David Witchell’s “One Year Of Yard”
A conversation with David Witchell (@david_witchell_dop) hosted by Egg Klickstein (@klickstein)
Egg: To kick things off, I want to ask a bit about the origins of this idea. I think you said in the video that you’ve been wanting to do something like this for close to 10 years.
David: I started training in Horsham in like West Sussex down south. Not so much these days, but it used to be quite a parkour hub in the UK. That being said, we didn’t have like a proper catpass. We only had one catpass pre that was like a normal parallel wall, same level, good run up. We communicate with the London scene quite a lot where like the doubles and dives and kong pres and all that was fundamental. So we just wanted one so badly.
My parents were gonna move to a place that had a garden and we were like playing the idea of building concrete so we could have a block to practice on. We loved IMAX block and we wanted a real one. We wanted like a block and then two walls that stuck out of it so you can prep the double without a gap and then do the real double. We kind of sketched it when I was like 16 probably, maybe 17. Obviously it never happened. But yeah, that was the initial idea for a central parkour block to be set up like that. I thought that’d be so fucking good. Everyone loves IMAX block, and I just wanted one.
Egg: It’s so interesting that it all starts with not feeling like your city offered the specific setup you were looking for. And you’re like, damn, it’d be so cool just to have one of our own. What exactly led to it actually starting to come together?
David: I actually don’t know to be honest. I think I just thought it’d be good to have an underground spot. We train with the super XXL community quite a lot. With a few other people like Andy, Matt, and Jack, we sort of get into a routine of trying to think of what would be good for the community. And I thought it would be so cool if we had an actual undercover spot.
We kept going to Blackwall, which is a covered spot in London. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but you’ve probably seen clips. It’s like giant white steps, three big levels. It’s quite a fun spot, but for the London parkour style and culture, it’s not really our thing. To be honest, you’d probably use it way better than us. But we don’t really fuck with it very well.
So yeah I was on a trip in Barcelona, I think I was just on my own doing nothing. I was a bit miserable. That’s when I like, think of stuff properly. And I thought, okay, let’s just commit. Let’s do it. Make a shit setup at least and then see if it works.
Egg: So from there you started looking for decent covered locations?
David: Yeah, probably spent like a month scouting. My job sent me all around London. So I was kind of peeking out of the window everywhere I went until I saw that spot. I thought it seemed pretty good. So we went to check it out, and it seemed perfect.
Egg: In the video you mentioned that the space was already a bit of a skateboarding DIY spot. I’m curious if skateboard DIY culture influenced this project at all, or whether you talked with any skateboarders who had experience with finding locations for this sort of thing?
David: So it didn’t at all at first. Now we draw from the skaters knowledge a bit more. I should have done that from the beginning to be honest. But now we’ve seen that they have a couple decades of experience with this. So now we copy them a little bit. But at first, nah. When I first went to that spot, I saw there were some tiny bits of DIY skate features and I was like, Oh, if anything, this just shows that it’s a viable place. It won’t get knocked down in 10 minutes.
I really should have consulted DIY skaters a lot more. But for some reason I was too arrogant and freestyled it.
Egg: Now that you’re in conversation with the DIY skaters, what has been the best input or advice you’ve gotten from that scene?
David: Not so much from direct communication for the scene, but I’ve gone to the Grove DIY in London. There’s actually a good doc about the Grove, its a really cool DIY. I just went there for a shoot and I was looking at how they did everything. I was looking inside and started realizing “oh, this is how you can do this and make it strong.”
A few of my friends that train also skate. Andy for example is one of the key builders of Yard, and he’s into skating as well. So he’s been looking up loads of stuff as well. So we didn’t really have a contact but luckily it’s a very visible thing so we can kind of just look at the skate DIY stuff and figure out how its made. The building techniques kind of carry over.
Egg: In the doc you mentioned scrapping to get building materials. From what I know about skate DIYs that’s usually kind of the technique, just filling with whatever you can get your hands on. It’s just cool to see the parallels there. We all want a nice dry space to have fun. I wonder if it’s almost easier to make parkour obstacles in this fashion compared to skate obstacles because we don’t need a smooth surface. It just needs to be sturdy.
David: Yes, at first we thought it was harder for us because of what we wanted. It’s easy if you’re making blocks but if you want walls its a bit trickier. Especially for the London scene we kind of needed some walls. If you just build a brick wall, even if you are good at making brick walls, it could just knock over. So we were like doing the angles and stuff trying to make sure it wouldn’t go. We were so focused on the angles and the physics of it. We didn’t really address the “Just fill it with shit” side of things. But now those two things combined it’s really easy for us.
