Interview with Stephane Vigroux

This interview was made in collaboration with Deviants team. Stephane Vigroux represents the old-school of parkour.

Stephane, how did you get involved in parkour?

- The story is very short and simple. I used to live very close to Lisses, the village where it all began. My friends brought me over to the training wall, which was built by David and his followers. I got really inspired by the philosophy of parkour. One thing led to another, and soon I became as dedicated as the rest of tracers.

Which other kinds of sport do you enjoy?

- Skiing, probably. In all honesty, when I’ve met David Belle, I did not have any legitimate physical training behind my belt. I did not know anything; David had to teach me step by step.

What is your relationship with Urbanfreeflow?

- I’ve participated in the shooting of their documentary on parkour in 2006. Those guys are definitely serious about what they are doing. Yes, they do have their own professional team of athletes. Yes, they did design and produce their line of parkour clothing which they sell through their web-site. Those people know how to make money with the help of their passion, it impresses me.

What do you think is most important during the training?

- Before starting to learn how to fly one has to learn how to land. When you jump, never bend your knees more than 90 degrees. All the movements should be synchronized; otherwise you will immediately lose your balance. Never underestimate the importance of the warm up, pay particular attention to stretching. Some people are too impatient to spend as much time on stretching as necessary; such childish attitude can lead to serious trouble.

What was your biggest injury?

- It might sound strange, but I’ve never had a serious injury while training. The sprained ankle is probably the worst thing I had so far. I know it is pretty weird, especially knowing that so many tracers are injuring themselves every day.

What would you like to say to new generation of tracers?
- Be safe, guys! Remember, if you are scared to do the jump, it means that you are simply not ready to do it yet. Be smart, be quick and be careful!

***

Voila, Vigroux in action

Evolution

As I mentioned previously, the father of parkour did not impress me much when I met him and talked to him. The man is living in Lisses, in the middle of nowhere, with his questionable girlfriend, spending large portion of his time on smoking weed, which doesn't really go with the whole "tracer is a person with strong body and strong mind" theory. And yes, David is barely 5.3 ft tall, which somehow irritates me more than anything else. Superheroes have to be tall and handsome, not short and constantly stoned out of their minds.

This promo video was shot by David Belle in Portugal in 2006.



Just to emphasize the fact that some students are better than their teachers, here is a video of my good friend, Sergey Valyaev. Credits for filming and montage go to my other friend, young genius Mikhail Serezhenkin. Both of them are members of Deviants team, one of the most promising Russian pk-teams.

(c) Deviants

I've met the guys from Deviants team the same year "Banlieue 13" came out in Russia. In all honesty, I think that these boys made more progress so far then their mentor. Do you see the difference between those two videos? Not counting the trick with a jump through a tiny window (Belle does that trick in every single video), the most impressive thing about the first clip - David is wearing a suit. But who knows, maybe the suit is a metaphor? Perhaps Belle is trying to let us know that he realized how fulfilling his life was, and now he wants to fit in with the working class people. I sincerely wish him luck and determination!

L’art du déplacement et moi

When I moved to United States from Russia (which happened less than a year ago), one of the first cultural differences I’ve noticed was the fact that nobody knew what le parkour was. This extreme kind of sport appeared in France technically in the end of the 80’s, and became a very big deal all over Europe in early 2000.

The story of parkour (translates from Zairian as “a path of obstacles”) started in a small French city Liss right outside Paris, where David Belle, the future founder of the sport, was spending his childhood. His personality was greatly affected by his father, a person of great physical form. Raymond Belle, a professional firefighter, was serving in Vietnam during the war – it shaped his personality, gave him strength and wisdom. As for young David, he was obsessed with physical exercises and martial arts. It all started as innocent tree climbing, but over the years it evolved into a sport, which had its very own ideology.

The phrase “There are no limits, only obstacles” became David Belle’s motto. Such beautiful and uplifting way of thinking attracted a lot of followers, especially among younger generation. The idea of breaking your inner barriers by tracing new paths appealed to everyone. Instead of taking a usual road to school in the morning tracers (from French, exact meaning is “people who create new tracks”) would choose the most efficient, but definitely not the easiest path – jump a fence, climb a building, gallop across the street instead of walking calmly on the sidewalk. It probably doesn’t sound as fascinating as it really is, but as long as you can see the line between adrenaline and plain recklessness, everything should be fine.

The first turning point in the history of parkour was in year 2000, when Luc Besson, one of the biggest sharks of modern show-business, decided to film a blockbuster with collaboration of French oldest parkour team, which consisted of eight people: David himself and seven of his closest friends.

On 4^th of April 2001 the movie Yamakasi comes out on big screens. L’art du déplacement, how the French people are calling it, became almost too popular after the premiere of the movie. Guylain N'Guba-Boyeke, Charles Perrière, Laurent Piemontesi and the other members of the team were hired as choreographers for a Broadway musical Notre Dame de Paris. David Belle, who at that time was radically against the commercialization of parkour, had refused to support the actions of his teammates and quit.

