The Commons

Calum (@calumchatwin) and Grace (@grace_bukowinski) friendship has been a joy for many to witness at comps and jams across the US. They created “See You Tomorrow” in the lead up to Grace moving to Colorado to start college, documenting their last months living in the same area and highlighting their relationship. Egg (@klickstein) chatted with them about the project, being competitive parkour teammates, and the joy of a shared passion.

Egg: I’d love to start with how you two met, and the origins of your friendship.

Calum: The parkour team I think?

Grace: I remember this. I joined the parkour team in sixth grade, and he had been on it for a year. Calum was out with a knee injury when I joined, so I had been on for like a month when this random kid shows up and I was like “Who are you? Who is this weirdo?” I really don’t remember when we clicked at all.

Photo by Mock Olvera

Calum: Yeah, I think we were mutuals for a while. We would see each other from across the room, but like were not too close.

Grace: I mean we were in the same age group, so we were somewhat training together in classes. 

Calum: Then we really clicked during covid. A lot of people on the comp team started to fade out or move on, except for us. We were like the only original members still there. 

Grace: Yeah during covid we would FaceTime each other and watch shows simultaneously like every night for social COVID, which was really nice. That’s kind of where our more significant bond started.

Egg: I’m always really interested in friendships that are born out of parkour, but develop to a deeper connection beyond the shared interest in jumping on things. Moving beyond being training partners and becoming true friends. 

Calum: I think it was like a brother sister relationship, where, when you’re younger you aren’t really friends. And once you grow up more you start to bond and actually become friends. 

Grace: We really do follow that track, we fight like siblings. People hear us fighting at jams, and it’s really funny because they’ve mistaken us as siblings. Seth totally thought we were related and we had known him for like a year. 

Egg: You noted that you guys were both on the same parkour team, and that a lot of people left around the same time. Could you speak for to that point in time and how that brought you closer together?

Grace: Because of covid our team went from 15 or so to literally four of us. We were training outside and having classes with just the four of us.

Calum: The other two were not as committed as well. It would mostly just be us two. I think that’s something that like drew us together, our passion for movement. We really wanted to be training every day. We were really passionate and seeing each other practically every day.

Egg: As sad as it is for your peers to lose interest in parkour, I think that sounds like a really special opportunity to be in a smaller and more tight-knit parkour class. It can be hard to foster a lot of authentic connection in really large class settings. The other thing that kind of ends up happening in small parkour classes is it becomes more reflective of normal parkour culture. It doesn’t need to be as directed and the casualness can look a lot more like a normal parkour session. 

Grace: Oh for sure. One of my favorite moments in the video is this little snippet that goes with the credits. It was pouring rain, and I had literally just come back from having pneumonia. We decided to choreograph a fight scene because we had found a plastic banana that we wanted to pretend was a gun. Class was just us that day and Dustin just went with it. I think it’s also really special when the coach sees two athletes who have the ability to decide when to train hard and when to be goofy with each other. We were really good at balancing that, but we were really bad influences for the new kids.

Calum: Oh that was so bad. 

Egg: I am pretty curious about what it’s like being in a competitive parkour team through a gym. Its just something that didn’t really exist when I was younger. I actually feel like the first time that I became aware of both of you was at a competition at Apex a number of years ago. I remember not only seeing you guys killing it at the comp, but the support that you had for one another as you were competing. What was your experience like being teammates? That is a dynamic seems different from just being training partners.

Calum: Originally the team was just a training team, and then after covid we started competing. I started competing three years ago.

Grace: Yeah it was three seasons ago, we’re going into the fourth season of it. Calum started competing before me, initially I did not want to compete. Dustin and Calum really wanted me to do it. I didn’t believe in myself at all. I had zero confidence. 

Calum: As we say, we are total opposites. I was very confident going into competition. Grace was opposite. 

Grace: So I didn’t compete the first year at all. The next year, Dustin sat me down and was like “Grace, do one. Just one.” And then I fell in love very quickly. I think it really strengthened our bond. Its way different to support each other in practice and be like “that line was sick” than to see your friend go out there and create and push themselves in a comp. To watch them work as hard as they can on a line and then go out there and do it perfectly. 

