Vanguard & CO.

Everything about the world we live in is messed up for the exact same reasons, in different contexts, from different perspectives. I’ll tell you a secret, for starters: Anything you can blame on someone or something else is actually your fault. You wouldn’t have needed to blame an outside entity from the start if the problem hadn’t already manifested through your own actions, and the less you’re willing to stake your success within your own actions from start to finish, the faster you’ll fade away. If you’re unhappy about anything, it’s your fault. That’s the first realization to make, and no one’s perspective on that matters, or even truly exists, but your own.

Just woke up at like 12 midnight after crashing out and dying on my bed after 2 fuuuull days of training properly and back in feiyues, aaand practicing deadlifts, forward squats, and clean&jerks the night (2am) before the second. Ankles aaare officially good, and PKNY was (is, as there’s another day tomorrow, just needed a 1 night break at home I guess) awesome. I give my wrists and toe about another week. Getting back on Glucosamine/MSM/condroiton aren’t hurting the process either! More basic tumbling on my wrists this Wednesday at The Gym Park. I’m just about back! Kind of excited, as I’m prone to forget that my training methods the past year and a half have been revolved around effectively recovering seriously limiting injuries. Which in the process, has taught me sooo much about methods of immediate and long term recovery and longevity methods and practices. A very pivotal training cycle is coming to a close.

The UrbanVanguard was created in order to ultimately give a direction and an identity to New York’s community that had been more or less overlooked by those in leadership positions at the time of UV’s founding. It’s current identity and previous incarnations are absolutely nothing more than the collective ACTIONS of it’s members and founder. It is not a legitimate business or even a legitimate team for that matter, but was created to be a physical representation, an example of the idea of taking your path into your own hands for those practitioners who at least believed they wanted to take their training in a professional direction. Any positive outcomes of being apart of the UrbanVanguard team were expected to more or less be the product of collaborative effort. I personally, am not quite in the same realm of entity as professionals like Exo, EZ, Mark, Vic & David. I put myself in the position to be a primary catalyst of progress for those who are equally motivated. I’ll answer your questions, and contribute to your projects, but I’m certainly not your manager, or anyone remotely responsible for your own personal success.

Whenever “Can’t be bothered” come’s to mind, will be replacing it with “I’m not strong enough”. Our community uses way too many cop outs as a whole. Fear of the pressure that comes with being in a leadership position causes the creation of mental barriers that keeps one in their comfort zone, and letting that weakness trickle down to those who more or less look up to you weakens the up and coming generations of our community as a whole. “Be strong to be useful”, to OTHERS. That was the whole point, remember pansies? It’s pointless to reach for the light if you’re not even going to keep your eyes open.

Oh also, the amount of legitimately accomplished practitioners out there who we simply don’t know about as a community due to them being too busy being more well rounded in life, or just not in possession of the camera/interest needed to put out videos on youtube is staggering. The level of talent and accomplishment in our known community is NOTHING SPECIAL compared to the practitioners of the world. The person/people you look up to the most in the world/in your immediate community aren’t really in a much higher percentile of talent/accomplishment than other practitioners world wide. Moral of the story, you can’t be elitist if you’re not remotely as special as you think you are, or others have led you to believe through their own ignorance. Being a leader is the only thing that should set apart one practitioner from another. How far you can jump and the amount of flips you can do has no real effect on anything. It can inspire others yes, but when those who it inspires come to you for guidance, and you’re mentality towards it is “Can’t be bothered”, you’re accomplishments become worthless as a whole. Or at the very least, poisonous to the younger generation (that’s generally the BEST case scenario).

One more thing. The majority of practitioners in our community have been falsely led to believe that as you progress in parkour, you SHOULD eventually be able to live off of it as a profession. “Making a living off of what you love to do”. How about you progress in your training, AND be a productive individual who isn’t too childish to WORK. Training isn’t working, and you definitely shouldn’t think you DESERVE anything from anyone or anything with the amount of training you’ve done. You’re stronger now, that’s your reward. Growing up, if anything, should allow you to pursue your training even more effectively. Parkour is supposed to grow with you, not feed you. 

At all times synthesizing the paradigms of the universe around me via algorithmic filter of my own design, pouring in the information of past, present, and future, all occurring simultaneously as it comes out the other end as simply ______. For observational purposes only of course. The realizations are maddening, until you realize said realizations have already been realized, and you move on. “Forward” is the only concept we’ve been given the hardware to actually perform, but “Awareness”……gonna need a lot more data to continue. I’m only 21, and “Living” is the only way to truly ______.

My first experience with Parkour was just running up a wall over and over again until I made it to the top. I had no intention to seek validation of what I was doing from others, and had no belief that I could “Market” this to “Make a living” off of it. I’d LIKE to say that has remained true in the past 6 years, at least ultimately. Parkour is a natural skill. I learned it, and through living, hone it. I don’t think I want to “Freerun” with you guys, in the direction that art/discipline/sport is going in, but will always be about bettering myself, and appreciating the people and things around me, as well as the evolution of the young art(s) we as a community are apart of. I will always be here for everyone, and in the end, be down for whatever. Parkour has enriched my life, and isn’t meant to have done anything else to it. Asking even more of it is unfair, as at some point, we have to start taking care of ourselves.