Our Winter 18 release is a bunch of favourite items, we've been wanting to make forever. Well, forever is finally over and here they are.   Shooting these photos on a November weekend in Germany, the new Hoodies were a clear favourite. Dom was injured, after flipping 25 stairs in Lyon, and couldn't do any jumps (terrible excuse, we know).  Valtteri was going hard, soaking in every bit of sun, knowing it would be much colder back home in Finland. Jason was stoked to show everybody in his home town.   There's lots to talk about, when it comes to the different designs. The Hoodie is a real favourite and the images speak for themselves.   Our new stretch Jeans are a little harder to spot. Mainly Zen's brain-child he was inspired by the classic Harem Pants cut in the design process. When picking out the fabric we wanted it to be tough, but super flexible.   You'll probably noticed the Farang shoe showing up in the photos. It's almost ready and we hope to bring it to you soon. Once the time comes, we'll talk about it in detail. Of course, we didn't want you to have cold feet until then, so the first Farang socks ever are available now.   That's all for now, thanks for your support! Check out the Lookbook video to see the gear in motion. Keep moving.                  

‘Even though Parkour is a new sport, it really is the most classic of all sports.’ My friend Frosti Zernow said during an interview once, talking about how Parkour goes back to natural movement with no assisting tools. What he said resonated with me, and sums up where the idea for Nude Parkour came from, even though he said it after I shot my first nude series with Tim Shieff. When my friend Erica, born and raised in Colorado, visited Bangkok, I asked her if she was down to explore the rooftops above the city’s crowded alleys. Spontaneously she said yes, and we leaped into a day of ridiculous urban streaking.  The next morning on the roof of my apartment building. The sun has just started to peak above the horizon and Erica is looking great. Unfazed by the heights, she moves graciously around the rooftop, and while it’s obvious that she isn’t wearing any clothes it never feels as if she is naked, just comfortable.    Twenty-five floors above street level, we are shooting right next to a main intersection, and it would be easy for people to spot her balancing close to the ledge. We know people rarely look up from their mobile phones, or, in Bangkok’s case, the many delicious foods offered from street stalls at breakfast time.    Done with the roof, we treat ourselves to some street food and jump in a cab headed towards the next location, an abandoned 30-story high-rise. The outside is boarded up, and after sneaking around we jump the fence, just to be caught by security on the other side. He is not a man in uniform with a mustache, but a hysteric middle-aged woman and her shirtless boyfriend drinking a Chang. Both live in a make-shift hut on the ground floor, and while the boyfriend clearly doesn’t care, she won’t stop talking while pointing us to the exit, resistant to my bribery.  We refuse to leave, so she decides to get her boss, and walks off and leaves us with her boyfriend. Sensing that we might have a chance I inform him that we’ll follow her, to which he just shrugs. As soon as we stroll around the corner, out of his sight, we pick up pace and dart up the first staircase, knowing that they will be too lazy to ascend 30-stories to kick us out. We made it!      The rooftop is breathtaking! A huge metal structure sits on the building like a rusty crown for us to play on. Erica starts exploring the environment while I’m looking for a shot. Impressed by Erica’s bravery and control I decide to ask her for a shot I’ve had in the back of my head, prepared that she will call me crazy.      I walk her up to the frontside of the building, where part of the metal crown has broken off and fallen back onto the rooftop. I turn around and ask her, knowing that losing her balance would mean sure death, ‘Do you think you could lean out onto the beam?’  Erica looks at me and then leans over the edge, inspects the beam closely, places her palms on it to get an idea of how it would feel. She turns back around. I’m ready for a ‘No, absolutely not,’ but Erica says ‘I think I could hang off of it, do you think that would look good?’     Model - Erica Nicole Madrid - @erica_n_madrid -  ericamadrid.com - YoutubePhotos - Jason Paul - @thejasonpaul

