About Us
The core advocates of the Parkour Parks Projekt have been making an effort to establish a public parkour park in Denver since 2017. They have spoken at a multitude of public workshops, hosted community events, garnered support from both national parkour organizations and local parkour gyms, and given parkour demonstrations to Parks & Recreation teams.
The Parkour Parks Projekt was established as a central hub for their activities, documenting their work, and to serve as the main point of contact for interest in public parkour parks. They are currently focused on parkour parks in the Denver Metro Area, and hope to later take their experience to support efforts for additional parkour parks in other cities.
Why the “K” in Projekt?
This is an homage to our roots. The word parkour itself is a purposeful misspelling of the French word parcours, meaning “course”. Swapping the “c” for a “k” in parkour was likely a product of the time, since counter-culture in the 90s often altered the spelling of words for an edgy effect.
Core Advocates
Emily Fleet
Emily is a mother of three (two teenaged boys and a wild toddler). She’s been catching snakes in the prairie and leaping over rocks in the Platte River for over 25 years. She has degrees in History and Early Childhood Education, and she is also a Certified Interpretive Nature Guide. You will likely find her barefoot catching crawdads or up in a tree somewhere. Her younger brother introduced her to parkour ten years ago, and as she continuously notes, “it’s the only sport I’ve never quit!” Her non-profit, Hidden Playground, teaches outdoor education and movement literacy through parkour.
Max Henry
As a kid, Max was fascinated by movement. It started with baseball and eventually moved to gymnastics, where he competed at a state and regional level for three years. Max discovered Parkour with my best friend Calvin in 2007, five years after leaving gymnastics behind. He was immediately drawn to it – impressed as much by the philosophy behind the movements as the movements themselves. Through a fortuitous series of events, in 2010 he was invited to join a group of WFPF parkour athletes on a three week road trip around the wild, wild West. This kickstarted his personal and professional progression as a practitioner. Since 2011, Max has worked as a professional parkour athlete with companies like Asics, American Eagle, Hulu, the NBA, Nerf, Red Bull, and Smart Car, and had the opportunity to coach with a variety of organizations across North America, Europe, and South Africa.
Austin Lutz
Austin has been practicing Parkour since 2009 and teaching officially since 2011. Before finding the discipline he was an All-State track and field and football athlete, and an Honors scholar of Psychology at the University of New Mexico. Austin has competed in several international parkour competitions as well as American Ninja Warrior and Spartan Races. In 2016 he and his wife spoke in New York City at the Art of Retreat on youth coaching in parkour and environmental integration.
In his free time Austin enjoys writing fantasy fiction, playing RPGs, and going outdoors to explore and discover new & interesting parts of the city.
Charles St. John
Charles started parkour in 2009 at APEX School of Movement in Denver. Quickly falling in love with the discipline due to its similarity to skiing, he quickly became a coach for APEX by 2012. His passion for parkour drove him to expand his fitness knowledge, receiving an ACE Personal Training Certification in 2017. He now carries multiple parkour coaching certifications, and has presented at the Art of Retreat parkour symposium. The connections he made through parkour landed him a job in the fitness industry, first as a marketing and web design specialist for Daxko, a gym management software company. He currently does digital marketing and web design for Motion Impulse, who provides online fitness programs, and he credits his entire professional career to parkour.