“Cuentos Del Mochilero”
Last Winter Finn Cubitt (@dance_on_the_obstacles_of_life) traveled to Chile to escape the cold, visit family, and make new friends. Cuentos Del Mochilero documents his adventures from his travels. In this interview Egg (@klickstein) chats with Finn about parkour travel, the parkour scene in Chile, and finding community far away from home. Enjoy!
Egg: I’d love to start by asking how long this trip you documented was and the different locations you were in.
Finn: I took a trip for two months. I spent a month in Chile, and then I spent the second month in Bolivia. I feel like I need to go back to Bolivia, I saw some of the best spots, but I just didn’t have as many people to train with while I was there. But yeah a month in Chile and a month in Bolivia I spent, and it definitely felt like six months in each country. The video itself is just from the month in Chile.
Egg: You mentioned that it was easier to find people to train with in Chile. I’d love to hear about how you reached out to people and how you made those connections, either before you got there or while you were there.
Finn: So the most important connections I had made before I went to Chile. There were these two kids that you probably see the most clips of in the video. The first being my friend Venjamin or Venja. It’s like Benjamin with a V, so we call him Venja or some people call him Kuka. I think he’s like, 19 or 20. Super artistic, super gentle guy too. And then my other friend, Carlo. I was already connected with them on Instagram, so I told them ahead of time like “Yo, I’m coming.” They live in my favorite city in Chile, which is Valparaiso. It’s kind of like the San Francisco of Chile, it’s like very hilly and it’s full of art and culture.
Egg: Is it on the coast?
Finn: It’s on the coast, yeah. Basically that’s where I encountered the densest community. They felt really organized, and they felt like a family kind of vibe. And I think what honestly plays into that is the economy and the cultural dynamic of Chile. There’s a a really big class division, and so you just see the poor really stick together more. When I went to Bolivia, and Niko stayed back, there was this huge terrible fire that spread into the municipal area and burned down hundreds of houses. I just remember seeing on my stories, like everybody from there was organizing and grouping together and gathering supplies for people and rebuilding. How they all grouped together and just got it done, was just incredible.
Egg: So you’re saying that you think part of why the parkour community there seems so strong and tight knit is related to the larger community in that city already being pretty strong under a class divide. Like they’re already kind of predisposed to really care about each other and maintain a sense of community?
Finn: Exactly. Yeah I think there’s less opportunities, less jobs available. In Bolivia there’s corruption for sure, but there’s a lot less corruption. There was a lot of poverty, but everybody was busy. You know? Everybody was hella busy working, working, working. Whereas in Chile, I felt like a lot of people just kind of don’t work. Students kind of lay around and live at their mom’s place.
Egg: More time just to chill and train?
Finn: Yeah, but there’s also a more fucked up part to it. My mom’s family had to leave when my mom was four, because overnight the President was killed, and there was a fascist dictatorship that ruled with total terror and violence. Kind of similar to what what we’re seeing in Venezuela recently, people were getting abducted. If any rumors were spread that they’re leftists or communists, you’d get abducted and tortured or brought to these centers and killed. And so it was a very immediate danger. My grandparents are a little more leftists, and so they were in huge danger and they had to flee the country. And my abulita, my grandmother, was actually in the resistance, trying to free prisoners and trying to help people escape the country. And that dictatorship lasted 17 years. It’s fucking crazy. So for me, I feel like I was really cluing into some of the traumas that people have in the society, because even then, like, it’s like these military people who were acting out the orders of the fascist government were just let back into society without really much reform. So that kind of builds the divide, right? Because half of the people I talk to, it’s like, “oh, my uncle was a fascist, you know? Oh, my uncle was killed because he was communist.” So people don’t always feel comfortable talking about that stuff, if they don’t know what your beliefs are.
Egg: So it’s all still really fresh?
Finn: It is, totally. But it also helps create that strength of community, I think. Because they really know how to stick together, know how to have each other’s back.
Egg: Was this personal connection and family history part of what drew you to this location?
Finn: Oh, 100% yeah. It was also like wanting to escape this dark depressing winter here in Vancouver. I have family there to stay with. I’ve been wanting to go back for a while just to reconnect and the parkour community there seemed really cool. You just feel at home once you travel somewhere and you find your community. You know how it feels too I’m sure.