Jesse La Flair goes on tour around the US with a whole bunch of athletes. We look at some of the stuff that's already gone down, and what his plans for the next few months are. Arguably the biggest name in American parkour, Jesse La Flair has never been shy to set big goals and embark on ambitious projects. In the name of his vision of where parkour and freerunning should be heading, he plows forward often at personal expense to make his impact on the culture. His methods have gained him both a sizeable following, and quite a few haters to boot. Now he’s off on a two month tour around the USA to promote his new shoe - the La Flair Pro Model LF-1. The concept of this tour is straightforward; bring together a bunch of sick athletes, throw them in a big tour bus together and drive around the country hosting jams at gyms. Hopefully making enough money back to cover the expenses. With a 35ft personalised RV to run and several athletes to feed those expenses certainly do add up! Through sponsorship with brands such as Yokohama (they make tyres) and the autonomous drone company Skydio. Jesse managed to make the Lace Up Tour financially feasible. One of the key promotion elements is that if you preorder Jesse’s new shoes you get free entry to all 16 events of the tour. Of course it’s also an amazing opportunity to produce heaps of social media content. But as much as it’s about all that… it’s also about the good times and experiences. The tour allows Jesse and crew to give exposure to some of the more obscure communities in the country. There may even be a feature film at the end of it all. The Lace Up Tour does a huge loop around the USA, starting and finishing in Los Angeles on the 5th of August. This is where it's expected that the largest event will be held at the Tempest’s Southbay location. In addition to the events the tour passes through every Camp Woodward location in the US at some point - an action sports summer camp where kids come to get coaching and train with special guests. Each Woodward location has its own full outdoor parkour setup now… a sure sign of the sports growth in the US. At the time of writing it’s day 10 of the tour, Erik Mukhametshin has just arrived and joined the team - which now consists of him, Sydney Olson, Jeff Garrido, Marcus Gustafsson, and of course Jesse La Flair. The tour has passed through Woodward West, Jeff’s gym near Sacramento called The Haven, and is now in Woodward Tahoe. Both Jesse and Sydney are doing daily vlogs of the whole tour. You can catch them here and here. Check out this video from the day of the event in The Haven.  Throughout the summer different athletes will be cycling on and off… the tour is going to Portland Oregon next, where Nate Weston will be joining for several weeks! The combination of Him, and the rest of the athletes will surely be fireworks. Some other athletes who are expected to join the tour are Bart Van Der Linden, Corbin Reinhardt and Mich Todorovic. So all in all, the Lace Up Tour is probably something worth being aware of - with all those athletes together touring like that. Who knows what will happen, and how many savage odds will be lost. It’s kinda cool that some of the lifestyle elements that once only really applied to musicians is starting to become an aspect of parkour too. If you’re in the US be sure to check if the tour is coming to a gym near you. You can pre-order the LF-1’s here. - - - Note from the author: I’m joining the Lace Up Tour for its full duration as the merch guy, so for the next couple of months I’ll probably be trying to focus on more US themed blog content. It just makes sense, as I’ll be traveling around the country and meeting lots of interesting people, and exploring some pretty gnarly spots and gyms. Leave US-based content suggestions down below! Photo Credits: George Shunia, Jesse La Flair

We have a little chat with speed competition extraordinaire and esteemed Storm athlete Joseph Henderson on the topic of ‘flow states’ - the psychological phenomena which is being studied and discussed more and more in recent years. Anyone who’s been training parkour for a while will have noticed how different the experience of movement is when they are extremely focused on what they are doing. The extent to which you notice how different that experience is perhaps speaks to how introspective you are. Nonetheless this concept of ‘the zone’ or more recently ‘flow’ is something most of us have been exposed to, subconsciously or otherwise! It may surprise you that there is an increasing body of discussion surrounding this once very slippery and niche idea. Books like Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler go into detail about what is happening at the level of the brain and the mind when athletes are hyper focused on a difficult task out near the limits of their abilities. Indeed you hear it discussed more and more often at events as the years go on. One well known athlete who loves thinking about the concept of flow states is Joseph Henderson. Winner of many a parkour speed competition, he clearly is doing something very right with his training - perhaps his understanding of flow is a factor in that? Let’s find out… So how would you describe what flow is to someone completely unfamiliar with the idea? I’d describe it as a sensation of optimal experience, in which you’re entirely engaged in the task at hand… It’s a state of mind where you are entirely engaged, entirely focused on the the task at hand. You’re working towards some sort of goal, and that task is on the edge of your ability - be that mental or physical. ...Ahh, I want to pinpoint this! It’s times at which you feel like you have control over your own consciousness and over your own fate almost. I think a lot of the time you go through life with a state of mind where you