The Commons

Alec (@riqbic) from The Commons sent a few questions over to Riley (@rippedcanvasshoes) about their new video:

Alec: First, can you give me a brief training history? When did you start? Who inspired you? Who is your training community?

Riley: I started Parkour in March of 2018. I got started through a Parkour coach that just started teaching classes at the gymnastics gym that I was doing gymnastics at. I was learning Parkour and also learning how to coach at that same time. The thing that inspired me in the beginning is the YouTube channel StuntsAmazing lol. I remember that 2015 video when Bart did the double cork off the brick wall and I instantly loved it and wanted to do it. I was still in gymnastics at the time and it still took 3 years for me to make the transition over to Parkour tho! My community consists of some Minnesota athletes. In the beginning, I had a couple of people that I would train with consistently: Cortez Stanley was my main training partner for a while since we coached together. Now I train with a bunch of Minnesota athletes.

Alec: Wow, 2018! That’s a really quick progression! It’s funny you mention Bart, I see that in your movement. Your video was definitely a hit at JOD7, was it a goal to screen it? How long had you been working on it?

Riley: Thanks! I’m glad so many people liked the film. My goal was in the beginning just to make a video and post it on my YouTube, but when I was at the film screening for JOD 6 and saw the amount of energy that was there, I thought to myself “well if I’m gonna make a video anyway, why don’t I just submit it here”? So that’s what I did! I saved up clips for about 10 months. The edit itself thankfully it wasn’t too long since I kept it simple, which was the goal overall. Simple, but have the movement shine.

Alec: You have really solid PK fundamentals, great flow, and mature spot vision and linebuilding. These are pretty tough attributes for somebody who started so recently. What parts of your training are you most proud of? Where did you learn these things? Who do you look up to?

Alec: Also, let’s put an asterisk on “recently.” Seven years is still a long time haha.

Riley: Appreciate it! Back in 2021, I rolled my ankle pretty badly. I couldn’t train like I normally do. I had to reduce my impact by a lot, so what I did were simple lines, but I made sure my flow was impeccable, not even a slight hesitation, break, anything at all. At the same time, this helped my spot vision too. During the injury, I would typically find non-spots or even just a picnic table. In terms of skill development, I learned a lot from watching Matt McCreary. He was the OG Schwanky contemporary style athlete that inspired me. Meet me recognizing that I can kind of just throw my body in certain directions and you can come up with way more than you think you know. I also looked up to the 69ers because they have that simple, yet various aesthetic flow and very creative skills. To top it off too, their filming is also top-notch

Alec: Another question when you’re ready: What was the most challenging clip to complete/film? Are you the kind of athlete who will run a line over and over again until it’s perfect?

Riley: Yes, I am definitely an athlete will run a line over and over until it is perfect haha. Some of these lines took 20+ attempts, and some of them only took maybe 5. I’d say the hardest clip though was at time stamp 1:50, the one where I’m hanging over the metal gate and doing a side roll on the door handle. That one was just all types of complex and hard to make look good. The hardest line to film, however, was the last clip of the video. It was tricky to go back-and-forth between rails that had a horizontal bar in the middle. People are gonna read that section about the 150 times stamp and be like “what the fuck, side roll on a door handle”

The door handle in question

Alec: Any shout outs?

Riley: Shout out to my girlfriend, Cortney Kasperek, for filming most of the clips and re-filming a lot of them too! Also to all the people that did film in the video: Elia, Sanjay, Bryan, Luke, and Nick. Of course, gotta thank all the family and friends that supported me throughout me doing Parkour Also, cannot forget to thank the parkour community. You guys are amazing and I wouldn’t be me without all of you. Much love.