Egg: Definitely. So you had said there were kind of two main friends of yours you had met on social media before going there. How long had you been internet friends with them?
Finn: About a year or so. They’ve been training for about as long as I have. Venja since 2016 I think he told me, but Carlo has been training since 2011 like me. While I was there he was showing me super old footage of some banger shit.
Egg: It is really interesting to grow up in this parkour culture, and have your practice grow and change with you. I feel like there’s these parallel experiences with people around our age who have also grown up in parkour.
Finn: You see these people that totally mirror you, and you’re like “Whoa, you’re like my spirit twin.”
Egg: It feels so special to find your community elsewhere when you travel. Going so far away and yet you feel so at home. Do you speak any Spanish? How much English did the people you were with speak? I’m just curious how much of a language barrier there was, or if your shared passion made it really easy to connect regardless.
Finn: Shared passion 100%. When you’re sharing something like parkour, the actual literal language is one of the least important things, because you’re just sharing that joy of movement and body language and jamming off each other’s ideas.
But on that note, Chile was fucking hard to learn Spanish in, and anyone who speaks Spanish will say that Chileans speak very slang, dirty, fast, and mispronounced. It’s just the hardest country to learn in. So that was fun. Once I went to Bolivia, after a month there, I had learned so much more. So now I’m practically fluent. I would say Chile was tough, but I did notice that I did have a bit of an advantage having kind of a year of communication with my friends and a tongue for it from my family just growing up around it. When Niko came through, Niko was really struggling and I was kind of the one carrying us in certain situations, even with my shitty Spanish. It just kept getting better and better and better. Since getting back I’ve still been practicing, I have a lot of friends who speak Spanish as well as my family. So now I’m really stoked for my next trip.
There’s so many places I want to go. Right now, my Chilean friends are in Colombia with
the Puentes, from the bridges video. And I think they just started a group, los que Salta, which means those who jump. My friends in Chile are called the peros Neros, like the black dogs. And so those two groups are like training together right now in Colombia, and I’m just like seeing all the clips and stories and it all looks so incredible there. So there’s really so many places to go, and I feel like I’ve kind of unlocked this skill of language that kind of enables me to now go and be able to live and function in these places.
Egg: I’d love to hear more about how the various people you met treated you as a visitor, and in theory, an outsider. I imagine there’s not a lot of people traveling there for parkour. How were you received?
Finn: I felt like a little a bit of a celebrity at times. Not a lot of parkour guys from Canada come down to train with them. The language did make it a bit tough at times. I just wanted to be able to share in some conversations or express things that I couldn’t really articulate. But I did really connect with certain people deeply. It felt like we really savored the time together. Also a lot of those friends were trying to practice their English, so it was a good opportunity for them. When I first got there I had some nerves around communicating and I would say things totally wrong and it was all just pretty funny. They would help me learn things. At first I was mostly speaking in English, the Spanish was just hurting my brain so much. When they’re casually talking amongst each other is the hardest to understand. Like if a Chilean speaks to a Mexican, they’re gonna have a common ground, and they’re not gonna speak in all crazy Chilean. But when I was listening to them all just talk amongst each other, I found it so funny because it’s so sing songy and expressive and just hilarious. They love to socialize and talk and talk and talk and talk and drink and talk and talk and smoke and talk and talk, and it’s just so wonderful to be around that because I feel like people don’t socialize like that in North America at all. It was just so harmonious. Even though I didn’t always understand it, I could feel the passion.
Egg: It’s always lovely to find people who’s bond is clearly a lot deeper than just a shared passion for movement. People who don’t just meet up to train and then go their separate ways, but are actually dear friends.
Finn: Exactly. They dorm together, work together, busk together, eat together, suffer together. You hit that spot on. It’s a lot deeper than just the session or going home to AirDrop each other clips to post on your own. When they have a project together, they’re all keeping it in mind in a harmonious way.
Egg: And so with you there as a visitor, did you feel like you were brought in to that sense of community pretty quickly?