don’t feel like you have any sort of control over the external world (like things going on around you), or the internal world either (like the contents of your mind). You’re pretty much at the whim of the things around you, like if something happens… like some conflict happening nearby causes you to feel uneasy, or you’ll see some advertisement for food and start feeling hungry. Your consciousness is pretty much at the whim of this external world, which is pretty much indifferent to you, or perhaps entirely indifferent to you and your goals. But when you’re in ‘flow’ you have a feeling, not necessarily control, but at least of participating in the order of events happening around you, and having some sort of control of your consciousness. It's like experiencing order in consciousness rather than chaos. When did you start thinking about flow as a feeling of optimal experience? Well I think my concept of flow has changed over the last year or so of doing more research, and educating myself more on it. I think my initial concept of it came from years ago, and at the time I thought I had a good idea about what it was. But now I look back on that I feel it wasn’t quite accurate. I think since reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book on flow which is kinda the principle primary text on flow, my concept of flow has become more grounded and substantiated I guess, and more accurate to what it actually is. I think I used to think of flow as this mystical, magical sort of state of mind where you suddenly have access to abilities and focus beyond what you normally have. But now I understand flow to be more a state of mind and consciousness brought on by doing things close to the edge of your ability. How can ‘flow’ help your Parkour? Why should someone be interested? What I think I’ve learnt is that it’s not something you access and then it affects your ability… I think now that it’s a state that you access through doing certain activities. So Parkour can be a flow activity because of the feeling it can give you, which is essentially of being adequately challenged, and feeling like nothing else matters apart from the task you have at hand. For example in parkour if you’re doing a jump which is on the boundary of your ability - perhaps it’s slightly bigger than you’re used to, or there's some intricacy about it that makes it a challenge - but you feel you have the necessary skill set to deal with it… that’s when you’ll access flow. I think the intrigue of it from a parkour perspective isn’t as something that will necessarily help you in parkour, but it’s something worth accessing that parkour can help you to access. Because I think the moments of being in flow, being in that state of optimal experience, are the moments of your life that are remembered as the best ones. They’re the ones that bring you the most contentment, and the ones where you feel like you grow as a person. So rather than thinking of flow as something you can access to help you achieve things in parkour, you should think of parkour as an activity that can help you achieve flow I guess. So you think flow is the bigger deal? Yeah I think so! And to come back to the idea of defining flow; the reason I’d use it synonymously with this idea of ‘optimal experience’ (which is what Csikszentmihalyi does, he talks about this idea), is that it’s the moments of your life you look back on as being the most meaningful and containing the most joy, and providing the most growth. Counterintuitively these experiences won’t really be pleasurable in the moment; for example a swimmer pushing for that personal best at a swimming race or whatever, at the time his lungs are gasping for air, his muscles are aching. Similarly with parkour, trying to conquer some jump you might be scared, or angry even - I’ll often get angry if I’m struggling with a really hard challenge. All those emotions you’re feeling at the time might not have the characteristics of happiness, there’s struggle there. Nonetheless these are the moments you look back on with the most reverence and joy. You feel like if you could fill your life with as many of those moments as possible you’d generally be happier and more satisfied with life. So can you consistently trigger that feeling of optimum experience these days? [Joe thinks for a few moments] Yes. I think so. But it’s not something I can trigger instantaneously, but the more I train and the more I reflect internally on my consciousness as I train, the more I understand how to access that frame of mind I suppose.   