We recently did one new wall with this new knowledge and it came together so quickly. We did it in like half a day. It’s rock solid. We filmed a little tutorial on it so we’re gonna make a little “here’s how you make a wall!”
Egg: That’s awesome, I’d love more specific information on how to make something like this happen. I think this would be so beneficial for so many other cities. I was really interested in how you made the pretty large tower structure. It just seems like a difficult design challenge to construct something that tall that won’t tip over.
David: We knew someone would try the running pre which is basically a missile drop kick at the weakest point. That was quite stressful. We were talking a lot about that one and we kind of committed under the principle of “well the people who are gonna get up that high anyway will be freerunners. They’re gonna kick it as a test and if it wobbles they’ll go nah.” If it’s the type thing that’s gonna go someone’s gonna just do it anyway. So we were like, all right, let’s just have a bit of faith in the community which is a big risk. But it ended up being so strong, way stronger than we were expecting. We thought about it a lot and expected it to maybe wobble with a lot of impact, but so far it hasn’t budged. It’s nuts.
Egg: You kind of brought up something else I wanted to ask about when you were talking about it being kind of risky to let people decide for themselves what feels safe. I’m just curious if at any point in this you’ve been worried about responsibility or liability if something does break and someone gets hurt. It seems like a tricky spot to be in, wanting to provide all of this stuff while being put in a position to in theory be responsible for other people’s safety.
David: Yeah, we have talked about that a lot but it comes down to the the same culture of parkour that’s applied everywhere else. What you’ve asked we asked ourselves as well but when you put that same question to normal outdoor training it seems silly. If you do a running pre and the wall crumbles and you fall back and you hurt yourself you would never once blame the builders. If a freerunner has an injury at Yard, well they didn’t have to jump on it in the first place.
Also legally under the occupiers liability act in this country we’re legally protected as well. It’s not something we’re providing in an official way, no one’s being made to use it, it’s not like an expected service, there’s no like terms of usage, there’s no signs saying this is a super safe qualified parkour park, there’s none of that. These guys who don’t know what they’re doing put this together, have a go on it. There’s no grounds for any responsibility legally, and I don’t think we have much of responsibility morally either.
Egg: I don’t know why I didn’t think about it, but yeah it’s kind of within the parkour ethos of knowing your limits, training within your ability, and checking your surfaces. I think people would be more likely to check their surfaces in a space like this where you might wonder if you trust the integrity. Just do what you always do and give it a good kick and see how it feels.
David: Exactly. If you’re going to do a rail pre without giving it a good wobble before you’re doing it, then whatever happens is entirely your fault. So yeah it does carry over.
Egg: Another thing I wanted to ask about is whether there’s been any communication from the city and whether you’ve been worried about like the space being shut down?
David: We’ve had no communication with the city. There’s a homeless guy who used to live down there, and he was a bit of a spy for us until his stuff got raided, it was quite sad. But yeah he told us that some people from the council were coming down and having a little look around and then leaving. So they know about it. We’re also being really careful to not do the things that we know piss them off. This is actually something we learned from the skate community. Someone ages ago wrote about the bmx DIY that was around the corner and they found if they put their ramps too far up into the pillars of the bridge then the council would just act immediately and just fuck it off. But if you don’t start fucking with the foundations of the pillars they’re a lot more open.
That homeless guy who lived there he told us not to put anything over drains or any access points because then they’re just not having it. That was really interesting because I never would have considered covering a manhole to be a big no-no but apparently they are on you if you do that. So that’s a really good thing we learned from him.
But yeah we’ve had no problem from the city so far and it’s getting bigger and bigger with more and more concrete so if they were gonna take it down they’ve kind of missed their chance. Now it will be like a proper job to get rid of it all.
Egg: So it seems like if you just play by these rules then you’re good to go essentially?
David: Yeah well it seems that way. The Grove skate DIY never got knocked down, it’s been there for decades. Even so we’re being as careful as possible. When we put up one of the walls next to the pillar we didn’t actually attach it to the wall because it was plenty strong on its own. After hearing about what happened at the bmx DIY we wrote on the wall next to it “don’t worry we didn’t drill into the foundation” just in case they do look at it.
Egg: That’s really cool, here in the States at least it feels like there’s no desire to let people do stuff like this. What you’re saying makes it sound like as long as you’re not messing with the infrastructure that the city needs they are inclined to want to turn a blind eye and let y’all do your thing.