Finn: 100% after the first day. I think you just have to show them with your movement. When they saw that my movement is good, and that they liked my style. I think that’s where the body language really comes in. That’s how you get to know each other. And to me, equally, I was really getting to know all these people by their style of movement more than anything. Getting to appreciate their character through that.
Egg: Touching on style of movement, I wanted to ask about the architecture of these cities. I think everyone’s movement style is partially influenced by the space around them and the architecture in the edit seemed really unique. I would love to hear more about what you observed in the movement styles there, and how those might be a product of that environment.
Finn: It was a little bit storror, a little bit ratchet. I would say, for the most part, people there were drawn to tricky, smart, witty challenges that they’d come up with. So, you know, they really like their descents and big pres and strides and running pres. I would say that was the dominant style for most of the community, other than those two closer friends of mine Venja and Carlo who definitely get a little more loose with it. And I encountered some very gentle, kind of unserious, but still kind of frustrating homophobia around my movement because it’s a little sissy sometimes, or because I’d rather do some silly swirl than a fat plyo. Some of these people were just throwing around the word gay a little bit too much, or even just subtly implying it. But at the same time through that whole experience, and them seeing some of the other tricks I still do, and how I can also incorporate those things, they started to appreciate my movement. I think they started to see the value in the vulnerability of being able to goof around like that, and how I’d often reach an outcome that might fit their forte.
Egg: I was kind of curious about how your movement style was received there, seeing as it is maybe a bit different.
Finn: I think it was affirming, to Venja especially because everybody knows Venja has like an anti-style. I think it communicated to everyone a little bit that maybe they should be trying this approach a little bit too.
Egg: I could see you presenting a pretty compelling argument. Like its not that you are incapable of doing a big plyo, but rather that you’d prefer to move in a way that feels more free. I could see that giving a bit more food for thought.
Finn: Exactly. It was just a subtle dynamic. I think it’s also because they have such gnarly spots that you can kind of go around and find these really exciting challenges all the time. The other thing that I would say about their architecture is that there are a lot of lot more hazards. Just a lot of garbage and broken glass and really unstable surfaces. So you don’t really want to be rolling around on your hands and your back and your butt so much. That’s one of the biggest things I feel like influences their style, just that you don’t want to touch the ground there. They want to stay on their feet.
Egg: Very interesting. Feel like that totally makes sense. The combo of an abundance of more traditional hench jump challenges and an uninviting space to get all Roly Poly.
Finn: Exactly. There were all these dope spots aesthetically that I kept trying to bring people to, but they all wanted to go to traditional concrete wall type spots. I really wanted to go deeper into those scuzzy spots and see what could be done for the sake of exploration and experimentation with the video clips. I just love those hilly alleyways full of graffiti and sketchy surfaces.
Egg: So do you feel like in this video you guys were kind of meeting in the middle? Experiencing their scene as it is, but also bringing some of your influence to arrive at a mix of everyone’s style and taste?
Finn: Yeah, and every day they’re bringing me to places I didn’t know, and I was just trusting them. So it’s not the type of video you usually see from me where I’m in control of everything. It was just like, let’s go and be present and make something happen. I couldn’t help myself from doing my thing, but its really about showcasing that place and how they kind of operate and navigate.
Egg: There was one moment in particular that spoke to this for me, where there’s a number of clips of different people all sessioning the same spot, and there’s one guy doing some castaways, and then you do a line with a castaway. I know that you can do that trick, but I feel like it’s not the type of trick I see you work on much these days. Seemed like in a way you were communicating to that guy that you can play his game too.
Finn: Yeahexactly, he actually told me to do it. This guy, Kevin Cornecro,he’s like a banger, trick guy, and he kind of hyped me up. He had a good energy and he was very encouraging. That was a nice little moment for sure. He was like, banging out castaways all day. That’s kind of his thing.
Egg: I just think there’s something so lovely about moments like that, where in isolation back in Canada, there wouldn’t be much of an incentive for you to want to play around with that trick these days. And it’s the sharing of joy with someone else that kind of re-contextualizes the trick and reframes it.
Finn: I love having a friendly competition. I really do. I need and love that.
Egg: I’d love to hear a little bit more about the community there. You mentioned its pretty tight knit, but I’m curious what you saw in that larger group dynamic. How often do people meet up to train, how many people are generally at a session, stuff like that.
