- [Jeremy] Present.
- [Sahara] Yeah.
[laughing]
You got it, you got it.
[dramatic music]
- My name is Sahara Gipson.
I graduated and competed for Temple University's
gymnastics team and my favorite event is vault.
- My name's Michelle Amoresano.
I've been doing gymnastics for about 15 years.
I competed on the Rutgers gymnastic team
and my favorite event is bars.
- My name's Ayana Lee.
I've been doing gymnastics for 15 years.
I was on the Rutgers gymnastics team
and my favorite event is the floor exercise.
- My name's Jessie Danger.
I've been training parkour for about 15 years.
I'm the co-founder and director
of The Movement Creative.
- My name's Mike Araujo.
I've been practicing parkour for 14 years
and I'm currently the head coach
for The Movement Creative.
- My name is Jeremy Gallant.
I've been doing parkour for about 15 years.
I am a parkour instructor at Brooklyn Zoo.
- My name is Orlando Alicea.
I've been training parkour for around 10 years
and I'm a parkour instructor at the Brooklyn Zoo.
[bell ringing]
- The first challenge today is going to be a leap.
Gymnastics is often very powerful, especially
on floor with the tumbling, but leaps
give you an opportunity to kind of get
a little graceful and really accentuate
and show your flexibility.
So with a leap we're going to do a chasse',
like a dance move, and then we're going to leap
with our good leg.
So if you're a lefty you'll chasse' with your
right leg and if you're a righty, you'll chasse'
with your left leg.
- My eyes see graceful, but my brain
is like I'm a robot, I don't think I can
do that but I'll give it my best shot.
- Flexibility is not my strong suit,
so I don't think this will be as easy
as Sahara makes it look.
- In parkour I'm paying a lot of attention
to the environment, to where I'm landing,
how I'm landing, but my shape in the air
isn't as important.
- Honestly I have no clue what that was.
I feel like I'm going to look really silly.
- So just like, let's just do chasse'.
Okay, don't think about it, just go for it.
[bell ringing]
Great job.
Good.
But try to like extend more with your legs.
Yes.
Great job.
I think it just, sometimes you can over think it,
I did the same thing, but once
you kind of let yourself go...
I think they did a great job.
- It's really humbling because it looks like a
basic move and I felt like I had to slow it down
a lot just to get my brain to wrap around it.
- Not feeling very graceful at the moment,
but it's fun to like step out of my element
for a little bit and try something new.
- The floor could actually really confusing,
so I'm interested, like if this is the first thing,
what's the next level, 'cause this was kind of hard,
and it's like such a simple move.
[bell ringing]
[jazzy music]
- So the uneven bars is a different kind of movement
on the body, it's more grip strength
and upper body strength.
First you're gonna jump onto the low bar
with straight arms and you're gonna extend
your body all the way out, bringing your
back to the bar to pull yourself up.
And then jump to the high bar, swing,
passing the low bar, and then release
and do a back tuck-off.
That routine is for the lower levels,
about level four, so that's between the ages
of second and fourth grade.
- That's our competition. - Okay.
- Seven-year-olds, sweet.
- That's a high bar, no, I mean,
it's an uneven bar, but...
- Uneven bar.
- It's been a while since I've done one of those
getting to the bar, the flyaway maybe, but
I don't know about the whole thing together.
- I'm excited.
I love swinging in parkour so I think
it'll translate well.
I'm feeling good for this one.
- I heard you perform 10% better when you
believe in yourself, so I think I can do this.
- Who's going first?
- I'll go first.
- Okay.
[jazzy music]
Oh, whoo!
[jazzy music]
- Oh, oh.
[all yelling]
- [Michelle] Keep your arms straight.
[jazzy music]
Whoo!
[jazzy music]
[laughing and applauding]
- [Mike] Yes Orlando!
- [Jeremy] All right, Mike.
Super clean.
Ten out of ten.
[applauding]
[laughing]
- [Michelle] It's better than mine.
[jazzy music]
The guys actually caught on to the uneven bars
routine really well and fast.
I was very impressed.
In men's gymnastics the guys don't typically
use the wooden uneven bars, they typically use
a single metal bar, so it's really interesting
to see how they were able to use the uneven bars
like the women do.
I think Mike even did it better than me on that routine.
- Super fun.
I love swinging as like a movement skill,
I practice it pretty regularly on my own.
This was a little bit different in terms of
how we were linking the skills together
on the gymnastics bars.
I'm like ready to keep doing it over and over again.
But my hands hurt, so I'm going to take a little break.
- That was a lot harder than I was expecting.
I think what my problem was, I was thinking
of it too much as far as in parkour,
where there's actually a bit more stability.
That bends like kind of threw me off
and I had to figure out a way around that,
so that was my biggest challenge.
But I think once I jumped to the next bar
for the flyaway I was much more comfortable.
- Now I have something to work on in the gymnastics gym.
And I got a little skin in the game.
[bell ringing]
- So I'm going to show you the third challenge today
which is a front handspring on the vault apparatus.
The vault is great and it's fun, 'cause it's super
fast and you kind of use all your force
and get it done quickly.
You kind of want to start running like at a
medium speed, like I said before
and then when you hit the springboard
you want to make sure your arms circling before
to get your momentum, and then you hit the board
with your feet in front of you so that your heels
can drive you for the front handspring.
And you want to make sure that your shoulders
are nice and tight 'cause you push through
the front handspring with your shoulders
rather than the arm bending.
So it's more of a shoulder movement
rather than a--
- Down first, then up?
- A arm.
- Down first, then up?
- Yeah, so it's, so instead of like pushing
like that it's kind of like a pop through
your shoulders.
- Okay.
- So...
- So we don't want to hit the board like
fully extended yet, we want to wait 'til we're...
