There's a murderer among the Streetapes...

"Ein Fall für Zwei" ("A case for two") is a German crime series, in which 14 guys from Ashigaru (the Parkour Community of Frankfurt http://ashigaru.de/index.html ) - including the Traceuses Jana, Isa and Julia, assisted in, while Caro acted as the leading actress' double.

The story:
Parkour is already a well-known discipline in the German city Frankfurt and the "Streetapes" are the leading community, when suddenly one of the girls "bailes" -and dies.
The police sais: murder.
Private detective Josef Matula (actor Claus Theo Gärtner)starts investigating and meets conflicts, cheating and lies in the Parkour community.
In the end there are a couple of suspects... and the question is:
Who is the murderer?

Well, it seems as if we have to wait for the answer until the episode will be shown on TV in coming December :-)

Parkour banned in NYC Parks

From Marisa in San Francisco:
Members from the pk community are making efforts to open and continue dialogue with the city's park department and there is a possible protest in the works.


APK article: 
http://www.americanparkour.com/content/view/5704/1/ 

A petition against the ban has been started here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/antinycparkourban/ 

Originally from Marisa's post on the GPK Forum:
http://girlparkour.19.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=180

..life is too short to keep feeling old, fat and tired.."My semi midlife crisis" blog, South Africa

Thank you to DC from Parkour South Africa  for telling us about his promising new student's blog.
http://semimidlifecrisis.tumblr.com/

In her own words:
"My name is Dori and I live in Joburg, South Africa. At 36 I have suddenly emerged from a fog and decided life is too short to keep feeling old, fat and tired. So I have a plan. It's a bit crazy, but I'm determined to do it. I'm going to learn parkour. There are a few steps along the way - lose weight, get fit and fix the emotional stuff. I'm already on track and it's gonna be an awesome ride!"

A blog for those who need inspiration and a reminder that you're never too old to start. If you can, drop in and leave her some words of encouragement! Good luck Dori and we'll be cheering for you :)
ps: there is a really enjoyable link for a documentary about Sebastian Foucan's Paris on her 2nd post!

New traceuse profile - Olka from Poland

Polish pocket rocket (meaning small and powerful) Olka is fresh faced but she's been training for a good 3 years and it shows. Read more about this talented girl here:
http://www.girlparkour.com/page13.htm#olka

"It's play for adults," Amanda Henry in the Washington Examiner

Amanda Henry from Primal Fitness Washington DC USA was interviewed recently about how she started, why she trains and her training schedule. Amanda is a parkour trainer at Primal Fitness but will be moving to Germany soon with her husband to take up a research position at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Bon voyage Amanda and train safe!
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/_Play-for-adults_-1002734-100562539.html
Photo credit: Amanda Henry

Videos page update: Australia, Poland and England

Some talented ladies coming out from all over the world. An unassuming Australian who is pulling off wall spins before blowing the candle on her 1 year anniversary, a Polish girl who is flipping out, plus one section was becoming the "Kirsty Hibbert video section... and the rest of england", so Kirsty was a good sport and her samplers have been reduced to a select few including "(Almost) Pure Parkour".  Enjoy the Videos.

UPPSALA PARKOUR GIRL'S GATHERING

Hi all the girls (and guys) out there!



Uppsala Parkour in Uppsala, Sweden, has been planning a girljam for several months now. The purpose of our jam is to motivate and inspire as many girls as possible to come and try Parkour and hopefully continue training. To get help with this we've contacted Parkour Generations, who is glad to help us, it's confirmed that it's going to be Dan Edwardes, Naomi Honey and Annty Marais, that will be attending the event as instructors. Our hope is to, in Uppsala, to maybe in the future have girl only trainings!

So it would be really fun and inspiring to have as many participants as possible at this jam, not only from Sweden, but specially from nearby countries aswell. The focus is beginners, but we would be glad to have participants that been training Parkour for awhile aswell, as inspiration. So gather your girls (and boys) and come join us at this unforgettable weekend, we'll maybe be able to fix a cheap accommodation, IF the interest is big enough.


SHORT INFORMATION

DATE: Day 1, Saturday 18th, ONLY girls
Day 2, Sunday 19th September, guys and girls

TIME: Saturday 12:00-19:00, Sunday 10.00-20.00

LOCATION: The big fountain at the Uppsala Central Station in Uppsala, Sweden, both days.

FEE: Girls: 60 SEK for both days.
Guys: 60 SEK for Sunday.

FOR REGISTRATION: Visit the website for more information:
http://www.wix.com/uppsalaparkour/girlsgathering

LAST REGISTRATION DATE: Sunday, 12th of September

AGE LIMIT: 15 years or older.

LINKS: Uppsala Parkour, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=68803478209
Parkour Generations, http://www.parkourgenerations.com/
Mc Worthers Basement, http://mcwgym.se/
Uppsala Kommun, http://www.uppsala.se/
Aktiv Ungdom, http://www.aktivungdom.se/
Girl Parkour Sweden, http://girlparkoursweden.ecommunity.se/
Stockholm Parkour Academy, http://parkouracademy.se/
Girl Parkour, http://girlparkour.com/

QUESTIONS? Visit the website: http://www.wix.com/uppsalaparkour/girlsgathering
or the Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=141266429227626
or mails are sent to girl.upk@gmail.com
or call/text Therese Gunnarsson, 0736- 347820
Karin Berglund, 0703-909336
Mauricio Mier, 0704- 761759


//Therese Gunnarsson,
Uppsala Parkour

A new month, giving thanks and onwards to the July gallery!!

It has been a massive month! First and foremost, thank you so much, to the ladies and gentlemen who contributed photos and articles and reviews and thank you, you amazing people who signed on to be contributors to the GPK News blog. I sincerely hope that this will removes the barriers to letting people directly express what's going on in their local community.


Recently I came across the term "Stereotype Threat", which was first used to describe the results of experiments where black college freshmen and sophmores performed more poorly on standardized tests than white students when the subject's race was emphasized. Ok, cool, but what does this have to do with women and parkour? Well, a related study showed that stereotype threat also can also affect sports performance. The experiment showed that when women were told that their gender was being tested, women reacted differently and the women also had different reactions to a male or female instructor.

In practise, blatant and subtle stereotypes cues are not so clear cut. A blatant stereotype is someone ranting that "women are worse at parkour than men" and a subtle one could be a team mate saying "oh, let's do some balancing, women are naturally good at balancing" Yes, we are and we can also do more than balancing? Poor guys, no wonder they are confused about how to treat women (here's a guide from Rafe Kelley, The Man's Guide to Women in Parkour)


So as you flick over this month's totally awesome gallery , I hope that you are inspired by the women all over the world and perhaps the next time you see something you'd like to try, like a 3m wall run, that cat to precision or 100 pushups and your first thought is "No way, I can't do that", remember what Stereotype Threat can do. And then look at it again. 


Enjoy August :) http://www.girlparkour.com/page7.htm


ps: Here's a link to the GPK Forum Post if you want to discuss Stereotype Threat.