Calum: That was something we were able to transfer over well from our original team We already had that teamwork type vibe going into it. We’d always be checking in on each other. We’d help make sure the other person had their line down and memorized by repeating it back to each other. We give each other a lot of advice and encouragement. Its definitely helped me a lot. Especially when dealing with nerves. 

Grace: There’s been times where one of us is having a horrible day. West Coast finals for Calum this year he was sick or something.

Calum: Yeah I like couldn’t breathe. 

Grace: I had ate shit in my line once again, finals just never works out for me. So I was constantly going up to him, giving him water, ibuprofen, reminding him not to talk. Like “Here’s water, no talking.” People would try to ask him questions, and I’d be like, “No. Talk to me. Thank you.” 

For me I’ve had a lot of times where I’m really nervous going into competitions and he’s really been there for me. Especially Denver, because that was my first year competing. I went into it with no expectations for myself, and I made it to finals and was placing, and I was freaking out. They had changed what part of the gym we’d be competing in, and I had already built a whole line that I couldn’t do anymore. He kept checking in on me, and it ended up being my favorite line. We definitely do a lot of just supporting and checking in and being there for each other, while also giving each other enough space to work on our own lines. We found a perfect balance. 

Egg: Thats really beautiful. Without the structure of competition, I still sometimes see those sorts of dynamics in in parkour, but I can really see how that sort of support could be brought out through competition. Its really cool to hear about the role that played in strengthening your friendship. 

Grace: I think another thing is being so goofy with each other really helps relief stress when competing. Other than just support, we’re just distracting each other by accident. So that’s also something thats really helpful.

Egg: Getting into the video, how do you think that dynamic transferred over into working on this video together? What felt similar or different about collaborating on a project as opposed to supporting each other as individuals at a competition? 

Grace: I think at first, it didn’t feel very different for me. I film him constantly. It was already really normal for me to film him. I think the weird part for me was having him film me.

Calum:  Yeah, I was really trying to get her to do more of the movement. You’re a little camera shy so I’d shove the camera in your face and start making goofy comments and stuff. I’d also be encouraging you to try and get a certain challenge. 

Grace: Because of this project he was putting a healthy amount of pressure on me to do more. It made me want to go out and look for more challenges a little bit more than I normally would 

Egg: Grace do you feel like competition, while stressful, also in some ways feels a bit easier to commit to doing compared to getting clips? Like if you sign up to a comp you are sort of locked in to going out there and doing something. Maybe there feels like less pressure to make anything happen just out training and filming and you need to intrinsically motivate yourself a bit more? 

Grace: Yeah, that’s definitely true for me. I think I also have just grown to really thrive off of a competition environment. At first, it was a lot more stressful, and then I kind of got to know everybody. Being around so many friends feels really supportive. I think in terms of making lines its definitely a little easier for me in a comp. It usually still feels pretty stressful at the start, and I get pretty frustrated halfway through line building. I’ll go to Calum and Dustin and be like “this sucks, why do I do this” And then I’ll do one thing that I like and I’m like “Oh, actually, this is a great and I’ve made a whole line.” 

Calum: My process is very different. I over analyze before comps. I look up pictures of gyms, and try to picture something in my head beforehand. When I get there I’ll try and do it. And if it doesn’t work I’ll move on to some other idea I had. That’s mostly what I do. Improvising is something I definitely excel at. Going outside and doing a challenge or making a line is something I’ve been okay with, but I definitely overwork myself sometimes. I’ll see one challenge and I’ll do it, and then I’ll go to another one and go to another one and go to another one. I’ll see too much in my brain and it does not work out for me. 

Grace: That’s something I’ll yell at him for. I’ll be like “Calum, your ankles, please! Thank you.”

Egg: I know it’s only been about half a year, but how have you guys adapted to not living close to each other know that Grace is off at college.

Grace: It’s definitely a little weird.

Calum: We still call almost every week, at least.

Grace: We call and rant at each other for hours, and he’ll try to get me to play dress to impress with him, but it’s definitely really weird not having my normal training buddy. I’m sure you feel the same.