- Right, it's kind of like two set movements.
So you hit it and then it's like a push
to accelerate the front handspring.
- Yeah. - Cool.
- Yeah, let's try it out.
- [Ayana] Yeah, definitely more speed.
- Yeah, no, I was like trying to get used
to like how high the board is and everything,
or the table.
[jazzy music]
[gasp]
- [Ayana] Oh yay!
[applauding]
That was good.
- Oh.
[jazzy music]
- [Ayana] Ooh, yay.
Whoo!
- [Jeremy] That a way, yeah.
[all cheering]
Nice roll.
- When you hit the springboard, the bottom one,
use that as momentum to drive your heels
so you're already in like a 90 degree,
so it's like--
- That's going to be really difficult.
[all ohing]
- Not up completely, it should be like a...
[jazzy music]
Ooh, that was nice.
Whoo, okay.
Whoo.
[applauding]
Ooh that was better.
Oh, brownie points. - [Jeremy] Oh no.
- So I think this challenge might be
my favorite one so far.
In parkour we're usually jumping off concrete
or metal or wood, so getting the extra bounce
just made this super fun.
It felt like I was flying and the soft mat
made for a nice landing.
- It's like doing a cat pass but just times eleven,
so that was really good stuff.
- In parkour when we're doing something
for the first time we call that breaking a jump
and that's really about getting past the fear,
showing yourself that you can do something
that resembles what you're going for
and that it's not as scary as it might seem
and once the jump was broken then I could
take the technical cues that she had given us beforehand.
- I think, like their braveness really surprised me,
how they kind of went at it with full force
and no fear, that was really cool.
Their form was a little bit different,
as I suspected, but overall it was really good
and they put in a lot of effort.
[bell ringing]
[drumming]
- So the fourth challenge we're going to
take on today is the balance beam.
We're going to put a bunch of skills together
to create your own routines.
So I'm going to give you guys four different skills
and then we're gonna end with the dismounts.
So then you'll present at the end after you stick it.
- That looks pretty interesting.
I like that there's a whole like dance aesthetic to it
as well, and a bit more freedom for self-expression.
I like to balance a lot.
That looks like a lot of fun.
- I'm kind of worried about the Webster at the end.
It's kind of sketchy to go off of a beam
that has such narrow footing.
- The thing that I was noticing most
and is going to be a little bit difficult for me
is all the like, flair and flourish, the extra
arm movements, the poise,
so I'll try to play around with that.
- There were a fair amount of like dance-type
elements in there which is outside my comfort zone.
We'll see how it goes.
I'll try and be as graceful as possible.
- So the first thing that we're gonna learn
is the mount, that's the first thing
that the gymnast does to start their routine.
You're gonna first present and then you're gonna mount.
And stand up.
Yeah.
[laughing]
You got it, you got it, great.
- I tried to save you brother.
- The next skill, it's got a little dance to it,
it's gonna be a scale, and you're gonna go.
[discordant piano music]
So the next skill we're gonna do is a squat turn.
We have to change direction oftentimes in our routines,
so this'll be your change of direction.
So after the scale you're gonna go down and up.
[gentle piano music]
Yeah.
And the next skill that we're gonna do,
it's a requirement in your routine,
you have to do a jump.
I'm going to do a tuck jump.
[gentle music]
Yeah.
[gentle music]
Okay, well jump.
[laughing]
All right.
So the final thing is a dismount, so we
mount on the beam, we do our skills
and then we have to get off the beam.
So at the end of this most importantly
you should try your best to stick it
and then present.
Do the best you can.
And we're gonna do a similar skill,
like you guys taught us the Webster,
but off the beam.
[classical music]
- Let's do it.
[classical music]
- I think they did great.
It was nice to see some of them put
their little spin and personality on the routine.
It surprised me how easy it was for them,
but they did a great job, they were very controlled
and very calm on the beam.
- So when I was starting parkour I think I saw
gymnastics as a highly regimented, very structured,
coach-driven, aesthetic-driven discipline,
that was mostly focused around competition.
And today I feel like I got to play with gymnastics,
try different things and I felt really accepted,
even when my form wasn't perfect.
- I think they all really wanted to learn
and try new things and I think we definitely
can share the fun and enjoyment of learning new skills.
So I think overall that was a good experience
for the both of us.
- What surprised me today was how well
they picked up on everything.
They kept asking questions on what they can do
to improve their skills, so that was really cool
to see them wanting to get better
and wanting to learn the skills in gymnastics.
- Of all of the events that we did today
I think my favorite would have to be the vault.
It feels so freeing to have that
sense of weightlessness in the air
while also just exploding out, that feels really good.
- I think my favorite part was doing the balance beam,
just because that's, in general, not a men's sport.
I think that was my favorite part.
- Almost everything we did in here is transferrable
to parkour, like all the tools that they gave me
is gonna to help me.
- Some of the things I did today, in my head,
I thought they might take two or three months
to get good and that became a really difficult,
large barrier of entry to even trying it.
So I would say if you have even a inkling
of wanting to try gymnastics you should
find a place and give it a shot.
- Doing gymnastics today was like a blast
from the past, because I remember doing
a little bit of it as a kid,
but never really following up.
To be able to come here to this facility
and try it out in a space with proper instructors
and proper equipment and learn how to do things
the right way was a nice little gracious gift.
- Movement is fun and moving with others
from a different discipline is always a good time
and you can learn from each other
and opportunities like this, I think, if you
ever have it, definitely, definitely do it.
- If you've never tried gymnastics before,
everyone can do it, you just
kind of have to trust your body and start
where you feel comfortable.
You might not be able to do the big skills
that you see in the Olympics, but you
definitely can learn a few tricks.