I guess, after a while Belle started to have second thoughts, or, perhaps, he simply got tired of laughable royalties for TV-commercials – his only source of income. In anyway, in November 2004 the world of extreme sports was turned upside-down again: the unstoppable Luc Besson had presented his new movie, Banlieue 13 (District 13). David Belle and his good friend, famous acrobat and stunt Cyrill Raffaelli have starred as main characters - Leito and Damien. Neither of them was blessed with the talent of acting, but, apparently, that small obstacle did not bother Besson. He stuffed the plot with unreasonable amount of special effects and battle scenes, which relatively made up for the absence of logic in the plot.

In January 2004 David Belle and his friend and co-founder of Parkour World Association Jocelyn Demoniere came to Moscow for the premiere of District 13. The whole event was set up by Russian pk-team The Tracers. At that time I was working as a correspondent/interpreter for a half-bankrupted magazine EXTREME. Instead of paying me salary, the editor Andrey “Dragon” Krasnov was giving me vip-tickets for various extreme sports events. Hopefully, the exploitation of sixteen year olds will not be left unpunished and his ridiculous little paper will get shut down sometime in the future. But that job still paid off in the end – I’ve resigned right after receiving the tickets for the premiere of Banlieue 13. The precious press badge allowed me to attend a closed press conference with David Belle, the premiere itself and the after party, which for unknown reason was held in an underground skydiving pub Parabar.

I’ve had a very fulfilling two minute conversation with the founder of parkour before the premiere. Unfortunately, foreign languages did not interest Belle as much as physical training and my French skills back then were pathetic. Belle seemed to be completely devoured by chaotic atmosphere; he was overwhelmed and rather irritated. The father of parkour in the flesh was so much less than I thought he would be! I would have certainly turned my back on this sport, if only some people did not make me change my mind. But that is a different story, which I will tell you later.

Stay tuned!

NN

Christened by JP III

Epilogue

No, I did not get fired. In fact, the whole office has been watching the cuts from that shooting on “repeat” mode for over three days, finding them absolutely hilarious. For weeks after that day I kept coming across different online and printed reviews of that memorable event. In most articles I was vaguely mentioned as “girl in red shirt”, luckily, the story did not stick for too long. But the signed poster, which the guys from FORUM gave to me as a souvenir, is still pinned to my wall, as a memory of my professional christening.

Christened by JP II

This picture was taken on September, 30^th 2006. It was the day American snowboarding team Forum came to Moscow to present their new (for that time) video THAT. It was also the day of my professional christening and the day I met JP Walker. The JP Walker.

I was eighteen years old – young and pretentious journalist, with big ambitions and no experience of working with the camera whatsoever. And, to be honest, I was not quite ready for all that valuable experience, which was about to fall on me from the above… That day, early in the morning I’ve received a phone call from my boss. He told me that I have a private press conference to attend in less than seven hours. Apparently, one of American best snowboard teams was coming over to present their new movie. Unfortunately, my boss was in a hurry, so all the crucial details and necessary specifications, such as the name of the team or at least the name of the movie, were spared.

The big show had started from the moment I’ve entered the headquarters of the Gameland Publishing House, were the press conference was being held. I’m not quite sure what exactly was bothering me more – the fact that it was my first real journalistic assignment or the fact that I was as unprepared for it as I could possibly be. I’ve decided to calm myself down by consuming disturbing amount of chocolates at the buffet table. Right at the moment when I was silently chocking on my third chocolate truffle, a stranger approached me. His face had very sharp features, and his massive chin hypnotized me for a second. Some people tend to say that heavy, distinguished chin is a sign of strong and decisive personality. I, on the other hand, have simply assumed that the person had way too many surgeries on his face. And, as it turned out later, I wasn’t far from truth.

- “Hey, what’s up? My name is JP” – he said. Since his name did not ring any bells in my head I’ve responded with a simple “Oh, you’re one of those…”. After introducing myself I’ve explained that I am presenting “Russian Extreme” tv-channel, and that he and his teammates Pat Moore, Joni Malmi and the winner of FORUM Youngblood contest Kareem El Rafie are going to have the joy of working with me and my crew after the press conference. By the way, I am absolutely convinced that name tags and placards are the best and most useful inventions in the history of mankind since the invention of the wheel.

The goal of my crew was to film the conference, the premiere and the after party, in order to make a full 26-minute special story on FORUM for our weekly program “The Premieres”. My job was to do the interviews and a couple of short stand-ups, under thirty seconds each. After talking for ten minutes with JP I’ve noticed some movement in the room – people were setting up the cameras, reporters from OnBoard, Hooligan, Xtreme and many other snowboard-oriented magazines were taking their seats. For unknown reasons I was seated in the first row, which made me immediately cancel the idea of hiding somewhere between the rows, behind broad backs of my more experienced colleagues.