David: I think there’s a little bit of that but I also think it’s just the reality of the council system in the UK. London is a busy place, and this is not high on their list of concerns. It’s not like “let the mafia do whatever, it’s these guys that put some walls up we’ve got to worry about!” Unless you cover a manhole, then you’re top of the list. Can’t have that.
Egg: In the doc you talked about Yard being a space where different groups or cliques from the community are connecting and merging in ways that they don’t typically. I’d love to hear a little more about that and how connected the scene is in London generally. Here in the states there’s so many micro communities and we’re not always very unified. It’s really interesting to me to see this cultural phenomena of the necessity for a covered space bringing this sort of meeting of minds.
David: Yeah it is interesting. The London scene for a long time felt like a bunch of different friend circles, which is quite normal I think for big city communities. London just has so many freerunners and so many spots. If you’re in West you have everything you need and there’s enough people to do it with, and the same is true for the East. So for a while it’s been quite fragmented. There’s like three main umbrella groups. The South Bank scene which was like the all the big jumps big flips. Then there was like the more old-school group which is kind of what Super Sundays came from. Then there was like everyone else. Which sounds sounds mean, but I just mean the people haven’t found their way into one of these bigger groups. They’re just like training on their own.
These days that has really shrunk down due to a combination of a few things. I think super XXL was a key movement of that. We have big jams every week with more and more people coming. It’s like 30 to 40 people just on a Sunday. Which is nuts. In most cities that would be like an event. I think that helped and then having this space just accelerated that. It’s really brought in a lot of people. The London community does feel a lot more cohesive now. I don’t remember it ever being like this which is really nice. It is quite special. I think Yard has been one of the ingredients in that.
Egg: That’s super cool. Beyond the helpfulness of a covered space for training, I feel like that aspect is what would be so beneficial to so many other cities. I feel like it is pretty common for there to be a lot of subdivisions within a larger scene and I wish it was easier to establish weekly sessions like you’re describing. But it takes someone who is willing to be a community leader and organizer to make it happen. With a space like Yard, it sounds pretty naturally for people to congregate without the need for a planned session. If it’s a rainy weekend day of course people are going to be drawn to that space. I imagine that would do a lot for a scene and community. For people to be interacting with more athletes who share this passion. It makes total sense why people want to just go train with their immediate friends who they really connect with, but I think for parkour to continue growing that larger connection is really important.
David: It just needs to be there, and for it to rain. Then its like “Cool. Done.” In London especially it’s great because we’re so spoiled for spots. There are a lot of people here with different styles and different approaches to training, and they all gravitate to different locations. A lot of people avoid IMAX because they’re like, “that’s just for the big boys. It’s just big jumps and impact.” So they won’t go there and they won’t explore that style. They won’t meet the scary big boys and realize they’re actually really friendly nerds who like jumping on stuff. But with Yard they’ve only got that one choice. The different approaches and all these different movement styles and all these different spot preferences kind of get like fucked off just out of force. Once you end up there you realize we’re just one big group. It’s quite nice.
Egg: I Want to talk a little bit more about the design of Yard. I thought it was pretty interesting how it started with just wanting a nice cat pass, and how from there you just kept building it up based on what people wanted. The final design was never planned out from the start. If you were to do it all over again would you want to do anything differently? Are you satisfied with the layout?
David: That’s a really good question. I really like how we’ve done it. The design process of building, training, building, training… it works really well to figure it all out intuitively. It’s a great way to work off of the community’s needs. For example, some people in our community wanted to learn to cat pass but the wall was too high for them. I’m a spoiled bloke with really long arms so I didn’t think about that. So we made a smaller one.
I really like this approach to be honest. It also makes it a more realistic project. If you drew up this massive thing from the start, all of a sudden is like, “oh my god, that’s so expensive.” And you need loads of people once it’s a huge thing like that. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get freerunners to meet up in one place on time but trying to do that would be nuts. So it’s quite good to have it in bite-sized little bits.
Also if you fuck it up, it’s not like a huge fuck up because its only one little bit that’s fucked up.
