United States Parkour Association

As the year comes to a close, we're excited to kick off a special initiative that brings together our incredible community: the USPK End of Year Fundraiser! 🎉

Save the Date: Our fundraiser launches on November 28th, coinciding with the global movement known as Giving Tuesday. ♥️

If USPK has impacted you in a positive way somehow, please consider donating any amount. Your impact matters and is greatly appreciated! ☺️

Fundraiser Website: www.uspk.org/give/ *link is in our bio now*

Thank you for your continued support and Happy Thanksgiving! 🫶🏽

-The USPK Team

Join us next Tuesday for our virtual end of year townhall! 🙌🏽☺️

Our board members & will give you all the updates about what USPK has been up to this past year and what’s brewing for 2024. Of course, there will be an opportunity to ask questions at the end. We will be posting the virtual meeting link in our bio and story.

See you all there!!! 🫶🏽

📸:

We are preparing for our next competition season and are still looking for regional coordinators for 2 regions- Southwest & Northeast ‼️ Regional competition season runs from ~Jan-June.

Regional coordinators responsibilities include:
👉🏽 Recruit gyms & organize 3 or more qualifiers
👉🏽 Help run regional championship
👉🏽 Communicate competition info with stakeholders

If you are interested or have any questions about the role, please contact Melissa McQueen at [email protected] 😊

The USPK Judges and Athletes Committee is doing their annual review of our Competition Rulebook. An idea has been discussed about splitting style into two different categories and we’d love to hear feedback and spark a discussion. Please review the slides and give us your thoughts and comments! The committee members: 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

What's going on with the recent Hollywood strikes? The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) went on strike on July 14, 2023, after failing to reach a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) on a new three-year contract. These on-going negotiations affect parkour stunt professionals across the industry. Many parkour athletes support the strikes, believing that they are necessary to protect the rights of stunt performers that are often left exploited or underpaid. Here are some quick thoughts and opinions from professionals across the industry - to learn and support, read our article at USPK.org! (Link in bio)

We are so excited to announce the prize money amount for those who podium at our first USPK National Championships July 21-23 🙌🏽💰

The prize money will be equal for both the men/open & women division & there will be an opportunity for YOU to increase the prize money once the registration goes live 🔥🔥

Stay tuned for updates later this week 🤙🏽

Not competing in the USPK National Championship but want to come spectate? Why not contribute to your community! 💯

Pick a role and your spectator ticket is on us (save $50!) Plus, you get a free t-shirt too! 😊

👉🏽 Click the link in our bio to sign up now!

❗️USPK Nationals Event Info 🇺🇸❗️

Registration will open next week 👀 If you would like 20% OFF your ticket price as an athlete or spectator, sign up to be a USPK member now 🙌🏽

Here’s a breakdown of the competition pyramid structure to qualify for the first ever USPK National 🇺🇸 and then SPL2! 🙌🏽

Those who podium in the regional finals in each category will qualify for the USPK National. The top third competitors at the USPK National (up to 3 per category) will then qualify for SPL2 🏆

If you missed the opportunity to compete in the regionals, you can compete in the onsite qualifier July 21 at the USPK National.

More details to come soon! Who’s going to be there?! 🙌🏽

If you're interested in hearing our latest updates and plans for the upcoming year, join us in tomorrow's townhall at 6pm eastern standard time. We'll talk about athlete insurance, competitions, certifications, community-building, and more. Our board and staff will also be happy to answer any questions. To register, please fill out our survey:

2023 USPK Town Hall Survey We're looking forward to talking with our community on Saturday, March 11th at 6pm EST. USPK is an organization for the community, by the community and we want to hear what issues are important to you!

will become an official partner of the USPK Nationals, providing professional consultation with a deep level of integration into key activities of the upcoming USPK Nationals including planning and staging the national competitive event. USPK will also collaborate on original content, including the USPK Sport Parkour Competition Rulebook, standing policies, and more that will affect the upcoming 2023 competition season, reaching an estimated 800+ competitive parkour athletes.

The agreement will provide a unique opportunity for the competitive parkour community to expand as competitions grow and experiment with different formats. 

The organization’s event director, , says, “The crew at SPL have been setting the bar for parkour competition for years, first with North American Parkour Championships and now with Sport Parkour League. The USPK partnership is a tremendous opportunity to continue to define the future of parkour competition in the US and around the world.”