The press conference officially started, but my boss, who was supposed to arrive half an hour ago, was still missing, which basically meant that I had to start improvising. Somehow that short conversation JP and I had earlier had boosted my confidence, and I have decided to participate in the conference by asking a question. As soon as I heard a lady in the third row making a feeble attempt to form a question in broken English, I’ve realized that it is a perfect opportunity for me to show off my language skills in front of the public. But all typical questions were supposed to be asked during the private interviews, which were set up separately. Asking the same question during the press conference and then later during an interview did not seem to be a good idea even for such an amateur as me. The only way I could have avoided repeating myself was by asking something which did not really had anything to do with snowboarding, their team or the movie. After a few minutes of titanic efforts to come up with something witty and creative, I gave up and decided to ask how the team is planning to spend their spare time in Moscow, knowing from the conversation with JP that it was the first visit to Russia for all four of them.

I realize that I might sound like a mentally challenged person, but even now, two and a half years later, I still do not understand what exactly went wrong at that point and most importantly why. After raising my hand politely and standing up I suddenly felt like my mind just drew a big blank. A beautiful and creative question, which was formed with the consideration of all necessary grammatical constructions of English language, disappeared from my head. Now that I think about it, that scene would have looked perfectly in slow motion… I look around the room in complete and rather tragic silence, than I take a deep breath and go: “Guys, what are your plans for tonight?”

The reaction of the public on my inadequate behavior was very diverse. Joni Malmi, who was fighting with a severe hangover all afternoon, had raised his eyebrows. Pat Moore and Kareem El Rafie looked at each other, suppressing laughter. The interpreter, who, as I suspect, did not like me from the start, immediately translated my glorious improvisation, putting it in the lamest terms possible: “For those who did not understand, the question was about the plans for the evening”. The quickest and wittiest comeback I’ve received was, of course, from JP. He smiled, exposing all 32 of his brand new teeth (after shattering his jaw completely in snow park Solitude, Utah, JP had to have several dental surgeries), grabbed the microphone and answered my question with another question: “That depends. What are yours?”.

After his response I got fully aware of the fact that I just hit on four men simultaneously, in front of a rather big audience and five different TV-channels, including the one I work for. For the rest of press conference I was sitting in complete silence, calculating the chances that the story of my disgrace would never leave that room.

Individual interviews went much smoother than the conference itself, thanks to Mr. Walker. While the cameraman Vitalik was setting up the equipment, I was attaching the microphone to rider’s shirt with trembling hands. JP, as the incarnation of ultimate confidence and serenity, was standing absolutely still. I guess something in my attitude gave away the fact that I’ve obviously have no idea what I am doing. The icon of snowboarding started whispering from the corner of his mouth: “Relax. At first, ask me how my season went and which locations have I visited recently. Then ask about the movie. I will talk about it for a while, and then ask me about our team’s plans for foreseeable future”. That was the most bizarre and tragic situation in the history of journalism – a star himself suggests which questions a journalist should ask! I prefer to consider that embarrassing memory a valuable professional experience.

Christened by JP

Prologue

JP Walker is a 31-year old world famous snowboarding legend. Of course, it is hard not to become a pro-rider if you were born in such a place like Salt Lake City, Utah. But JP is certainly more than just a pro. He took modern snowboarding to an entirely different level. He has been around in snowboarding industry for over fifteen years, and every year he exceeds even the highest expectations. In the past decade there has not been a single rider who could outdo Mr. Walker in rail sliding or backcountry snowboarding.

That man is dedicated as nobody else – he destroys on average twenty five boards (of his own design and modification, of course) a year and has a mini snow park with a half-pipe in the backyard of his house. Every single company is dying to get him on their team. Until recently Mr. Walker was riding for the team FORUM, but after some disagreements with the rest of the management he left.

It's turning into a different company. Everyone that has made it what it is today has been fired or left for something else. I think Burton is taking it over and changing the setup. I’m not really down with the new thought process over there

– said JP in his interview for Snowboardermag. Right now JP Walker is officially riding for StepChild Snowboards.

Diving is now a sport!

The year 2008 will be known by the future generations of divers simply as "The Breakthrough".

Two weeks ago World Underwater Federation (CMAS/WUF) officially ranked diving as a sport. After two years of waiting it finally paid off: first international diving championship will take place in Hurgada, Egypt, on 21st of May.

At the times of legendary Jacques-Yves Cousteau divers were known to be adventurous and romantic, they admired nature like nobody else. People would go diving in the most remote parts of the world, to be closer to nature, to see the beauty of Underwater with their own eyes. But more than forty years had passed since then, now everything has changed – no adventures, no creativity and no imagination – just pure skill. During the competition contestants would have to swim through hoops and tubes, breathe in pairs from one oxygen cylinder and be able to swim under water without a mask. Of course, it doesn't seem like something fun or beautiful anymore - jumping through hoops under the water, wearing something which strongly reminds of a fat suit, with two iron cylinders attached to the back, without the mask and almost completely out of air.

World Underwater Federation is consisted from one hundred and seventeen countries. All of them are expressing their happiness and pride that diving finally joined the rest of the sports games. I feel like I am the only one here forming the opposition..

(c) Barracuda