2025 Reflections

December 4th

This year was full of surprises! Some good, some bad, like getting laid off from my full-time job on December 4th. But even that taught me a lot about the kind of support systems I’d unknowingly been cultivating in the background:

• The YMCA offered me opportunities to expand my role (and thereby log more hours)

• My friends and colleagues vouched for me as my referral for 2 different roles, which led to me interviewing at 2 companies within 2 weeks of my layoff

• A staffer friend helped me learn effective outreach strategies during my job search which led to interviews at 2 other companies

• My wife was patient with me during the first couple of weeks when I was adjusting to the new reality of being unemployed

I mention this first because it shook up the remainder of the year for me, and it’s important to note that I didn’t stop coaching at the Y after this happened. In fact, parkour coaching remained a deeply healing practice for me, and the kindness of the staff and enthusiasm of the students and the rejuvenating nature of play that comes with parkour itself were all crucial to me navigating this stressful event.

With Christmas Day behind us and the end of the year fast approaching, I feel like I’m in a better spot than I could have imagined when I got my “Last Day” email on the 4th:

• 5 companies have me in their pipeline

• 2 of them have already scheduled final-round interviews with me

• 1 of them has already finished interviewing me

And all the opportunities are wonderful in their own way. I was scared when this happened to me that I might end up in the worst-case scenario where I’d have to leave Door County and abandon the parkour program at the Y right as excitement was starting to build. But now, though I know guarantees don’t exist, I have a lot of hope for 2026 being an amazing year of growth for me and the parkour program at the Y.

The Peninsula Pulse Article

This was perhaps the best gift I could have received while navigating my layoff. The Peninsula Pulse interviewed me over the phone back in late October about the parkour class at the Y.

At first, I thought the Y staff had told the Peninsula Pulse about the class as a way to get press coverage, but it turns out the reporter watches the Door County YMCA for story ideas on a regular basis, and one of their friends tipped them off about it! I had a great time telling my parkour origin story and doing my best to explain what parkour is and what it is not.

The Pulse sent a photographer out to take photos of one of the last classes of the Fall 2 session on December 5th. I was very nervous and hoped I’d give her plenty of opportunities to take quality photos of the students, and admittedly I was a bit bummed that some of the “regulars” weren’t there that evening due to the poor winter weather. Fingers crossed there will be an opportunity to get them in another article in the future!

The article was published the following week in the online and print editions of the Pulse, and I of course saved a cutout of the article from the newspaper for posterity ❤️ 

It’s more than I expected this year to have a program the community is so excited about that it gets a spot in the county newspaper. Truly a gift, for me, the kids, and for parkour as a discipline in this part of Wisconsin.

12 Classes

Between the Fall 1 and Fall 2 sessions, I ended up coaching 12 classes this year! That’s 12 hours towards the 40 reflective coaching hours for the ADAPT Level 2 certification.

And boy, did I learn a lot! I made a post on LinkedIn celebrating the people who helped make this year so successful for me and the parkour program at the Door County Y:

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of community when building a program like this one. I’m grateful I’m one to dive headfirst into challenging endeavors without overthinking because if I had dwelled on the responsibility that would go into launching my first class, I might have scared myself out of doing it. I was taking on a duty to the YMCA to offer a successful class, to develop myself professionally as a coach, to seek out mentors to ensure I would be growing in the right direction, to take care of the students who trusted me to keep them safe, to honor the trust their parents had in me to deliver a valuable curriculum, and to do justice to parkour’s reputation in Door County, which would be defined 100% by the impressions I left on community members with my presence and my curriculum since I was the lone representative of parkour in the county.

It was more leadership than I had ever taken on in the parkour world. It was bigger than the Whitewater Parkour Club, bigger than the assistant coaching I did as a Level 1 at the Move Like the Wind event, bigger than anything I’d undertaken as a parkour practitioner. Once it really set in, it didn’t scare me, but it emboldened me to do whatever I could to make this program successful in the eyes of all its stakeholders. Thankfully, the students and parents loved parkour from the beginning, and at least 4 students have come back again and again for the majority of the classes I’ve taught. Many of them signed back up for the Winter session that starts in January.

The Facebook Page & Group

I didn’t end up doing much with these this year. I set aside the Door Parkour brand because of what I had learned from coaching and from my mentor, Joey:

• I have more room to grow as a coach before I want to offer classes outdoors and take on those liability concerns

• The demand for an outdoor class will present itself, and so far, it hasn’t. The indoor class has not yet reached 10 participants, so the turnout for an outdoor class may be too low to warrant offering those classes right now.

• Building the parkour community in Door County is not an overnight process. It will take time. The more awareness and excitement I create for the indoor classes, the more likely it will be that outdoor classes will be requested. I still have room to expand indoor classes to adults before I move students outdoors.

The Door Parkour page & group were meant to help the parkour community schedule meetups, but right now, the community I’ve built is not only too young for this goal, it’s too small. It will grow over time, though. I just need to be patient.

5 Things I’ve Learned about Parkour Coaching

1. Over-planning gets in the way of a good class
   Reactive coaching often serves the students better than forcing the class to adhere to the original lesson plan. Meeting the students where they are in the moment leads to more valuable experiences for everyone.

2. Fundamentals are king
   Students who don’t have the focus or baseline strength, coordination, and body control will always struggle with expressing themselves through movement and acquiring more advanced techniques. Giving attention to the foundational strength training and movement techniques will give students the tools to master anything they want.

3. Focus is a skill
   This was a shocker to me, because I didn’t have any experience coaching this age group when I started the program. Most of the students didn’t have the discipline to stay focused on the task at hand, and I had to make part of the lesson about teaching them how to focus on the task. Focus wasn’t something I could take for granted when I taught a skill.

4. Anything can be turned into a game
   This is a core element of parkour that I had forgotten about until Joey reminded me when he came up to guest-coach back in October. I underestimated the power of imagination in helping kids gamify movement challenges. I had been so caught up in trying to deliver a curriculum that I missed out on sharing the spirit of parkour with the students — in essence, showing the students how hard work can be made to feel like a game

5. Kongs are really hard to teach
   I didn’t appreciate how many foundational skills go into learning a kong vault before I tried teaching them. Most beginner students struggle with these foundations, so I’ve spent multiple classes learning how to break down kong vaults into micro-skills. You can spend an entire session teaching students kong vaults and still not fully succeed.

Final Thoughts

I reeeeally wasn’t ready to be laid off from my job on the 4th, but nobody ever is. I’m looking at 2026 as the year this parkour program really blows up in Door County, and I foresee a lot of opportunities, even though I’m not sure what those will be yet.

As I still have not received a job offer, I don’t know for sure what’s next for my career, but I know I’m close to knowing whether or not 3 companies want me to join them. And I’ve already taken up the Y on their generous offer to let me assistant coach some gymnastics classes during the Winter session, so I’m looking forward to that!

Throughout my time being unemployed this month, I’ve been continually reminded of all the hard work my wife and I have put in over the past year.

The Pulse article.

My wife’s graduation from UW-Milwaukee 🐈‍⬛ 🎓️ 

In a way, even when I’ve lost in a way that feels so big, I’ve never felt like more of a winner. I feel surrounded by a community that’s warm and supportive and empowers my wife and I to go after what we really want out of life.

She started the Reading Buddies program at the elementary school she works at, and I’ve been going there every Wednesday for 30 minutes to read with a great kid named Jack. And she’s been getting kudos on her graduation from her colleagues and the students are always telling her she’s their favorite teacher.

My takeaway from this year is this:

Happy New Year, and may your 2026 be full of community engagement, play, and personal growth 🥂