Co-founder of the Sport Parkour League, , shares “I’m excited to be finally taking a big step in expanding our capabilities as a sports institution. Partnering with USPK unifies us with the circuits taking place in America and gives us another team of people to help put out the best competition experiences possible. We feel truly fortunate to be bringing our format to the 2023 USPK Nationals and qualify up and coming talent for SPL2.”

, USPK board director, says, “competitive sport parkour is still in its infancy and continues to evolve. As competitions in our sport grow, we aim to develop [sport parkour] in a direction that respects some of the original practice – a sense of freedom, self-empowerment, and adaptability. I know it’ll continue to change as we trial-and-error different competition formats, scoring, and systems.”

What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments!

You’re invited! The United States Parkour Association is pleased to announce that the Board of Directors will be holding a virtual town hall meeting on Saturday, March 11th, 2023 at 6pm EST. We invite all parkour practitioners, business leaders, and community organizers of the United States to participate.

Tune in March 11th to hear from our leadership team directly. We’ll be sharing updates from the team including competition and partnership updates, and addressing questions from the community. The town hall will be accessible on Zoom, please register for the town hall by filling out the following form: https://forms.gle/u5Pxyy733dUv7Rym7

The zoom link will be sent out on to anyone registered on March 11th prior to the Town Hall.

The annual Womens Parkour Movement Gathering is just a couple of weeks away! March 3rd - 5th in South Carolina, hosted with a kick off at . The event will align with International Women's Day, a global day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. For more information about this large national gathering, visit the Instagram!

While “f**k FIG” has a nice ring to it, it doesn’t get much done. At USPK, education is one of our key pillars, and that includes relaying to the community not just parkour happenings, but how the larger sporting world perceives us.
We advocate for responsible engagement, which means approaching parkour to understand pain points, not just decide how competitions run. But it is clear despite multiple engagements, USAG has not heard the message. We are NOT gymnastics. Full stop 🛑 And parkour has not been given a fundamental right as a sport, which is *time* to naturally develop its competitions and instructional methods. Responsible engagement means working with practitioners and its community organizations.
Help us spread that message to parkour gyms and practitioners who have been reached out to and let them know our sport is not interested in being governed by a bloated org still battling its own internal scandals and athlete treatment. Ultimately their actions speak louder than the recent words.
You can join our movement where we’re taking actual PK community members, athletes, judges, gym owners, and leaders to form advisory bodies and make competitions that traceurs/traceuses actually want to compete in. Check out our website and sign up!
And sound off in the comments what you think about these recent emails.

We’re writing to you today to announce that Adam Kozy has resigned effective Thursday, September 1st.

Kozy joined us in 2020 as an executive director. Since then, he has helped to guide our board in establishing our strategic plan; execute initiatives around parkour certifications, competitions, and insurance; establishing national partnerships; and improve and stabilize our operations and organizational processes. It’s been a pleasure under Kozy’s leadership and direction; and he leaves us in a stronger position.

Kozy will be taking a hiatus to begin work on writing a book, continue traveling around the world, and contribute leadership to the World Chase Tag community. He will be returning to the United States Parkour Association Board as an independent director.

Big props to all the folks who came out and represented this past weekend at Obsidian Gathering in Dallas! Obsidian Gathering is a black-led parkour jam and symposium first run in 2017, now regularly held on Juneteenth. In addition to community training sessions, the event also has hosted a series of speakers and roundtable conversations about race, diversity and inclusion within the parkour community.

This year's event was organized by and , fiscally sponsored by .visions and hosted by .​​​​​​​​

Parkour's origins are deeply tied to minority experiences, with many of the founding members belonging to ethnic and racial families. As parkour has spread to different cultures around the world, events like the Obsidian Gathering are seeking to navigate this space with their community's support, become a key player in preserving this inclusive spirit, and reframing it for today's practitioners and contributors.​​​​​​​​

We are looking for a Membership Director.

Help spread the word on the benefits of becoming a USPK member and increase total membership. They will be responsible for contacting local community groups, athletes, and gyms to advocate joining USPK.

Since we are a non-profit and a newly established national governing body, this will be an unpaid volunteer position requiring 3-5 hours per week. However, through funds from growing our member base, we plan to shift this to a paid position mid-2023.

Interested? Contact us at [email protected]

Are you a parkour business owner, community leader, or parkour project champion? Take our new annual survey of US-based parkour businesses and organizations that will provide a comprehensive look at the parkour industry.

2022 State of the US Parkour Industry Survey - United States Parkour Association Take our new annual survey of US-based parkour businesses and organizations that will provide a comprehensive look at the parkour industry.