Translator: Maciej Mackiewicz Reviewer: Krzysztof Wiankowski
(Dubstep music)
[Thank you, James Kingston for providing us with this video]
Applause for the boys.
(Applause)
We’ve had a little false start, I hope you can forgive me.
As I’ve mentioned, my name is Grzegorz Niecko,
I’ve been training parkour for 11 years.
What you’ve just seen was freerun.
Parkour is the art of moving in an urban space
with the use of your body.
Parkour has its origins from the army and fire brigade,
just as soldiers train on monkey bars,
we train using the same techniques in the urban space.
Freerun on the other hand is
adding somersaults, spins and aerobatics to parkour,
we can also add dance acrobatics
and then we get what we call freerun,
in other words free running.
What you’ve just seen was more freerun,
because of this stage that we have here today.
So, my adventure with parkour began 11 years ago,
when my brother, at a time
when the Internet wasn’t as popular as it is nowadays,
downloaded a 2-minute clip,
at time when it took an entire night to download it,
when you had to turn off your telephone connection
just to watch something;
he downloaded this video clip, showed it to me
and said: "Look at how these guys jump!"
Wow, back then I didn’t know that it’s called parkour,
I just went outside, mustered some guys from my neighborhood
and this is how my adventure started.
Over time, the longer I trained and practiced,
at the beginning it was through trial and error,
we didn’t’ have a coach, no one who could explain to us how to do it,
so we had to figure it out all ourselves with self determination,
with the will to achieve something.
After some time we decided
that it would be nice to have some sort of place in Gdańsk
that would be designed only for us, where we could train,
find fulfillment, pursue our passion which is parkour
and just have some fun.
We came up with the idea of creating a parkour park,
an open place that would allow for the safe practicing
of parkour and freerun in an open space.
Currently this project is aimed
to motivate people
from the gap found between playgrounds and outdoor gyms,
hence, the group of middle and high-school students.
Of course this object is designed for everybody
and just as on monkey bars
we try to use these elements intuitively,
use them in a way
in which every one of us could train, do pull ups,
use it in any possible way, not only because of parkour.
At the beginning our adventure started in 2010,
when we took part in a contest organized by a well-known bank,
so this was our first project,
where we could receive a grant of 10,000 zł to fulfill our dream.
Ok, so we thought – let’s give it a go.
We were admitted, went through all of the stages
and made it to the finals.
Unfortunately we didn’t win,
possibly because we weren’t an organization at the time,
only a bunch of friends, who had a dream and wanted to fulfill it.
Luckily we didn’t give up then
and decided, that after we came back,
we’d pick ourselves up from this defeat.
We tried again,
we set up an association
that undertakes many interesting initiatives,
which does a number of different things,
and to never forget what inspired us
to set up the association in the first place.
It was our desire to build a parkour park,
and this desire was so strong that we didn’t give up;
we searched for funds everywhere -
in the city council, private sponsors, literally everywhere.
Finally, from the councilors of Gdańsk Śródmieście,
we managed to receive a grant of 15,000 zł for our project.
A monotonous struggle began,
for finding the proper area, localization,
with documentation, paper work.
We had to go through offices that I had no idea existed.
Finally, at the end of December 2013
the tender was launched
and the appropriate company was chosen
to build the first object of its kind in Poland.
In this picture you can see Tomek with a shovel
and me wearing purple pants next to him.
Because as people who, not only designed it,
we were willing to go through all these stages,
raise funds, find the proper place, go through
all the stages with the city council, all paper work,
we decided that we'd contact the company that won the tender and inform them
that we wanted to build it as well.
Because we wanted it to be built as we had planned it.
That is why we contacted them,
we went there with shovels, went through every stage of construction
and finally, on 21st December 2013,
we officially opened the first open object of it’s kind in Poland
that allows for the training of parkour and freerun.
Of course it’s not only a place for us.
At the beginning I was afraid that --
OK, we’ll build this object for parkour,
but how many people will train there?
How many of you train parkour? Raise your hand!
Two people.
Exactly! This is what we were afraid of.
However, as it happened,
kids from the neighborhood started visiting our place,
even though that 15 meters from it,
there was a wooden playground, it was empty,
kids wanted to come to ours. Why?
Because, when I was a kid, I used to go to the trzepak
[a frame for beating the dust from rugs]
And I was training on it,
there were no signs, nobody told me what should I do,
I was just using it in a creative way,
I was trying to explore what was fun,
what was interesting to me, to play, practice, whatever,
to do anything on it.
This is why this place is actually a more advanced "trzepak,"
where anyone can come, do pull ups, train,
do whatever, just move around.
You can think that this is where our adventure ended.
But no, we didn’t give up;
we took part in the Gdańsk Civic Budget
with an idea of building 16 such objects of this kind
in every larger suburb.
Since we started with quite a large campaign
which you could find on the Internet --
[You haven't voted for City Sport Areas yet?
Gorilla and Banana are dissapointed.]
(Laugh)
we decided that we wanted each suburb,
each citizen of Gdańsk
to have this kind of object, where they could train.
But they weren’t supposed to be the same,
each suburb was supposed to get its own, individual object
designed only for this particular suburb.
Why? So it would motivate people to move from one suburb to the next,
so they'd think: "Hey, there's this object in my area,
maybe I’ll go somewhere else and see how I can train there,
I’ll do something, I’m not going to just sit around,
I’ll move a little around Gdańsk, see what’s going on."
Unfortunately, if it comes to the Gdańsk Civic Budget,
since we concentrated on 16 localizations,
which made for 6 projects,
we didn’t get enough votes,
we were around 160-200 votes short depending on the project,
which is quite a success anyway,
because altogether, our projects gathered more than 6,000 votes,
where the winning project, with the highest amount of votes,
got only 2,600,
so for us it was a success.
One could think: "OK, we didn’t manage here,
but we won’t give up."
So what did we do?
We took part in the Gdynia Civic Budget
with 11 of these kinds of projects, and what happened?
(Applause)
And we just got a message,
today on the Trojmiasto.pl website there was information
that our 11 projects were accepted on a merit’s basis
and can be voted on,
there’s a chance that they will be built in Gdynia.
But that’s not all,
we took part in the Lębork Civic Budget,
we want to take part in the Tczew Civic Budget, why?
Because we fight for our dreams
and I hope that from today, every one of you
will start fighting for your dreams,
because it's the most important thing in our lives:
to fight for our dreams, thank you very much.
(Applause)
(Dubstep music)
Applause for the boys!
(Applause)
Applause! Come on boys.
Of course I can't forget to mention my friend
who helped me to create all of this,
with whom we went through every stage
Tomasz Dąbrowski, he's with us today,
Tomasz, come on.
Come on stage.
(Applause)
We've designed it all together, we're reaching for our goal,
the boys are supporting us,
I hope that you'll support us as well.
Thank you one more time.
(Applause)