jumping shots and I hate them with a passion.But meh, whatever....



Day two of the Daugavpils trip and Pasha was going on about how the famous blue bar area is going to be demolished and replaced with a football pitch. He said thathe had a backup training spot in a random location though, and that we should headthere to get some pics. It was within a fort on an overgrown grassy area and wasprobably the best I’d seen so far. Not only did it have an awesome bar set up, it alsohad a great area for precision drills. Both Pasha and Erik were quick to session ithard and go some way in making up for the previous day.



Again, Erik showed a strong level on the barsand moved about like a monkey on roids.



Clean dismount from Pasha.



Superman has nothing on this guy.



For those who don’t salivate at the sight of the main bar set up, surely these precision bars go some way in helping to get the juices owing?



climate here forces us to view Parkour and Freerunning asmore of a seasonal activity. Of course we have gyms but it’s notthe same and we use them tokeep our skills topped up.

How about you Pasha? Today

for instance, when we hit the blue rails they were all wetand that pretty much killed allchances of training on them.Pasha: It’s either training in thegym or sitting at home crying<laughs>.

Erik, you’ve been sittingquietly in the corner up until

now. You’re part of the youngergeneration of Latvianpractitioners. How did you getinto it?Erik: 3 years ago I was into

breakdancing and I saw someguys who were doing wallspinsand I wanted to do what they

were doing. That was what gotme interested initially.

Who did you train with in the beginning?Erik: To start with I waspractising with my class matefrom school. Then when I movedinto the Riga district, I foundthese guys and started to train

with them.Djuxa: I remember Erik coming to train in the gym

where I worked but he wastraining more in acrobatic tricksinstead of straight up Parkour.

But now you’re a full timeParkour guy, right?Erik: Parkour and Freerunningfor me is the same thing.Freedom of expression. I’m stillat school but train as often as I

possibly can.

Who in the scene do you draw inspiration from?Erik: In Latvia I draw inspiration from my team mates

like Pasha.

What are your goals with all of this?Erik: I would like tosomehow combine my life and

work through Parkour.

Dude, we just can’t stop youfrom talking can we?Erik: Huh?

Nevermind. So you’re the youngest member of the team,I’m guessing that you get a hardtime from the others?Erik: Yeah, pretty much<laughs>.Djuxa: Every year we make atrip to Daugavpils in thesummer and any new guys getput through an initiation

procedure with pranks<laughs>. So you could say thatErik was a victim with of the bigpranks this year.

All of them?Djuxa: <laughs> Erm…..yeah,most of them.

Like what?Djuxa: Usual stuff liketoothpaste on his face whenhe’s sleeping, his clothes gettingdumped in water and getting

shaved.Erik: They fucking shaved my hair.

It all sounds tame to me. Did itpiss you off?

Erik: Yes I wanted to kill them<laughs>.Djuxa: <laughing hysterically>.

Djuxa, you can’t laugh really, as you were victim of the pooperscooper incident in Dubai withus.

Djuxa: Oh man, the poop story again <laughs>. Well it’s kindathe same thing here with pretty heavy treatment, so I know how Erik feels. But joking aside, noneof it is done with bad intentions.If you can get through theinitiation process and not gettoo upset about it <laughs>, youearn the respect from the rest of the team.

Sounds like gloried bullying tome <laughs>. What else islooming on the horizon for youguys? You mentioned somethingabout stunt work earlier to me.Djuxa: The jobs that really pay the bills are in shooting, so I’mmoving more towards stunt

work where my skills and

preparation really help me. I’maiming at working in themovies and getting in with thestunt association.

Best of luck with all of that. How about the Parkour scene inLatvia, are you guys stillnurturing and developing it all?Djuxa: Back in the day we used

to work very hard to makepeople more aware of Parkourand give a good image. Now days I’m not too concerned as I

want to train myself and train with my guys so we can makesome movies and develop otherprojects. I’m not bothered toomuch about what people think,I just want to make it happen.

Those who like it, we welcome you. Those who don’t, fuck off <laughs>. So with this in mind,I don’t really concern myself toomuch about the community as itkinda takes care of itself. As long

“I’m still atschool but I train

as oten as I

possibly can”



I’m not defending his actions but if there’s a random wall with graff situated anywhere in the world, it would be rude not to climb it.



Apparently this historic site has a really interesting story to do with World War II but upon pressing the guys for further info, they looked atme blankly and simply said “It’s great for training.” Ignorance is bliss....



A great location for a bit of climbing.



The Viking shows his best poker face.



Try seeing life from my perspective.



This running precision was suggested to Erik and he said “No way!” but after sizingit up and doing a few prep runs, he decided to go for it and nailed it cleanly after thesecond full attempt, where he had to really power into it. Once it was in the bag, hecranked it out time and time again with no worries at all.



as I can take care of myself andmy guys, it’ll last and everything

will be just ne.

Before we wind things up, any parting messages?Pasha: I love Freerunning<laughs>.

Erik: Pasha is stupid <laughs>. Anton: I would encouragepeople to get into the philosophy of Parkour. For me, it has really helped my life outside of justovercoming obstacles inParkour. I no longer train ashard as I did a couple of yearsago but I still use the samephilosophy in my normal life. Ithas really helped me grow as sperson.Djuxa: I just hope my guys get a

chance to travel with Parkour. Ican only talk from my ownexperiences in meetingpractitioners from aroundthe world, but when you meetpeople from different countries

who do the same thing as youand share the same passion for

movement, it makes you realisethat we are all part of one bigfamily. This is a beautifulfeeling. Respect and best wishesfrom Latvia to everyone outthere who’s reading this.

Nice closing words. Thanks for your time guys. The next timeI decide to come over, I’ll waituntil the summer.No problem. You’re welcomeover here anytime.