And although I said it’s more something parkour helps you achieve, rather than flow helping you achieve within parkour, it works as a cycle because that mindset is only achieved through pushing to the very limits of your ability… and being able to understand how you get to that frame of mind helps you to progress, because obviously it's being out at the edge of your ability and attempting to push beyond that where you progress the most. It kind of goes hand in hand. Pushing that far will trigger the flow state which is a good thing in itself, and then understanding how you get to that frame of mind will help you progress. So bringing it more personal: is flow an important element of your competition strategy these days? Yes. Again though right at the beginning when I didn’t have such a grounded understanding of flow I would have thought of flow as something I could tap into in order to help me with competition. But now it’s hard to say why, because I don’t see it as a state of mind that does enhance you anymore. Your understanding of it is past the point of deliberately trying to leverage it, to gain from it? Sure. I suppose what you would think of when you talk about accessing flow in order to optimise your performance, what you’re really talking about is optimising the conditions for flow to occur. That’s where the performance optimisation comes from; its that the same things that induce flow are the things that induce your best performance. Things like supreme engagement with the activity, and pushing yourself to the limit as well. Yeah… essentially being engaged with the task of voluntarily pushing yourself to the edge of your ability - stretching what you’re capable of. So in terms of competition it’s definitely the case that the level of focus that I engage when I do a competition is exactly the same level of focus that I’d have to be engaged in before I experienced flow. Do you think flow is important to the future of the sport? I do think it’s going to be important to it, but not in terms of like people’s abilities and what’s possible. But more as keeping the sport valuable on a certain level - in terms of individual progression, and enjoyment, and having some meaning greater than… [Joe thinks for a moment] Doing parkour with the objective of accessing flow is kind of what most people are doing anyway, even if they don’t know that themselves. Like if they’re not educated on the topic, and don’t understand what it is they’re seeking, but it is when you’re pushing yourself to the brink and do a jump that you’ve never done before, and it’s like “Why do we put ourselves into these often uncomfortable situations?”... Putting extrinsic motivations like views and fame aside, why do we put ourselves through all this risk of injury and soreness? I think most people actually train for intrinsic reasons, they train because of the way it makes them feel. It’s because being at the edge of your ability in pretty much whatever you’re doing, gives you the most rewarding long term enjoyment experiences that it’s possible to have in life. They’re a lot of what makes your life feel worth living. And I absolutely believe parkour is a great way to achieve those sort of moments. If that was to become separated from parkour, that would mean that people are doing it solely for extrinsic reasons like wanting more Instagram followers or whatever.   So you think flow is the primary intrinsic reason why people train? I think so, yeah! Everyone says stuff when asked why they train like “oh, I like challenging myself” but why do people like challenging themselves? Flow cuts right to the heart of that. In that sense it’s absolutely vital to the future of the sport, or any activity really. -  -  - So to briefly recap Joe’s perspective; I think he’s saying flow is a really just a side effect of challenging yourself to the optimum level for progression, because that level of challenge forces you to focus to such an extent where flow starts to occur. That’s kinda its cash value - experiencing a flow state is a signal that you are training optimally, and being familiar with the feeling is like a homing beacon for finding that optimal training mindset. Of course its value extends way beyond that; as Joe went into at the end, we’re all motivated by flow on some level. Some of the literature on the subject even claims we’re chemically addicted to the state of flow, hence we will go to such crazy lengths to pursue our sports, and get that flow hit. I also get the sense that Joe has a very grounded perspective on life in general, and doesn’t like to dwell too much on highly speculative or subjective interpretations of what’s going on with flow. Hence why you don’t hear him talking about sensations of time collapsing, and depth perception being radically altered, among other things people like to discuss on the topic. I think that is quite refreshing, and lends the things he does say a lot of authority. Thanks for the interview, Joe.   Follow Joseph Henderson on Instagram @joseph.hendo Photo Credits: Cover Photo - Lynn Ljung, Leonardo Grillo, The Motus Projects