Calum: Yeah. I’ve been exploring Santa Cruz more and I’ll see something I think Grace would want to try and I’m like “oh, I should go tell Grace. Oh, wait, Grace isn’t here to train.” 

Grace: I send him pictures of spots on my campus that I know he would be obsessed with. He preaches to me is that he’s always wanted an electrical box surrounded by grass. And I have so many of those here.

Calum: There’s none in Santa Cruz, its like giant electrical boxes and concrete. It’s like an okay combo. 

Egg: For you Grace I imagine its not just adapting to Calum not being there, but being at college in general. I know for me that pretty heavily disrupted my training. For you Calum, not having that large life change going on, I imagine you might feel the direct change of Grace being gone more in your training. How would you say things have changed for you?

Calum: I’ve definitely done quite a bit more solo training.  I’ve also tried to travel more to San Jose or Monterey. I have to make a bit more effort to get myself out there. I have always been pretty good at solo training, like during covid I would solo train a lot. But it’s definitely weird to go back to it, especially not having a filmer anymore. 

Grace: My phone is always the filmer phone. Quintin or Calum would always walk up to and be like “Graceeee”. I’d normally be filming but it would always be on my phone even if somebody else was filming. I do miss that. 

Egg: What it did feel like attempting to capture this period of time in your friendship as you anticipated this big change in your life? What came up for ya’ll mentally or emotionally beyond just filming your training? 

Calum: Definitely like showing the bonds that parkour athletes have made with each other. It’s not just us, I have seen it with multiple other people. Movement can create such a good relationship between people, just by having this one thing in common. Grace and I have nothing else in common, but Parkour was enough for us to really bond over. 

Grace: I think it kind of allowed us to showcase and explore our differences more, especially in the editing process. He started the edit on my computer, so when I left for college I had to figure it out. It was really fun to see the differences between our parallel views of the same point in time. 

Egg: What moments in the video would you say you’re most proud of? 

Calum: There was the kong splat I did. That’s been done by a lot of people across different parkour generations. Dustin’s original students did that, Dustin’s done it. I had done the drop splat before but I had never done the kong into it before. That’s always been a goal of mine, especially seeing the older kids do it. So that was a big moment for me. 

Grace: I’m an athlete that really likes my comfort zone, and it’s a problem. I really do need to get out of it more often, because every time I do I get really happy about it. I think the dive roll I did to the electric box was a moment I’m particularly proud of. I had never done something like that before. That one took me a while to break.

Egg: Do you guys have any fun behind the scenes stories from filming? 

Grace: The Minute Maid lore. 

Calum: Oh yes, the Minute Maid lore.

Grace: It is a very weird clip, and only very specific people would know what it’s about. So not this summer, but the summer before, we were in San Diego for a competition and we were letting Quintin Miles and Jaden crash our Airbnb. Everybody else went to bed,  but me, Calum Quentin, and Miles were up and being rowdy. We we’re being too loud and had to get out of the house. So at like midnight we got in the car and we drove to a convenience store, and for some reason we picked up Minute Maid. It just felt like what we needed. 

Calum: I have that picture of you on the floor with it.

Grace: Yeah on the floor of a convenience store, sitting next to the stand of apples, curled up in a ball with my minute maid. And then we played the game, which has been a continual game called “can Grace get us home without directions?” which never goes well. I got us lost but we found some spots. So we pulled over and started training. At this point it was like 2am. We were going to multiple spots, just running around. It was the first time that we all like really deeply bonded with each other. And the whole time we’re chugging Minute Maid, Every single time we met up since then, we all go to a store, buy a Minute Maid, and then I get us lost for a few hours. 

Calum: That’s also kind of the story behind most of the night section in the video. We had gone to get our Minute Maid and found a little ledge behind a safe way. And we were like lets just see what we can come up with. That is always the best type of training. 

Grace: Yeah, it’s just us with our buddies. It’s a really fluffy way to train. There’s no pressure. It’s just “here, let’s jump on this curb.” It’s just a great bonding experience and just you know, Minute Maid. The whole point of going out is always to get minute made.

Egg: I totally agree that those sorts of moments can be the best and most memorable sessions. It doesn’t matter what the spot is like, or what tricks you do. Its just so fun to be sharing the joy of movement with good company.