Some useful links: Djuxa’s channel:www.youtube.com/user/DjuXa

Pasha’s channel:

www.youtube.com/Pasha3run Erik’s channel:www.youtube.com/user/sony250295

Video of Anton (ToXa) beatboxing:www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL1nU3uUHt4



Come and take a walk in my world.



UF Alt

hotso

Shade Zlat (Russia)Right now Russia is one country that is producing somsurprise as the architecture there is as close to perectFreerunning. One o the people who’s making a name who hails rom Moscow. As can be seen in this edit, he ipossessing tight skills and bags o creativity.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUHUQ2r8DDc



Wake Up (France)ar athlete, Edwin Condette, is someone who’s been impressing everyone or a long

e now. Based n Paris, France, he is lucky enough to be close enough to all the majors and has trained with all the big names. In this video he demonstrates a ull rangels that includes speed, power, precision and a light sense o touch. Awesome stu.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkGsdXl32n8

p quality athletes. It’s noou’d want or Parkour andimsel over there is Shade Zlat,t alone when it comes to



Athlete: Matt “Blurr” Childress (USA) Photographer: Dakota Phelps



UNDERPRESSURE

Review by Brad WendesPhoto’s by Brad Wendes and Suzi Appleby

www.teamkinetix.co.uk

Those o you that are into lm-making may have heardabout the latest HD oering rom the US-based GoProCameras; The GoPro Hero. Now I’ve been trying to get myhands on one o these cameras to test or quite some time,so when one arrived at my door I was over the moon.

For those o you that are unamiliar with the GoPro Hero I’llget tech stu out o the way rst:GoPro’s HD HERO Naked is the world’s highest perormancewearable 1080p HD video and stills photo camera.Proessional quality 1080p / 960p / 720p HD resolutionsrecord at 30 and 60 rames per second (60 ps in 720p) andrecord up to 2.5 hours on a single charge.The camera can also shoot automatic 5 megapixel photos at2/5/10/30 and 60 second intervals during your activity, handsree. Simply press the shutter button once at the start o

your activity.All the data is saved on an SD card (not included) to makeretrieving your pictures and videos nice and easy.

Included are an elastic head strap and one sticky mount orattaching the camera to a helmet or other curved surace aswell as the waterproo quick-release HD housing whichprotects the camera. With the housing on it’s waterproo to 180’ / 60m and prettysturdy thanks to its removable polycarbonate housing.

Replacement housings and lens kits are also available.

The GoPro Hero has a xed sheye lens with 170 degree eldo view, or 127 degrees in ull 1080 HD mode.

For more detailed tech specs you can visit the GoPro website:www.goprocamera.com

So, on paper it sounds like an awesome piece o kit and it’ssmall enough to t in the palm o your hand as well as being

light enough to strap to your head and train in.

Sounds too good to be true but there’s only one way to ndout or sure, so I put strapped the camera onto my head andwent out to well and truly put it through its paces....



Looks:

It looks like a toy camera and not at all like awide-angled ull HD 60ps beast. To be honest, thisthing looks more likely to shoot water out o it thanget clear crisp action shots. The GoPro Hero is verybasic to look at, it’s just a grey box about as big as2 matchboxes with 2 unmarked buttons a lens andsmall LCD display on the ront. When it’s in thepolycarbonate housing it looks more like anexpensive piece o kit, but regardless, you will look a

bit stupid running around with a camera strapped toyour head.Score: 2/5 It’s just a grey plastic box.

Usability:

For something that appears very simple, it was quitedicult to get to grips with initially, as the onlyscreen on the GoPro Hero is a small LCD on the rontand the menu system isn’t as intuitive as I’dexpected. With only two buttons, one o which being

the shutter release, you pretty much navigate themenu with one button and use the shutter button toselect/modiy an option. For the rst time inmemory, I was stumped at how to set the thing upwithout rst reading the manual. The act that thereare only 2 buttons on the GoPro Hero means that I

was regularly setting o the shutter withoutmeaning to. Ater each session I got home to nd aselection o unfattering pictures o mysel lookingat the lens with a conused look on my ace.Fortunately the GoPro Hero remembers your settingsso you only have to go through the options once tochange video mode. Each video mode is representedby a number in the menu, but these numbers areprinted on a sticker on the battery cover to makechanging the settings simpler when out shooting.

Ater some experimenting, the only setting I used torecord any video was ‘r3’ mode, which is 720p, 60ps,170 degree eld o view.Once set up, the camera was simple to use, onebutton turns it on/o and toggles between stills,multi-shot and video recording (these modes areclearly displayed on the screen as easily identiedicons) the other button either takes a picture orstarts/stops recording.

The battery is charged by a simple USB cable andlasted longer than I needed or one training session.

With the head strap on it was easy to press thecorrect button and hear the beep that indicates thestart or end o a recording.

Taken with the Go Pro Camera.



It takes ages to look this good.



Wear a camera on your head and you too, will get strange looks.



Score: 3/5 Tough menu system, simple to usecamera.

Features:

Sadly the GoPro Hero has no screen or viewnder, sonot only can you not accurately line up a shot, youalso can’t review any ootage or images withouttaking out the SD card or plugging the camera intoyour computer. The wide angle lens helps a lot asyou can get away with pointing it at the action and

snapping away. I always set the camera to take threeshots in quick succession to maximize my chanceso getting something worth keeping. Unortunatelyyou have no idea when the GoPro Hero will actuallycapture the image ater you press the button. I gothome to nd too many pictures that had been takentoo early or too late. *Rumour has it that GoPro arereleasing a plug-in screen or the rear o the camera.There is a clear slot or it to plug into already builtonto the unit. The addition o this screen would

make the GoPro Hero much more ecient as acamera. The headstrap that came with my camerais elastic with rubber grip on the inside o the strap.While it’s not very comortable, it does stay on yourhead while running, vaulting, climbing or even inhandstand. In my opinion the head strap would

benet rom the addition o a chin strap as it had atendency to fy o when any o the guys weretrying to fip with it on. The head strap also tookaway the need or a viewnder while recordingwhatever you look at, the GoPro Hero is also lookingat. The size o the GoPro Hero is also a major bonus.It’s so tiny I ound mysel taking it everywhere justbecause I could. The act it’s waterproo and prettydurable also helps.Score: 3/5 Seriously needs a screen!