I asked Brighton parkour coach, and lifetime martial artist Jai Battrick some of the questions I'd been dying to know about what it's like to train both activities simultaneously. A couple of illusions were shattered in the process!  The popularity of martial arts is on the rise. Between the growth of Mix Martial Arts and it's biggest promotion - the UFC, and as more and more people search for novel ways to stay healthy and in shape. You're starting to see some fighters dipping their toes into the world of the boarder movement community, with some even hiring 'movement coaches' to augment their combat training. Like Conor McGregor working with Ido Portal, and Micheal Page working with Tim Shieff. I decided to interview Jai Battrick, to try and get a martial artist and traceur's perspective on how well the skills of parkour and martial arts cross over. Jai is a very interesting guy, with a rare background in both combat and parkour. He coaches parkour in Brighton, and regularly trains with the likes of Callum Powell and Joe Henderson!  I hope you enjoy the interview! What was the martial art you trained in, and how long did you do that for? I trained Ninjitsu, from the age of about 6 to about 16 - so about 10 years. I did Karate 2 years before I started Ninjitsu, so from about the age of 4. I’ve done MMA since I stopped Ninjitsu. So combat has always been a part of your life? Yeah, for sure.   To people that wouldn’t know what Ninjitsu is, how would you describe it? So ninjitsu is a japanese martial art which directly translates in english to the art of survival. It basically is the art of living your life in the most efficient way - so everything you do has efficiency to it, it isn’t just a martial art in the ‘art of war’ sense, it is also about how you think and how you do things. So at what stage in your martial arts journey did you discover parkour? I discovered parkour when I was about 11 or 12. And I had been doing Ninjutsu a few years before meeting Joe Henderson when I was about 9 or 10. We became good friends, we would hang out with each other. So he inevitably got into Ninjutsu as well… he would come down to the classes with me. Part of ninjitsu is the skill of evasion, as well as offending. So we would learn how to climb, and run up walls and whatnot. So we ended up jumping around a lot. On the way to class we would climb on the walls and run around, and even on the playground after school. A friend of my Dad saw us doing this, and handed down a DVD of this famous UK parkour documentary ‘Jump Britain’ to us. I instantly got into Parkour after watching it, and Joe ended up getting into it at the same time. And yeah, we were already doing something similar, but we instantly got along with this.But yeah, to answer your question, it was around 6 years after starting martial arts that I got into parkour. So you were already quite proficient at martial arts by the time you started - so do you think that background provided any interesting or specific benefits to your parkour training? Yeah for sure. I always wanted to be like… a ‘hero’ or a soldier, or an Indiana Jones type character. So I always wanted an adventurous activity to do; whether that was fighting people or running away from people. So yeah I always trained parkour sort of like a martial art to start off with. Martial Arts had sort of wet my appetite for movement, and doing cool shit in the space around me. It’s kind of not accepted to go down to the park and spar with your mates - I was always scrapping as a kid, getting into little scraps here and there, and that's kind of unaccepted. But comparatively, jumping around and climbing around trees and walls is a lot more accepted. So it became an easier pastime. You didn’t have to pay anything, because there wasn’t any classes back when I started. You didn’t need a facility - with martial arts you need a soft a ground really. You didn’t have to wait for the next class or anything. I could just train all the time and get into that strong and disciplined frame of mind I loved so much from martial arts classes. I finally had something to focus my mind on outside of Ninjutsu class. Ah so the two went hand in hand pretty much - it felt like a natural progression? Exactly, yeah! I’m not pretentious… or maybe I am pretentious, but I’m not pretentious enough to say “Oh it’s all the same thing. Parkour is a martial art, and martial arts are Parkour, it's all just moving around” because I think that’s absolute wank. Like yeah, they’re both moving around but they’re completely different sports - it’s just the mindset that’s similar. That was going to be my next question actually - in what ways are they similar? Is it fair to think of parkour as a bit like a martial art? Or vice-versa? Or is that not fair perhaps? I think if you train Parkour like a Martial Art, if all you train is getting away from someone… Like if you warm up for a while then put yourself in some scenario like you do in Martial Arts. When I first started parkour I would actually do this, me and Joe would literally chase each other in order to force us to do things faster. That probably explains a lot of our style today, and explains why Joe is so quick, because we used to chase and run away from each other. You would pretty much play Tag with each other? Exactly, and I was a lot more physically developed than Joe at that stage. So I was taller and quicker, and he really had to pick up his training to get away from me. But yeah to answer the original question… if you train it like a martial art, it pretty much is a martial art, but I personally don’t think it is. At the moment I just train it because I think it’s fucking cool, there’s no like spiritual element to it for me, in my head the spirit