Finn: Well everyone is usually pretty late. I remember the first day, my two friends were only about 15 or 20 minutes late but after they showed up there wasn’t anybody else for a while. But then more people just kept trickling in and trickling in. It was about 25 of us by the end. We all went down to the water to another spot. Some people were training and getting clips, and others were just smoking weed and hanging out. I was asking this guy about his tattoos. It turned out he was an apprentice and getting really good. We became really good friends connecting over tattoos.
Generally the sessions are like 10 to 20 people, and people will stay out for pretty much the whole day. It’s a good mix of downtime and directed training where it’s moving from spot to spot pretty quickly. Occasionally people running off to go deal with a responsibility, but it was mostly just a lot of hanging out. Generally people were pretty free because it was the summer holiday for the university students. In Chile a lot of the public education is totally free as far as college and university, so most of them are students. So each session we had a good amount, and there would be like three or four sessions each day.
Egg: Do you know if that scene is connected through a group chat or something like that? Would somebody be sending messages to let everyone know where to go?
Finn: I don’t think so. I think they post on their stories more than anything. What ended up lining up super well, was that there happened to be a big jam there once I came back from spending some time with my family in the next city. At the jam I was blown away by how many people showed up. It was like 40 or 50 people in this smaller city, and I think 20% were women which I feel like is pretty rare at jams in North America. Everyone there was super supportive and created a great atmosphere. There were so many different skill levels present, and it all felt really casual and old school. There were even a lot of people there who didn’t even train, but had been invited by friends and just came to hang out. This one kid in particular learned backflip and side flip in one day, and he was drilling some basic combos and stuff, and everybody was encouraging him. He was blown away by his own potential.
Egg: That’s so good, so beautiful. Another thing I wanted to ask about was generally how you felt like the locals who didn’t train responded to parkour there. Generally how did the public treat y’all?
Finn: Lots of applause or exclamations of wonder, getting props from skateboarders too. Sometimes some older people warning us not to hit our heads, or to be careful.
Egg: So, generally pretty positively received?
Finn: Yeah, rarely was it that bitter indifference that you’ll kind of encounter here. When people are almost jealous of your playfulness, or it somehow kind of triggers them. I had that a few times, but it was mostly a lot of genuine admiration. Busking is pretty normal in that part of the world, lots of people are in the street with hula hoops or with circus tricks. Some people there are clowns for a living.
Egg: Do you feel like parkour meshed well with the other happenings of the city?
Finn: Especially in Valparaiso, its just such an artful city. Parkour there felt very welcome. In the small little towns people loved it too. When you’re out in a smaller town, people are way more down to earth.
Egg: Well, that’s about all of the main questions I had written down. If you have more that you feel is important to make time for, now would be the time.
Finn: I just think it’s important for us to go back into our parents and our grandparents stories in order for us to understand ourselves. That was a big part of this trip for me. Reconnecting with that part of the world, with the food, with the lifestyle, with the nature. For anyone, whoever you are, it’ll only make more sense the more you dig into that and the more curious you are. My grandmother, my mom’s mom, always told me the most incredible stories about her parents, and the incredible hardships of property, the incredible intelligence and adaptations that they made in their lives as humans, and the incredibly dangerous situations they found themselves in and got out of. All of those adaptations our ancestors have made have been inherited by you.
Egg: Do you feel like having parkour as a means to access this location and a means to connect made it easier for you to reconnect with this ancestry?
Finn: Yeah, of course. I think I appear more interesting to people having these movement skills, and I would say being able to experience these places surrounded by locals and not tourists was huge. That’s the best thing about Parkour and traveling, being able to step into a city and just get brought along. Be brought to the right places, and get to feel the lifestyle right away. I just like to really get to know these places through the people. In the same way that I like to host when people visit my city. What you would do as a tourist would be totally different.
Egg: I think it is something really unique to parkour culture that I really hope gets preserved as parkour grows. The readiness and willingness to share your home with people from all over and help guide an authentic experience of a place.
Finn: Let these videos be a testament to that, and hopefully inspire more of that.
Amazing video and interview, I love all these thoughts and movements