Video Quality:

The selection o video modes the GoPro Hero canrecord in was impressive, especially the 1080p 30psmode. Although I preerred the 720p, 60ps mode asit gave a wider-angle view and I tend to only outputvideo at 720p.The quality o the videos was betterthan expected and looked signicantly better thanootage rom other small cameras such as the FlipMino HD. There are no manual settings or exposure,

white balance or ocus – which is sensible as there’sno screen or viewnder. The automatic settingsgenerally worked out quite well when we wereshooting indoors and outdoors with only some o thepictures taken on a cloudy day appearing dull. All theootage is saved as MP4 les which are easily

Taken with the Go Pro Camera.



imported into Windows Movie Maker or AdobePremiere. There was some conversion needed toimport into Final Cut or iMovie, but the sotware orthis was available as a ree download and there wasno apparent loss o quality. As I lmed it all at 60rames per second I was also able to slow down theootage while keeping it looking smooth. This unit ismade to capture ootage and it does that very well.Score: 4/5 Pretty impressive for a tiny camera.

Photograph Quality:The GoPro Hero shoots 5MegaPixel stills which wasquite disappointing given that this is quicklybecoming the basic standard quality or mobilephones. Once again the lack o a screen or viewndermakes taking action shots more a game o chancethan anything else. As with the video mode, theexposure and white balance are automatic andworked quite well.The sheye lens has a xedaperture o /2.8 which should let a lot o light into

the camera. The shutter speed is also too slowto capture action, so I ended up with a lot o veryblurred action shots.Score: 1/5 Might as well use your mobile phone!

Sound Quality:

According to the GoPro website they have “investedmore in the HD HERO camera’s sound system thanmost companies spend on their entire cameradevelopment.” I think they wasted their money!With the polycarbonate housing on the camera(which is required to attach it to any o the mountsor straps) all you get is mufed sounds, wind noiseand the occasional rumble as something touches thecasing. Most Parkour/Freerun videos tend to takethe sound out anyway so this isn’t such a drawback,

but ater the company made such a uss about howgood the sound quality was, I was disappointed.Score: 1/5 Great if you don’t want to use the casing.

Durability:

This is another eature that the GoPro Hero isamous or, the website states that thepolycarbonate housing is “Shockproo, Waterprooand Bombproo”. I’m inclined to believe them. Itested how tough the camera was by immersing it

in water, dropping it out o a second storey windowonto tarmac, throwing it as high as possible andwatching it crash to the ground and even standing onit. Not even a scratch and the camera continues tounction. The only issue I experienced was on oneoccasion the camera few o my head mid-gainer,

Taken with the Go Pro Camera. As can be seen here, it’s a bit of a lottery with regard to capturing images and framingthem correctly, as there’s no way of checking your shots onthe spot.



What you see, the camera sees.



the impact knocked the SD card loose and I had toreset the camera. That’s more than could be saidor my Sony or Canon cameras. I you do manage toscratch the lens, it simply unscrews and areplacement is available or $20. The polycarbonatehousing can also be replaced or $40.Score: 5/5 I’ve never seen anything like it.

Value:

The GoPro Hero is priced between £260 & £300

online with www.purelygadgets.co.uk coming outcheapest in a quick Google search. For the videoquality it is worth that much money, but the lack oother eatures (like a viewnder!) do let the cameradown somewhat.Score: 3/5 Great video quality but needs more

features.

Overall:

Ater a couple o weeks using the GoPro Hero thenovelty wore o and I stopped strapping to my headat every opportunity, but I still took it everywhere.The ootage always looks great and it’s almostimpossible to break the thing. But you can’t make anentire video rom First Person Perspective as it getsboring very quickly. You can strap it to your head and

ollow the subject o your video, which makes orsome great ootage.

I you are a lmmaker looking or another camera toget some great ootage with, then go out and buyone o these right now! The quality is great and theFirst Person shots look like something straight outo Mirrors Edge.

I you’re a regular person looking to buy one camera,

this is probably not the camera or you. There aremuch more versatile high-de cameras out there inthe same price range. Although they’re notbombproo, they will have a viewnder and you’llable to review your pictures and video straight away.Overall Score: 3/5 Impressive video quality.

Incredibly durable. Lacking in features for the price.

So small it ts in the palm of your hand.



Athlete: Rocko Rovira (Mexico) www.urbanrunners.net Photographer: Humberto Bermúdez Cárdenas http://jpgmag.com/people/hbc31



When I heard that this event was getting close (about three

months ago), I immediately sentan e-mail to Ez to ask him if he

wanted me to cover the jam, sohere I am....

The RT Guadalajara (organized by different groups, especially the Monos Urbanos from thatsame city), one of the biggesthere in Mexico, takes place in

the beautiful city of Guadalajara,in the BIG state of Jalisco. Nearthe western coast of Mexico,Guadalajara is an amazing city,full of hotels, museums andrestaurants, and, of course, witha really friendly and outstandingParkour community.