behind it is totally different to martial arts. You’re jumping off of walls, and seeing how far you can jump, and hanging out with friends, like a lot of people participate for the culture of it. Whereas martial arts are very individualistic in a sense, and focused; you turn up to class, you learn something because you need that skill for when it is needed in life. You’re learning how to defend yourself in a real life situation. I’m not training parkour in order than I can run away from someone per say, I’m just learning it because I find it enjoyable. Right, yeah. So that’s the way you use it at least… which is not to say that it couldn’t be flipped for someone? Exactly, yeah! So if someone wants to class parkour as a martial art I think that's totally acceptable. I think it just depends how you train it. If you train it like you’re trying to run away from someone, then it’s pretty much one half of Ninjutsu. A post shared by P A R I A H (@jaibattrick) on Jan 6, 2017 at 11:58am PST   Do you think some people would benefit from treating their training a bit more like a Martial Arts discipline? Yeah I feel it would. You kinda use your imagination… what helps me in martial arts training is to imagine walking down the street, and if someone were to attack me or I witness someone being attacked, I always like to feel like I’m primed and ready to protect myself, my girlfriend, my friends, or the people that I’m with, I never want to slump. I implemented that attitude in my martial arts training and it helped me progress a lot. For some people the ‘It’s just jumping on walls’ attitude works, but I feel with some people, if they maybe use their imagination to think of someone chasing after them then it can make them commit to things and link them together. This is what I usually do when I coach kids, I get them to chase each other and it really motivates them to do the movements… like before they would half-ass do a wallrun, but with the competitive element you see them commit to punching up the wall as fast as they can. And it’s fun. Are there any specific examples you can think of where you’ve been in a Parkour situation, and something you learned from your Martial Arts training actually helped that situation? Maybe reactions. You can obviously learn fast reactions from Parkour but I feel like I have quite quick reactions - not sure if that’s just genetic or from the years of martial arts training, it’s hard to pin it exactly to martial arts. In a parkour situation it’s a bit hard to say. But when I’m out doing parkour, I’ve been threatened a few times and found myself in situations where being proficient at martial arts has benefited the situation…. Or perhaps it escalated it, I’m not sure! Either way I had a fun time! (Laughs) You didn’t feel in danger which is worth something - there’s something to be said for feeling comfortable in confrontations, especially in our sport. Yeah, so like I’ll be happy to diffuse the situation and then go on with my training. It helps at a more zoomed out level of training, and gives confidence in social settings and whatnot. That’s the level at which it helps. Are there any Martial Arts or combat situations you’ve been in where your Parkour training has definitely helped? Again it’s hard to pinpoint, because the times where I’ve trained parkour have always been with martial arts as well. I grew together with them. Maybe some fast twitch and explosive power development came from Parkour. But in general I don’t think it helps that much. Well the only reason I ask is I’m imagining some situation where some weird lateral movement training you’ve done could affect the fight - like you know how Conor McGregor had that ‘movement’ coach for a while? Yeah I definitely think it helps you pick up new skills faster. So for example when I went into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu I picked it up really quick. I think that was because I was used to rolling and spinning. So all these weird situations that would arise, I would know which way to roll out of it. So like, spatial awareness basically? Yeah! The spatial awareness you get from parkour transfers to that discipline of BJJ quite well. Awesome, is there anything else you think is worth saying about this topic? I think training MA and Parkour as separate things makes it easier to progress in them. They have such different goals; one is about knocking people out, breaking limbs, and defending yourself. Martial arts literally means the art of war. It’s about ending the situation as quickly as possible. After that I can turn to something very different, parkour and run away if I need to. They’re seperate things.   - - - So that was a quick incite into the mind of Jai Battrick. My main take away was the extent to which he separates martial arts and parkour philosophically. I'd always seen the two in terms of their similarities, but now I'm wondering what wisdom is there to be found in life by looking closely at the differences between things. Big up to Jai for the interview! Follow Jai on Instagram @jaibattrick  Photo Credits: Faye Fillingham, In Motion Academy, Sacha Powell