This competition wrap-up is written by our own Coach Amy!
If you’ve never been to a parkour competition, you’re in for a ride! Depending on where you go, the format can look different. Freedom in Motion has a competition team that just recently started its season in the West Coast Parkour Competitions. There are events every two weeks at various gyms throughout Southern California and all the way up to Washington. For these events, the format looks the same. There are three categories to compete in they are Freestyle, Speed, and Skills. Our team kids get to choose one or more events in which they want to compete in.
This past weekend, January 21 & 22, three FiM students traveled up to Tualatin, Oregon for the 2nd Qualifier event of WCPKC. Day 1: We woke up to hail and snow on the first youth day of the competition. Reese H. and Quinn C. (10-12 y.o. category) were competing in all three events of the day so they got right to warming up and creating their Freestyle lines. It’s extremely difficult to make a line in this scenario because there are usually at least 20 other people running around using the same space to plan their lines. It’s important to stay calm and focus on what you are doing. We practice this a lot in team so the kids are used to it, but on the actual day lots of nerves can come up. Both of these athletes have improved so much since last year and really utilized their news skills in their lines. As coaches we help guide them, but ultimately it’s up to them to choose what they want to present. When it came down to it, they both smashed it! Reese H. got into a tiebreaker meaning he had to participate in a big trick contest. He threw a b-twist and a scoot-full, and won snagging 3rd place. Quinn C. knocked it out of the park taking 1st place on the podium for the 10-12 year old category.
Immediately following was the Speed event consisting of three courses: Floor is lava, Sprint, and Touch points. The athletes get two attempts on each course and their best times get added together. We encourage our students to strategize together in order to help improve their times on the second try. This event is always fun to watch and in the end Reese H. got 5th place and Quinn C. Got 10th allowing them both to qualify for finals.
The final event of the day was Skills. At this point the athletes have been competing and moving for 4-5 hours so they have to draw their final energy to push themselves in what might be the most technically difficult part of the day. They get unlimited attempts at each skill station, trying to accumulate the max amount of points in a 2-hour window. It’s mental, it’s grueling, and it often pushes athletes out of their comfort zone. Reese H. managed to get 29/30 points even having to learning new moves in the process. In doing this he took 1st place! Quinn C. also pulled enough points in to qualify at 5th place.
One of our favorite parts as coaches was getting to watch them support and encourage each other in their successes and even in their failures. Overall a successful day for our youth athletes!
Day 2: Teens and adults' day of competition. Both Coach Seth and I competed alongside our only teen athlete that attended Charlie C. He JUST unlocked his backflips the week prior and his goal was to put some flips in his freestyle line. A brave move for sure and he managed to put both a side flip and a backflip in his line! Coach Seth almost always competes in Freestyle, whereas I on the other hand only do occasionally but in the end I decided to compete as well. Seth ended in up in a tiebreaker beating out our fellow FIM coach Hayden from Murrieta with a nasty move most simply put as a cast-to-toe-hook-front- flip off a rail.
Following this was Speed with some very intricate touch point courses and a lot of ups and downs for the sprint course. Needless to say, we had our work cut out for us! Charlie was looking forward to this as he has gotten so much stronger and faster since last season, but he tweaked his ankle slightly during freestyle which made him have to be more cautious and save his energy for skills.
Finally, Skills came around to complete the last event of the weekend. The challenges were very fun and creative. Some are definitely more unique such as the level 4 dive roll over a block to immediately turn and drop into cat hang, which Charlie got! My proudest moment was getting a level 4 challenge that involved cat-180s down to lower walls and then back up to a wall twice that height. Many of the guys were not even making it because being bigger made it harder to drop to the smallest wall and not touch the floor. Yay for being small! Coach Seth banged out a level 5 dyno challenge on his first try with ease. At the end of it all I came out 2 points ahead of all the other women and got 1st place for Skills, 2nd for Freestyle, and 4th for Speed, and Coach Seth got top 10 in all 3 events qualifying for finals. Though Charlie did not qualify for any events yet, he’s planning on participating in all 3 events at every single competition this year. So believe me when I say you better watch out!
Note to parents: Interested in the Competition team at FiM? Need to be level 3 or higher, and chat with the coach to get started or if you like, contact us via email or give us a call. It's NOT too late in the season to join!