I don’t think I would change that approach. I think that’s partly the secret of Yard’s success as well, seeing what happens when people train on it. Like certain things are really popular that we didn’t foresee. Recently we put little steps and a slanted wall, and we thought it’d be a flow section. London being London everyone just started hitting the running pre which was really big and we didn’t see it coming. So now we’re like, “oh, okay. Well, that’s good to know.” So when we’re planning future stuff, we won’t put stuff in that run up. I think if we just had a design and built the whole thing all at once we wouldn’t have foreseen those run ups. Most parkour parks have no run-ups. It’s infuriating
Egg: That’s so interesting. It’s making me think about parkour gyms I’ve been to that have a lot of design flaws that totally could have been avoided if people had the chance to train it before it was completed. Building like this with constant community input one piece at a time sounds really ideal. As you were saying it’s hard to get freerunners to meet up in one spot. Well it’s also hard to get freerunners to give you input when a project like this is just a concept you know? If you were to try and set up a form online and be like, “hey guys, I’m going to make this thing, tell me what you want” I feel like that wouldn’t work too well.
David: Yeah, exactly. It’s a very practical way of getting feedback when people are like, “oh I love this” or “this running pre would be possible if you added that.” Recently actually, a freerunner named Adam McKenna, a bit of a legend from the past, started training with us again and he realized there’s a spot right in the middle of four of the obstacles which no one ever stands in, and no one ever uses as a run up. He suggested we put a little thing right there, and we could link all of these bits without costing any run up which was a really good idea. It’s a really cool way of doing it, because if you have a giant CAD design and everyone’s pitching in, there’d be no way that’s ever happening.
Egg: Do you have any advice for people trying to make their own parkour DIY?
David: To find a proper spot, I think you just have to be outside a lot. You need to really explore your city. Overpasses seem to be the best, so look for big roads. It has to be a place where people in public don’t ever pass through. Try and see it on a really rainy day as well, like where does the water fall, where does it land, or does it look covered but actually it’s complete bollocks where there’s a grate in the ceiling and water just goes right through it or the water all collects down there.
In terms of scrapping, to be honest, once you’re looking for it, you will see it. It is everywhere. I don’t know the last time you were like, oh that’s a good bit of bricks on the floor, but once you really appreciate bricks, they are just there. Near construction sites often has a lot. You can go down nice streets where everyone’s doing up their houses because they’ve got a bit of money, and there’s shit everywhere. Once you want it, you’ll find it.
When you are scrapping, you will think it’s enough, and it is not enough.Once you think you have enough, times that by three, and that will be enough. And that’s not like exaggeration, that is pretty accurate. It tends to be about three times what you have at first. It’s mental, I don’t know how it does it, it just reduces, it’s weird. No one ever believes me when I say that.
Bricks are great, because they slot into each other very well, but we’re in the UK where bricks are just fucking everywhere. Anything heavy, like rock, concrete, rubble, or sand works great. Mixing sand with cement in a three to one ratio is pretty good. But you definitely need concrete. Concrete is like the gel that binds it all. It does what it’s made for really well, surprisingly. If you put concrete in it, you don’t have to worry about anything. Like it is not going anywhere. That’s the main thing.
Egg: Would you say like concrete was like the main expense for a lot of this?
David: No, actually, the boards of wood. In UK, wood’s quite expensive. When we build the Island and Yardito, that was five boards, and they’re almost 30 pounds each. So I don’t know what that is in dollars, but that’s like an unpleasant number to drop in one day. And then the concrete is like six pounds for a big bag. And then like the sand is like three pounds, so you can get quite a lot of mass quite cheap. And that’s where the rubble is really important. The more rubble you have, the less you’re spending on concrete, because you don’t have to fill up that space.
Egg: Did you like crowdfund to pay for that stuff?
David: No, I’m just financially irresponsible. I run a business in film and TV, and one thing I’ve learned is you just need to smash and grab at the beginning of these things. Like just start it. If you start the project by asking people to pitch in, it won’t get off the ground. But if you just get started and get the ball rolling, then all of a sudden people pitch in. So I spent probably 400 pounds on the first build. But then after that, people really start believing in it. Freerunners aren’t very good at earning money, but the ones of us that actually have jobs have been pitching more and more. A lot of the super XXL guys and some of the other people from the community pitch in a little bit. 10 pound here, 50 quid here, 100 pound there. So now these days I’m probably not the main financial input.
Egg: I think that’s like really good advice to just get started on your own dollar. And once there’s proof, people will be invested for sure.
David: Yeah, its like a build it and they will come type of thing. Which is actually another thing that adds to what we were talking about earlier with our approach of not having a big grand design. Starting small with something nice but not too crazy is doable and reachable. It’s not gonna make you broke. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but it’s worth a shot.
Egg: Anything else to say before we wrap up?
David: I would just love to encourage people to do this. Please reach out to us and ask us for advice. We’re such nerds about it. We would love to throw you information. Just message us and we’ll try and help as much as possible. I’m excited to see what other communities build.
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