Parkour Academy @ Crescent Beach

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Level up your skills as a stuntman, filmmaker, and ninja

All parkour/film-making experience levels are welcome! Crescent Beach’s Parkour Academy is youth-directed and project-based, all while being guided by our expert parkour and Fieldschool instructors. What you’ll learn:

  • Parkour moves (rolls, jumps, vaults, and more). Difficulty scaled to match the experience level of any learner.

  • Parkour philosophy, including risk management principles and physical literacy.

  • Sports photography and guerrilla film-making, including cinematography, storyboarding & editing, sports photography, and guerrilla film-making. We provide all of the film-making gear needed.

  • Learn stunts and perform in live theatre productions with our Wilderness Theatre
  • Design and construct parkour stunt set pieces

Sound interesting? Contact us to learn more!

LEARNER AGES
Juniors: 7–11 (co-ed; 20 kids maximum)
Seniors: 12–15 (co-ed; 20 kids maximum)

WHEN
Wednesdays
October 01, 2024-June 12, 2025

WHERE
Alex House at Crescent Beach

Meet your Monkey Master: Liam “Barnsy” Barnes

Hi! I’m the Director of both Fireside Adventures and Vancouver Outdoor School. My skillset includes leading multi-week wilderness expeditions in BC & Yukon, delivering day programming through an experiential lens, working intensively with neurodivergent youth, and designing curricula that integrate healthy screen use, healthy risk & climate change education into a wide array of educational programs.

Parkour Academy is a special project, one that I’m personally stepping in to instruct this year. I got my start in education as a youngster teaching summer parkour camps and have kept a hold of this thread throughout my career.

I’m looking forward to busting a move with the kids and showing them the parkour films that I made when I was their age!

Defining healthy screen use

The ‘world of screens’ is a landscape that our kids inhabit… often more than we’d like them to! At Parkour Academy, we treat the digital world the same as we treat the wilderness: there are certain skills that kids need to develop in order to navigate it safely.

We incorporate film-making so our learners learn to use their screens for creative, productive purposes that could change their lives for the better. We closely mentor them around ‘screen conduct’ and carefully moderate the amount of screen time they get (for instance, none in the first few days).

100% of our programming is delivered using our own iPads so that kids can have a safe, ‘walled garden’ digital experience while using the same film production apps they can access at home for free.

  • Before Parkour Club: your child is on their phone scrolling through TikTok.

  • After Parkour Club: your child is on their phone editing a parkour video of them and their friends. They are creatively engaged, proud of their work, and looking forward to getting back outside to create more!

Bringing healthy risk back to learning

Did you know that kids who fall from the jungle gym are eleven times less likely to develop a fear of heights as adults?

Parkour is literally the practice of overcoming obstacles. Every step of the way, we combine risk analysis (should I do this?) with self-awareness (am I able to do this?) to successfully build physical literacy.

This sounds pretty simple, but if our students can master risk management, they will make better decisions for the rest of their life.

Parkour is not a daredevil sport. Our motto is once is never. This means we value control, repetition, and longevity, not crazy once-in-a-lifetime stunts.

Encouraging confidence and resilience

At Parkour Academy, your child gets:

  • An encouraging environment filled with healthy relationships.

  • Supportive, attentive educators who encourage them to push their limits safely.

  • Fresh air.

  • Exercise.

  • Friendship.

  • Self-expression.

  • Time to be a kid. 

If you’d like your learner to have this opportunity, contact us to learn more!