The RTG has had already threesuccessful and great versions,since 2008. This year, the jam

was scheduled for August 14th,in the training spot known as“Rio de Janeiro”, right in themiddle of Guadalajara city, butthe inscription opened on July from the same year. Even sincethe webpage from the Jamstarted running, hundreds of people got in to get registered,

share thoughts of what they believed the RT would be, and tocheck out the event in general.

Well, it wasn’t all that muchdifferent for me. I got in,registered myself, checked outthe organisation, chatted aboutit with my partners, paid my fee and got all excited for the

jam; and when the jam was a

week away I realised: How theheck am I going to get there?!? Ihadn’t even bought a bus ticketor anything!! And it was 500kilometres away!!! Just when I

was visiting the

website to cancel my subscription, a friend of mine

(Paul Maldonado) came to my rescue. I’ve known him for morethan a year and he’s a memberof Monos Urbanos like me. Heoffered to take me and my photographer, Vero Gomez, tothe RTG, since he was already going and he had a car ready toroll.

So, we three met in the outskirtsof Mexico City ready for a longdrive and a great Jam the nextday. After some “tortas” wereeaten (bread with mayonnaise,cheese, beans, sliced onions andchilli) we set off forGuadalajara. After six hours of driving an almost interminablehighway through four differentstates (drinking coke, eatingchips and listening to Manafest,System Of A Down and LinkinPark along the way) we nally made it. It was almost eleveno’clock when we made itGuadalajara City, so we wereonly thinking of getting to ahotel as soon as possible toleave our stuff, get somethingto eat and rest a little bit for the

next day; and here is where theTRUE adventure started.

A lot of the cheap hotels (we were staying only one night!) were full, others were above ouravailable budget and others weresimply too far from the eventlocation. After an hour drivingfrom here to there, we stopped

searching to eat some tacos before starting again fromscratch. Once we werecompletely full (you don’t know how many tacos it took), we setoff again in search of a damned

hotel. A few blocks from where we ate, we found an old-looking

cab driver who asked us “Hey youngsters are you lookingsomewhere to spend the night?I know a couple of places where

you might get a room for a goodprice”. After leading us to one

with no electric power, he took us to this weird looking hotelnot too far from the centre of thecity, with an almost useless

elevator and a long counteron the entrance. We were tootired and it was too late to keepsearching, so we checked in andgot a room with three individual

beds.

To cut a long story short, it wasone of the worst nights any of us had spent anywhere. The

bathroom was full of beetlesand cockroaches, the lights onthe hallway were almost off,the door didn’t seem to be allthat much safe and the blankets

were either burned or with spotsof something that looked like

bleach (we wanted to believe it was bleach). We ended upsleeping at 1.30am with our

jackets over the pillows and

leaving the blankets as they were. The next day, after gettingup at seven o’ clock andpacking everything to get thehell out from that place, westopped at a store to get a coffeeand some pancakes, we headedover the “Rio de Janeiro” spot,and arrived an hour later. Justgetting out of the car and staring

at the place, we loved it.

RT GUADALAJARA 2010Words - Francisco ‘Pyro’ Peñaloza

Photography - Francisco ‘Pyro’ Peñaloza and Veronica Gomez



Free tee shirts?....I won’t say no.The free tee shirt giveaway.



The “Rio de Janeiro” park isfull of handrails, walls, stoneobstacles, bridges, stairs, deepzones and abandoned concretestructures, all traceable and

big enough to sustain the threehundred and sixty people that

were going to session there. Add

this to the structures brought by the different organisations andsponsors, like a complete tube

jungle and some mats, and youhad the perfect place to sessionall day long.

Some of the main sponsors would be Nike, Bullet andRedbull. Though the event was

starting at ten in themorning, the place already hadloads of people there, either

vaulting through the set upstructures or taking a look at the

whole park. A few minutes afterarriving there, we met up withErik “Sama” Silva, a friend of our that came from Mexico City.Together we visited thedifferent spots and sessioned

some of them, saluted somefriends of Paul and Vero, and

waited for the nal registrationto start. Half an hour after wearrived, a Redbull truck made itthere, to put up a big open tentand unload a lot of freeproduct, ready to be absorbed

by the practitioners that werethere. Soon the tent was full of

people, since they werereproducing different Red Bull

Art Of Motion videos,showing up what had happenedout there. Amongst some of thepersons that came to the jam,

were Kat and Rokk from MonosUrbanos, and UF All Star athleteDaer Sanchez from UrbanRunners.

Finally, the time for theregistration started. They madeus form a line behind a counterset in the Red Bull tent, wheresome of the instructors checked

out the lists where our names were and our payments, anddrew a number and either acircle or a cross on our forearms,to divide all the participants inten different groups. After this

was done, they made us gatheraround some fountains with big

red blocks on them. There they explained to us that according tothe

numbers on our forearms, we would divide in groups, each onegoing to one of the tendifferent spots, and after acertain amount of time, we

would rotate to the next spot.

Once this was explained, wesplit up into the different groupsof about 35 or 40 persons ineach one, and after a good warmup, we started. Training in thedifferent spots was insane. Eachone of them had differentobstacles, and everyone haddifferent ways of vaultingthrough them. Perhaps the mostpopular structures were the

high-jumps zone and the carszone. One of the spots consistedof two Volkswagens (knowncommonly as “Vochos” here inMexico) and an old pick-up,totally rusty and with grafti allover them, but that wereperfect to practice kongs,dashes, speeds, and everythingthat you could imagine; I even

saw someone make a doubleside ip over the pick-up!

