ONE OF the country’s most notable parkour coaches travelled to Armidale to give aspiring athletes a masterclass in the sport.
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It was introduced to Armidale in March and already 50 people have signed up to participate in the weekly classes conducted by local coach Igor Ivannikov under the PCYC banner.
Simon Lambert is a member and parkour practitioner with Jump Squad Australia, the national parkour team, and was asked by the club to help further the skills of its athletes in a one day course.
The sport involves running and jumping around an obstacle course at speed.
Lambert’s sessions were split into two groups with 20 adults and 30 children taking part.
It was awesome, everyone liked it and we are planning to hold it in the future and work closer with Jump Squad Australia
- Igor Ivannikov
Ivannikov said it was great for his students to refine their skills under the instruction of Lambert as his classes are run under the Jump Squad program.
"It was awesome, everyone liked it and we are planning to hold it in the future and work closer with Jump Squad Australia,” he said.
"Most of them were people who attend my classes regularly.
"In the adult parkour there were about 20 people and about 30 people in the kid's parkour.”
Since the sport’s inception to the area, the club has grown immensely with a performance team formed who help out others at the club who want to try their hand at the growing sport.
"We have started our own parkour team called Air Tricks and they performed recently at the PCYC in the music band competition,” Ivannikov said.
"We are becoming more solid.
"There are six boys in the Air Tricks team who help me with the parkour classes.
"They help me to train kids for parkour.”
Ivannikov runs the classes each week at the gymnastics club for ages eight and over and hoped even more people will join up in the future.
"The sport is growing, especially in Armidale,” he said
"It is so new but we have pioneered it here.
"We are trying to make it more official and hopefully I am planning to hold a competition later with other cities and other organisations.
"Now we want to become more popular to make this sport more recognisable so after that we will see how we go.”
Parkour is popular in cities because of the availability and convenience of obstacles but the gymnastics club provides the perfect space to train for the sport.
For more information on joining contact the PCYC on 6772 1023.