The Motley Mario Crew

Today's boring topic is...yep, you might have guessed it, parkour. More specifically, our parkour crew here in Taipei. One of the great things about training parkour with a group is that everyone brings something different to the table. Both in terms of personality/character and skill sets. Everyone has their own strengths, weakness, specialty, knowledge, etc. This is especially true of a group like ours, where our members are compromised from diverse sources. To exemplify my meaning, I'll give a brief breakdown of our 'core' members. 'Core' being a loose term that has nothing to do with skill level...merely my judgment of how often they train and how committed they are. In no particular order...

Sona "hei ren" - Sona's kind of the granddaddy of parkour in the Taipei area. Of our group, he is the most experienced and most skilled. In spite of his flashy wushu background, his parkour exhibits great technique and power in even the most basic of movements. Skills aside, Sona's greatest contribution to the group is his role of teacher. He is a great source of knowledge (with solid examples to boot) and is always helping others push themselves.

Josh "spiderman" - though relatively new to parkour, having only started training once he discovered this group in Taipei sometime this year, Josh is always a great source of determination and eagerness. It's clear that Josh has always had the parkour spirit in him, as is evident upon witnessing his specialty: climbing stuff. This fool loves to climb trees, lampposts, etc. straight up. Josh also has some of the coolest looking wipeouts ever, from which he always rebounds quickly.

A-wei "bill" - a-wei is another beginner, having only started a month or two ago. However, a-wei has an unstoppable will and seizes every opportunity possible to train. He's learning quickly (as well as getting in shape), and it's becoming clear that he's naturally adept at the 'flow' side of things. He may not know many techniques yet, once he's like a graceful charging rhino, once he sees a line he doesn't stop until he has run his course. A-wei also has some of the coolest sounding wipeouts ever, from which he also always rebounds quickly. If we could combine the visuals of Josh's spills and the audio of A-wei's....it'd be perfect entertainment.

Xiao Cuo "xiao pengyou" - is a walking, talking monkey. he started training with sona maybe a year and a half ago or so, so he is one of the more experienced members. He's also the most committed taiwanese youngster we have in the area, and could do a lot to shape the face of parkour in taiwan. Unfortunately, he's wrapping up his senior year of high school, so time for training does not come often for him these days. When he is there, his presence is highlighted by boundless energy.

Jeffrey " a-wei number 2" - Jeff's a friend of a-wei's that just started training with us recently. He has no previous experience, however learning the movements are coming pretty naturally to him as he is a b-boy (breakdancer). His b-boy background leads to some unique traits in his parkour movements, which we could all learn from...namely, his smooth style and flair, interesting flow and vision, and amazing bodyweight suspension.

Me "mario" - well, you know me, but perhaps you don't really know my journey thus far in parkour. After training on and off for about 2 years privately and with my bro, being in Taipei was the the first opportunity I had to train with a group. Falling in love with it all over again, I've been training seriously since my first week here. I reckon my specialty would be things of an 'agile' nature, particularly movements that involve quick leg/foot work (wall runs, tic-tacs, etc.).

Two short videos have been thrown together recently (a lot of the footage is from a recent trip to danshui), the first by sona and the second by josh. They can be viewed below.


'Oktoberfoon' edited and music by Sona (for the uncultured, the music is mixed from mario)


'Jumping man II' edited and music by Josh