Around four in the afternoon,the food was brought besides theT-shirts of the event, a little bittoo late, but that everyone wasexpecting. An hour was given foreveryone to attack head-on the

baguettes, the Redbulls and the

horchata waters (a cold drink,made from ground tiger nuts oralmonds, milk and sugar) givento everybody; and nevertheless,some people ate them whole in 5minutes, as to be able to

continue training and enjoy thefavourite spots before they gottoo crowded. After everyonenished, they led us to thehigh-jump zone, where they thanked us for assisting andhoped that we enjoyed the event.Just after that, they started

throwing T-shirts into the air,and it was a true battle betweenalmost four hundred persons toget extra tees. Also, they madeus run all around the place,searching for 4 small pieces of paper that said “Yeah!” on them,and the person that found them

would get either a Parkour back-pack, or any of the threedifferent pair of Nike trainers,

with the only clue that “we hadtraced over them”; so imaginea bunch of frantic and excitedmonkeys turning upside downthe mats, dismantling the“Vochos” and tearing apartanything that could fall in theirhands. Really Loco!!

After the four lucky traceurs

were given their gifts,everyone set off to train

wherever they wanted, eitherpracticing ips, vaults, lashes,precisions, 360’s, cat leaps.....

well, you get the point. At theend of the night, everyone stillhad energy to stay the whole

weekend, but unfortunately,they had to clean up the place

and clear up everything. So, ateleven everyone said theirfarewells, exchanged e-mailsand grinned, for most of them

would be returning to the RTGuadalajara 2011.



http://jihane.ktp-concept.fr



Shortly after bringing JJ on board as a UFsponsored athlete, he was telling us about how good hisown area was for training and that we should go andcheck it out. So in a bid to kill two birds with one stone,

we took the opportunity to pay a little visit and grabsome material for a feature....

Sup JJ, give us a brief introduction...JJ: My name is Jevgenij JJ Goda. My Christian name is

Russian and my surname is Lithuanian. I was born inLithuania but raised in England from the age of 4.Right now I’m based in Bexleyheath which is just on the

border of North West Kent and South East London.

How old are you now?JJ: I’m currently 18 years old.

Are you studying or taking the McD’s route?JJ: <laughs> I’m studying sports development coachingat North West Kent college in Dartford.

Only kidding. So how long have you been Freerunningfor?JJ: In January I’ll have been doing it for 4 years.

How did you rst hear of it?JJ: Through the internet I saw the 3Run ‘Revolution’

video and that caught my attention. When they weredoing wallspins in a tunnel I was amazed and just hadto try and get into it somehow.

What steps did you take from there?JJ: <laughs> Well I just went out and started

jumping off of things like into bushes and onto grass.Then one of my mates was like “Yeah that’sFreerunning” so we started to watch more and more

videos, continued jumping around and got higher andhigher <laughs>.

Sounds like a familiar clueless situation that almost all

of us have gone through. At what point did you start totake it more seriously?JJ: I started to meet more and more people along the

way and started to go out a lot more. So it was afterabout 6 months that we started to train pretty muchevery day and it all progressed from there.

JJ GODAGETS CAUGHT IN THE SPOTLIGHT

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY EZ



What’s the motivation for you?JJ: For me it isn’t so much theParkour or the Freerunningelements that stand out forme. It’s more about pushing

your body to a certain limit and breaking boundaries. That’s onething that makes it amazing for

me and keeps me going.

What’s the ultimate goal for you?JJ: I’ve looked into becoming astuntman where my strengths

would be Freerunning andmartial arts.

Martial arts too? What style do you practise?JJ: Muay Thai boxing which Iused to compete in but I haven’tfor a while now.

Is Freerunning your chosen‘way’ now?JJ: Yeah 100% Freerunningnow. I never liked football orstandard style sportingactivities and when it came to

physical education at school, I just couldn’t be bothered. Butthen we were lucky enough tohave teachers who would allow us to get the crash mats out andmess about doing ips, so that’sthe path I took and I haven’tlooked back since.

Good to hear that your school

encouraged you. Anyway, 4 years is quite a healthy amountof time to have under your belt.I’m guessing you’ve seen many people come and go. Doesanyone or any group stick outin your mind as being the mosthelp to you in the early days?JJ: Yeah, there was a groupfrom Dartford called Ultimate

Freedom and we hooked up withthem to learn some basic stuff.From there I met Chima whoshowed me a bunch of stuff andalso Ash who got me into thetricking side of things with palm

ips and back ips etc.

Do you still train with any of them?JJ: Yeah, Ash and Chima are 2of my closest Freerunning pals.

In any given week, how many

days would you practise for?JJ: At least 5 days a week.

Sounds heavy duty. Youmentioned that you’re studyingsports coaching so I’m guessing

you’re on the ball as far asrecuperation goes?JJ: Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong,my training is all structured.Some days we’ll go out and justdo upper body conditioningusing a couple of simple bars in

a park. Other days we’ll just drillprecision jumps or we’ll sessionips. Other times we’ll organise

big training sessions where we’lldrill the whole Freerunning set

intensively.

We’ve just come back fromshooting in your local area and

you mentioned something aboutlooking back at your old videosand seeing what a noob you

were. Seeing as you train soextensively there, you must seeall kinds of opportunities

opening up as you become moreexperienced?JJ: Yeah, denitely. There area bunch of places that I used tolook at with fear or hadobstacles that I had no idea how

to tackle. But with experienceI’ve grown and I now use thosesame obstacles to jump over,use as an elevation to a higherpoint or to create combinations.I said before that I love pushinglimits and because I’ve trainedso much at these spots, I can

clearly see a markedimprovement all round.

That’s great, but doesn’ttraining at the same spot makethings stale in the sense of yourunning out of things to do as

your vision widens?JJ: Not for me. I manage to ndnew things to do every day.

Do you have training partnersaround here or are you a soloyer?JJ: We have a group that we callResolution and it’s made up of about 20 of us. We all live withina 20 minute bus ride of eachother. My closest Freerunning

buddy is fellow UF athlete, Zak Sinclair who only lives a couple

or streets away and we’ve beentraining together pretty muchevery day since we started this

journey. We really push eachother and I guess I’m lucky inthat sense.

