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The Inaugural Art of Retreat

When I first devised the Art of Retreat, I hoped not only to provide a much needed platform for educational exchange in the parkour community but also to help heal and forge bonds of friendship between leaders across the country. The push to get it going came out of a conversation with Adam McClellan and Andy Keller during American Rendezvous, who both expressed excitement at the idea of a space where coaches could come together to share best practices, and the initial support came from the Movement Creative and my two partners Nikkie and Jesse.

A lot was working against us that first year. As a brand new event, it was hard to get buy in– I remember telling people if they could get themselves out to New Jersey, I would take care of everything else–food, housing, local transportation. We didn’t have any dedicated funding so I personally boot-strapped the event, renting out four airbnbs within a few minutes walk of my familys shore house in a sleepy little town. I researched and invited people I thought were engage in interesting research or ‘doing it best’ when it came to business. I purchased food and snacks and prepped large meal plans (and planned to play chef). Above all, I spent weeks crafting the programme, spaces, and experience.

When the weekend finally arrived almost 60 people from all over the continent flew into Newark just as Hurricane Joaquin descended upon the Jersey shore. I feared for the worst, having planned so many of the activities to be outdoors but, being forced inside, that major storm actually helped create an intimate, cozy, and community-growing experience.

The talks were hosted around kitchen tables, in living rooms and bedrooms. Hammocks were hung from rafters as people piled into the main house, pop-up playgrounds were built and rebuilt in the yard, fires were made in the garage. The step vault pledge was declared, there were lively debates around kitchen and coffee tables, people were thrown from the deck, strummed guitars, and danced in the rain.

The weekend was chaotic– and it was alive.

I look back to this first year as one of my absolute favorite versions of this event. Maybe it was the moody weather forcing us all to confront one another and connect, maybe it was the co-creative attitude people brought to the spaces they held, or maybe it was simply realizing that so many incredible things can be created when we find ways to come together and play.

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“I didn’t know what hate felt like, not the hate that comes after love. It’s huge and desperate and it longs to be proved wrong. And every day it’s proved right it grows a little more monstrous. If the love was passion, the hate will be obsession. A need to see the once-loved weak and cowed beneath pity. Disgust is close and dignity is far away. The hate is not only for the once loved, it’s for yourself too; how could you ever have loved this?” – Jeanette Winterson

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“All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course. Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the play-ground. The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc, are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart.” – Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens

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“I think kids know what we’re talking about here. I think they experience shared transcendence a lot more often than we adults do – or let on to. We adults make it too hard on ourselves. We think have to win. And we forget that it’s not about winning at all after all – it’s really actually about playing well together. We forget that we are, in fact, the ones making the rules here. We forget that together, just us players, we make it even more fun.” – Bernard DeKoven

“These moments of coliberation, of shared transcendence, like a moment in a well-played game or well-acted play, like moments of harmony, love, resonance with each other – these are the moments we use to measure a well-lived life. And, for those of us who willing to play, these moments are ours.

“Coliberation – A shared transcendence of  personal limitations, of our understanding of our own capabilities; a sudden, momentary transformation of our awareness of the connections between ourselves, each other, and the world we find each other in.

A shared transcendence: Something we experience in certain moments of making love, of playing with children and animals, standing in a storm together, floating in the ocean together, listening to and making music together, watching a movie together; walking in the woods or on a mountain, eating a meal, reading a book, playing a game together….

of personal limitations, of our understanding of our own capabilities: An unsustainable union where distinctions between self and community, mind and body – between whatever separates us from each other, the environment in which we discover each other – are set aside. 

...a sudden, momentary transformation of our awareness of the connections between ourselves, each other, and the world we find each other in: Sudden, momentary and unsustainable because we must ultimately return to ourselves, to “minding the store.” 

Sudden, momentary, unsustainable, spontaneous, undefining, transforming. 

We return changed, not the same person we were – our understanding of who and what we can become, our very selves, our relationships – redefined. “

Read more about CoLiberation from Bernard DeKoven

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Our First Apartment

An iron-barred
plant-laden window,
guarded by the Buddha,
gating out the world.

Cold sunlight
on warm wooden floors
scratched up by a table
built for building a community
together.

Teacups.
Boardgames.
Blankets from your sister.
Books.
So many books
color coded and marked up,
separating you from me and here from
there
and

A couch you hated, and
the art.

Bay windows and
the bedroom walls
soaked with words
from whispered conversations
that drew us
deep
into the night and
into each other.

I didn’t realize it,
when we first moved in.

I swear,
It didn’t look like a battleground.

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How is your heart today?

I recently came across this blog post “The Disease of Being Busy.” There is so much to consume in this post, so I recommend just taking the five minutes and giving a read.

I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.

Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. Tell me you’re more than just a machine, checking off items from your to-do list. Have that conversation, that glance, that touch. Be a healing conversation, one filled with grace and presence.

Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye, and connect with me for one second. Tell me something about your heart, and awaken my heart. Help me remember that I too am a full and complete human being, a human being who also craves a human touch.

And she goes on, asking some piercing questions…

Whatever happened to a world in which kids get muddy, get dirty, get messy, and heavens, get bored? Do we have to love our children so much that we overschedule them, making them stressed and busy — just like us?

What happened to a world in which we can sit with the people we love so much and have slow conversations about the state of our heart and soul, conversations that slowly unfold, conversations with pregnant pauses and silences that we are in no rush to fill?

How did we create a world in which we have more and more and more to do with less time for leisure, less time for reflection, less time for community, less time to just… be?”

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M: On Measuring Athletic Success

Success is not measured in terms of team, or wins. Success is measured by how much the individual enjoys the experience.

  • In the football model the individual trains diligently and receives instructions from the coaches, and the reward is in the teams victory, if it should have one, and in the discipline the individual receives.
  • In parkour, skateboarding, or rollerblading the focus is not on competition, so the goal is not to win, and the concept of training becomes obsolete. The reward is in the enjoyment the individual derives from the act of skating and in the camaraderie of the lifestyle.