Parkour, which originated in France, is a sport in which participants attempt to get from Point A to Point B in the most creative and efficient way possible. This can include jumping, flipping, walking on walls or handrails, and more.
Bloomington Parkour is a local group that teaches parkour fundamentals and conditioning, while focusing on accessibility and community.
David Frew, BPK’s coach, was a member of the Indiana University Parkour Club before he graduated from IU in 2016. The club shut down shortly after, in 2017, due to a lack of membership.
During the pandemic, Frew was looking for a way to get some exercise outdoors, and he decided to use all the time he had to start BPK.
“I had a lot of free time, and I started to reconsider what really mattered to me,” Frew said.
Bloomington Parkour coach David Frew talks about the sport of parkour and how BPK came to be. He graduated from IU in 2016 and created BPK in 2020.
The group is not just for IU students. Some members travel from cities as far as Paoli, Indiana and Vincennes, Indiana to participate.
The group has around 10 active members, with five to six showing up at weekly practices, Frew said.
Frew also teaches a couple of parkour classes to children and teens at The Warehouse in Bloomington.
“It’s a part of our greater Bloomington outreach plan,” Frew said.
At practices, Frew leads the group in a half hour of warm-ups that include stretching and conditioning. Then, they move to a different location on campus with the right architecture to practice on, which can include stairs, walls and rails, for example.
“That first year of parkour training is about finding your movement, but it’s also about getting your body physically ready to do things that we don’t normally get to do anymore,” Frew said.
Bloomington Parkour members doing a warmup activity on Oct. 11. They are doing “inchworms” on a wall located near the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center.
Parkour, while supposed to be exhilarating, is also a way to get active, and people can try it no matter their ability level.
“Everyone has to find their own movement,” Frew said. “In BPK’s membership we have a variety of body sizes, shapes, types.”
Frew himself is diabetic.
“I’m insulin dependent so for me, my accommodation for parkour is having to take breaks, it’s having to look at my glucose, and check my blood sugar,” Frew said.
Member Brady Adams has been training in Parkour for six years. He began his training in his hometown of Indianapolis.
“I remember I made my dad get me a trampoline because I wanted to start doing flips and I remember I did my first front flip and I was like ‘Holy crap, this is awesome,’” Adams said.
Adams was recruited by Bloomington Parkour when he announced he would be attending IU on Instagram.
Lilly Karafft, a student at Vincennes University, drives an hour to attend BPK’s weekly practices.
Earlier this semester, she was interested in learning parkour and joining a group, and after some online research, she found BPK and emailed Frew.
“I had never done it before, before this,” Karafft said. “I didn’t really know what I was doing. But I’ve learned a lot from David and everyone else.”