I’ve seen you in loads of theLondon videos that have beenproduced and uploaded on

the net. From my perspective,Southbank and thesurrounding areas have beenabsolutely rinsed and offernothing of great interest. Whatkeeps you going back for more?JJ: It’s not as inspiring as it usedto be when I rst started out butthese days Southbank has

become a bit of a trophy spot.

What do you mean? JJ: Ok you might have seensomeone in a video do a doublekong or a diving kong at Imax 2,

but you need to go down there to

“These daysSouthbank has

become a bit

o a trophy spot”



In his noob days, JJ would kong from this car park and roll upthe hill. We’ve all done stupid things at one time or another.



If I’m honest, Bexleyheath looked a bit on the bland side. However, wherever we went there were plenty of opportunities to drill techs.



really get an understanding of the size of it all. So what youhave is everyone pushingthemselves to get to that kind of standard. It’s the one place thateveryone can go to inorder to collect their trophies.Look, if somebody comes over

from France, they’re not goingto come down to Bexleyheath.They’re going to head to thefamous hotspots to kong clear atImax 2.

Have you picked up your trophy yet?JJ: Nah. I could probably doublekong Imax 2. I already kong

precision, kong speed step itand kong clear it but thediving kong is scary because of the dreadful drop.

Do you have places here withsimilar dimensions without thedrop, that you can practise at?JJ: There are a few spots butthey are restrictive in the sensethat they’ve got bars on top of

the walls and the techniqueneeded to deal with them aredifferent to Imax 2.

With Freerunning being so widespread these days, do yousee many newcomers steppingup to learn?JJ: Yeah, we’ve got about 30kids in my area who are into it

and they all know who we are, which is strange. They know ournames and where we live from

watching our videos. Scary stuff <laughs>.

Are the beginners you see,sensible in their approach anddo they follow your lead?JJ: A lot of them are doing it just

to show off and want to do allthe difcult techniques without learning thefundamentals. There’s only somuch that we can do to helpthem along.

is so uid. He can get a simplecar tyre and manage to sessionkong gainers, lazy gainers andstuff like that. I like how he isso clean with his movement andalso when he exits out of atechnique, he’ll add some spinsfor good measure. I also like

Danny Ilabaca because hismovements are so awless. Evenif he does something wrong and

bails, he manages to make itlook so beautiful <laughs>.

How about travelling, have youdone much yourself?JJ: Not a great deal but I’ve beento Latvia where I made a couple

of videos of me training inabandoned buildings and intrees.

Did you train at the famous blue bars area?JJ: Yeah in Daugavpils. Those

bars are amazing and are allover the place. Seriously, if wehad that setup to play with herein the UK, we’d be next level in

terms of bar skills.

We were discussing this duringour shoot earlier and you saidsomething about the necessity to power into certain moves inorder to step your game up. Toget to the point where you areable to do this, surely it’s acondence thing?

JJ: There’s always that fear anddoubt which is good because itkeeps you sharp and alert, butI’ve turned that into a game. Idon’t go all out with thecondence thing but like tochallenge it from time to time.Let’s say that there’s a move thatI want to do but I keep eggingout of doing it. I might say that

today isn’t my day and that I’llcome back another time. But what’s the difference betweenanother day and now? I know I can do the move without any problems. So we play a game

As you’re aware, there are noshortcuts to getting procient,so if they want to get ‘good’ they need to put in the time. Do any of them show promise?JJ: Some of them are gettingpretty good. The resources areall there, Youtube has hundreds

of videos to watch, there areindoor gyms to train at, thereare parks being built and forthose who want to travel, there’salways London <laughs>.

You mentioned Youtube whichis packed with PK/FR videos. Do

you use Youtube as a source of inspiration?

JJ: Yeah, I’m subscribed toover 500 different athletes andgroups. Sometimes I can have

up to 40 new videos to watch ina day.

Who’s inspiring you there rightnow?

JJ: Line Team Traceurs fromPortugal, the Russian guys likeShade Zlat and some of the

Australian guys. It’s great to seeso many styles and when they pull off something new, you

want to go out and learn it but because your own style might be different, you add your ownavour to it. That’s something I

really like.

Any one person who really stands out in the scene for youright now?JJ: Shade Zlat because his style

“Seriously, i we hadthat setup to play

with in the UK, we’dbe next level in terms

o bar skills”



JJ’s own Youtube channel can be ound at



www.youtube.com/risingtideproduction



where we say that you either dothis move now or you go home.

With that I mind, I have to go back to my starting point andeither do the move or pick upmy bag and go home. It’s assimple as that. I’ll be standingthere and will ask for one more

chance to prep it to check it’s allne. I’ll then go back and that’sit. I’ve committed myself todoing it. This approach hashelped me countless times.

Hmmmm but surely it’s seen you get mangled up too?JJ: <laughs> Well you’ve seen inmy showreel where I was on the

bars at the end. That took a lotof attempts and in theprocess I got winded, landed onmy ass and over-rotated. This

was because I played the game<laughs>.

Sorry JJ but I think your gameis seriously awed. What do youcall this game?JJ: We call it the game

<laughs>.

Ok, outside of bailing duringthe game, have you suffered any injuries during your time in PK/FR?JJ: When I started out, one of the rst tricks I nailed was a

backip. So being a completenoob I found a soft bush and

backipped off a 1st storey carpark into it. I did it a few timesok and was then going to lm itfor a video. I backipped, landedawkwardly on the stump andsnapped my ankle completely!It was a nice clean snap and Ihad to hop home with one of my mates holding me up. It hadto be snapped back into place

and I was in a cast for 6 weeksand then had to have a thinnercast put on for another 6 weeks.Then I had a couple of weeksdoing physiotherapy andhydrotherapy.

get better.

Well that was well deserved but with the sponsorship, it’s thereto support up and coming talentlike you and shine somespotlight your way. If you wantto be a pro in any game, you

need to build your prole up andclimb that ladder. Right now thedynamic has changed massively in the scene so to get noticedthese days, you need to get yourass out there and rep. None of itis rocket science….JJ: Well it denitely gave me a

boost in morale, so thanks.

No sweat. Outside of training,do you watch much TV?JJ: I don’t have time really. Ispend most time outsidetraining and don’t spend a lot of time in the house.

So for you, Freerunning is takingup a major chunk of your life?JJ: Yeah pretty much but Iabsolutely love it. I wouldn’t

trade it for anything else.

Throughout our conversationstoday you’ve only evermentioned Freerunning asopposed to Parkour. What’s yourtake on the debate?JJ: I’m not bothered, it’s allthe same thing for me. Like Isaid before, it’s all just creating

movement to overcomeobstacles using your body.

Good answer. Do you do any other sports to supplement yourFreerunning?JJ: Not sports per se, thesupplementation training isthrough natural bodyweightresistance training. Plenty of

muscles ups, push ups, pull ups,dips etc. We’ve got a thousandstep stair set that goes up amassive hill. We use this forplyo’s and cat crawls up anddown. If it’s raining and we

Ouch! Just the one injury?JJ: <laughs> No I did the samething again but with the otherankle. I went back to the same

bush and backipped into it. My mentality at the time was like,ok I’ve done this jump plenty of times before and what are the

chances of me landing on thatstump again?

<laughs>You tard!JJ: <laughs> I know but luckily it wasn’t a break. I just severely sprained it and was out for 6

weeks.

You were very lucky and seeing

as you have age on your side,I imagine both injuries healed without worry. Does the one that

broke ever play up?JJ: From time to time it getsswollen and I get a sharp pain

but generally I’m ok.

Let’s change things to a slightlierhappier note, what music are

you listening to at the moment?JJ: Manafest, Australian hiphop/R&B. I love the soulfulnessof it and the scratching. It really calms me down.

When you say it calms youdown, what stresses are there in

your life then?JJ: Oh no, everything in my lifeis really cool right now. Gettinginto the UF sponsored teamreally picked me up too and hasinspired me to train harder and

“I got winded,landed on my assand over-rotated.

This was because I

played the game”



On top of the World, baby!



Kong precision to front ip in view of CCTV camera’s.It took about 5 mins before we were asked to move on.



don’t have anywhere to drill, we’ll go there, put on ourhoodies and use the stairs.

Do you get hassle from anyonearound here like security orpolice?JJ: One of our favourite spots is

at the local Sainsbury’s and thesecurity have to be seen to moveus on. However, we’re alwayspolite and have gotten quitefriendly and even though it’stheir job to move us on, if we arelming something in particular,they’ll say “ok lads you’ve got 5mins before you’ve got to go”.

That’s really good to hear. Beingpolite can sometimes pay dividends.JJ: Yeah but when we shotat Sainsbury’s today that guy moved us straight away.

Well if truth be told, he was just a cleaner and had no rightto move us on, but I couldn’t

be bothered to argue the point.

If anything, it felt like we dida good deed because that littlepower trip probably made hisday.JJ: <laughs> No doubt.

When you’re training do youprefer being in a group?JJ: Denitely because you canpush each other. If you’re alone

it’s sometimes easy to give yourself a limit but when withothers, they can push you to stepup and they’ll be like “come on,

you know you can do it” andthey’ll be winding you up.

Sounds like you’re having funtoo. Does humour play a part init all for you?

JJ: Oh yeah, you have to havea laugh and not take things tooseriously. I do take my training

very seriously but I also like tolaugh with my mates. Especially

when they bail <laughs>.

of months and already bustingout with round off wall twists!How the hell is that possible?

I don’t know about you, butthat scares me in the sense thatthere’s an abundance of kids outthere learning all the fancy shit

before they’ve put in the timeto drill the fundamentals. I’veseen many people who can do afull list of ips n spins but can’texecute a kong, precision or catleap to save their lives. Don’teven get me started on rolling.JJ: Yeah, they don’t train in

what we call the ‘healthy stuff’and I think it’s shocking thatsome people are jumping fromheight without rolling.

How do you think we can weaddress this properly?JJ: It’s a tough one. Classes andtutorials but some people still

won’t listen. When it comes to a video tutorial of a roll, so many people will bypass it to watchsomething with the wow factor.

It’s a shame.

Have you seen many injuries?JJ: Quite a few. Most recently some noob attempted to do akong with no form and smashedhis shin on the sharp edge of a

wall. He ended up with 12stitches. A nice trophy for him Iguess <laughs>.

Do you train inside?JJ: I train sometimes atBeckton. It’s £5 for a mammothsession but the thing that makesme sad is seeing all the

beginners there who are missingout on those outdoor noob daysof self discovery.

Do you look back fondly on yourtime as a beginner?JJ: Yeah, your knees do talk to

you and ask “why did you justput me through that?” <laughs>

whereas when you become more

What are your views oncompetition within the scene?JJ: I think it’s important but canunderstand why some people

would be against it. Personally,it’s like the Imax 2 trophy scenario. If I see a worldchampion it gives me something

to set my sights on in terms of skills. I think it’s healthy to havecompetition.

Talking of Imax again, theaverage level of practitionersnow seems to be pretty high.If you go back to 2003 when Istarted, you’d be considered aGod if you could do a gainer ora sideip <laughs>. Seeing as

you’re a highly activepractitioner stuck in the middle

of it all, are you consciously aware of what’s going on?JJ: Oh yeah. You’ll get

beginners stepping up who cando a standing frontip on at

after 2 days and can do a backip on at after 3 days. It’sscary. When I started, I’d just

watch videos and imagine whatkind of gyms I could go to

because there weren’t thatmany. But now kids can go and

buy crash mats or go to a gymand be nailing twists and againer full twist within a couple

of weeks. What you see is kidsgoing to gyms every day in thesummer, nailing a load of techsand then rocking up atSouthbank telling you they’veonly been training for a couple

“I think it’sshocking that

some people arejumping rom height

without rolling”



experienced, you aim to be asquiet as possible and have a lighttouch. But back in the day we’d

jump from height and do somestupid stuff but as odd as it may sound, it really was the perfect

beginning because we had somuch fun but also learned a

hard lesson early on about self preservation.

So you wouldn’t change thoseexperiences?JJ: Not at all. It stood us in goodstead and got all the bad stuff out of the system.

Interesting theory. What do

your parents think of you beinga Freerunner?JJ: They love the fact that I’mso active. My whole family areactive with my dad being a black

belt in Tae Kwondo, who’s wondifferent championships. My

brother plays football and my mum is an ex dancer. Their view is that if I’m doing a positiveactivity and steering clear of the

negatives like drugs and alcohol,it can only be a good thing.

It’s brilliant that they support you. Does that support extend toknowing what you’re up to with

your Freerunning and watching your videos etc?JJ: Yeah, for instance when I

was putting my showreel

together, I had my mum sit in togive some feedback butsometimes she annoys me by saying “you could have pulled

your pants up there” and “youshould have moved that bag

because it’s in shot” and I’mlike ok mum but can you just

watch what I’m doing instead<laughs>.

<laughs> Nothing but love forour mothers. I think it’s greatthat she’s taking a real interest,

you’re very lucky. Youmentioned before that your

parents liked the fact that youare active and not taking the badroute, but do you ever encountertemptations?JJ: I’ve tried smoking and didn’tlike it. I might have a couple of

beers every now and then butI don’t like getting drunk. We

have a skate park nearby andfor the skaters it’s considered as

being cool to be into that wholedrugs and alcohol thing. I don’tsee the point.

Is there a clash between thegroups at all?JJ: No not at all. We’re knownas the Freerunners in the areaand it’s all cool. There are a few gangs in the area too and they’llcome up and say “can you dothat thing where you run up the

wall” and it’s ok <laughs>. Weknow them all by name and oneday they came out andattempted to train with us. They

were jumping off of walls andobviously had no technique butthey were ok with us. It’s all ne.

We talked before about how noobs in the scene aren’tearning their stripes by learning all the fundamentalsand are instead, opting for allthe big stuff. What advice would

you personally pass down to a beginner wanting to get intothis?JJ: You’ve denitely got to startfrom the very beginning anddon’t be tempted to take

shortcuts. You really need tohave the full noob treatmentand learn all the basics like how to land properly, how to roll.If anything, stick to Parkour inthe beginning because you don’treally need ips. That stuff willcome later on. Oh yeah, don’t

be in a rush to put out videos. While it might be good to lm your progress, nobody really wants to see a noob doing a 3ftprecision. At least wait until

you’ve reached a procient level before uploading videos for the world to see.

How about training in a gym,good or bad?JJ: I’d say to leave the gymuntil later on. There’s really noneed because in the beginningif you’re sensible, you’ll only bedrilling basics so there’s no realchance of hurting yourself. Thegym can come later on when

you know what you’re doing and want to try out the moreambitious stuff in safety, before

taking it to the streets.

Do you think that gymtraining can give you a falsesense of security?JJ: Yeah denitely. I’ve seenpeople doing stuff indoorsknowing full well that they are ina safe padded environment butthen thinking that they’ll be able

to do the same techniquesoutside. Some people need tond out the hard way I guess.

Do you follow a strict diet?JJ: Not consciously. I try tomake sure I eat something highbre in the mornings and I havea healthy dinner every night athome. But between that I pick

up whatever I can get <laughs>.

What does JJ Goda think of JJGoda then?JJ: With Freerunning I don’t

want it to come across as big

“You really need tohave the ull noob

treatment and

learn all the basics”



Another shot that had to be grabbed quickly, assecurity where on form and out with a vengeance.



Tic tac to cat leap in a favourite hotspot of JJ’s. This was one place where we had no hassle whatsoever.



headed, but I think that I’mreally committed to this sportand if anyone were to see me,they’d think that I’m serious andcould stand a chance of gettingsomewhere. I think my levelright now is at an ok standard.

As a person I like to joke about

and not take life too seriously.

Any up and coming plans totravel in order to train?JJ: I’m hopefully going toLisses in the spring. I also planto go back to Lithuania in thenext couple of weeks but that’smore of a family trip. I’ll do a

bit of training there though.My friends there are more intotricking, so it’ll be fun to pick upsome new tricks from them.

If you could jet off anywhereright now, where would it be?JJ: I denitely want to visit

Australia. If I could, I’d love tohook up with Shaun Wood totrain. He’s another one of thoseguys who has that clean

movement. I’d love to hit New York too.

Ok that’s about it. Before we wrap things up, do you want tothrow a shout out to anyone?JJ: Yeah, to Resolution. They’ve

been my boys since August2006, so peace out to them. Ilove those guys.

Thanks JJ.JJ: Thank you.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN4AUFOE710



Athletes: Michel Podouchko and Clément Duveau (France) Photographer: Ludmila Stiebner

Jump Mag Issue 8

Documents

Transcript of Jump Mag Issue 8