32 classes down / Building community

The Job Hunt is Over

Thank goodness! I landed a job at Arine in the middle of January and started on February 2. As difficult as getting into tech was — it took me 2-3 years to get in, depending on how you define “in tech” — it was much more difficult being laid off. As a contractor for my previous company, I found out I was ineligible for unemployment benefits, because apparently you take on all the risk if you’re “self-employed” (probably a good topic for my new blog about working-class politics).

I was pretty scared I was going to run through all my savings before I found something. Especially in the current job market, finding a QA Automation gig in tech is difficult. Luckily, I had a good friend in recruiting who helped me refine my job search approach, and it doesn’t hurt that my resume is in the upper echelon of my peers with similar years of experience.

But that’s all in the past now. I’ve been full-time employed for almost 3 months and I’m in a comfortable spot.

Gymnastics Coaching

As I mentioned in my last post, I was offered the opportunity to do some assistant-coaching for the Progressive gymnastics classes, which help kids get to an intermediate skill level. The age group was similar to the one I coached in my parkour classes, so I figured it would be a better fit for me than teaching Kinder (ages 4-6).

I ended up helping out for 2 sessions, Winter 1 & Winter 2, so a total of 16 weeks. I missed a class here and there, but by the end of those 2 sessions, I felt a lot more confident helping with gymnastics! I also learned just how much technical knowledge I was missing from all the years I’ve been out of the gymnastics world. I was reminded of how much overlap exists — and doesn’t exist — between gymnastics and parkour.

I decided not to continue with it for the Spring 1 session, though, which just started this week. I’d been massively overcommitting to various personal endeavors, and this was the last one I felt the need to shutter in order to give myself more time to commit not only to growing the parkour program, but also to resting so I don’t burn out from the combination of my personal and full-time job commitments.

Spring is Here!

The weather agrees with the name of the Spring 1 session that started this week at the Door County YMCA! I’ve finally been able to bike with no hoodie again ❤️

As of yesterday, I’ve taught 32 classes at the YMCA! One thing that’s changed is that, as of the Winter 2 session, I’ve been coaching 2 classes per week, which explains how I’ve more than doubled the number of classes I’ve taught since my December post. The program is gaining steam, growing from only 6 students in the Fall 1 session to over 20+ in the Spring 1 session! Very exciting times.

So exciting, in fact, that I had been trying to launch a proper Door Parkour business in June to offer outdoor classes to the Sturgeon Bay community. After I had gone through the trouble of vibe-coding a web platform for folks to book classes and buy merch, and after I’d talked to a local merch vendor and very nearly secured an insurance quote, it occurred to me last week on Wednesday, April 15th (Tax Day, of all days), that there was no way in hell I’d have time for running this business.

My 9-5 at Arine was getting busier and busier, the insurance was looking expensive to the point where I’d definitely need a decent amount of customers this year to avoid a loss, my credit card debt was finally gonna start getting paid down as long as I didn’t lose a ton of cash this year, and even after saying “no” to a bunch of personal projects and commitments, I still felt like I was too busy to take on a business venture like this. Even with all the automations I put in place. And it felt like it was very likely that in order to make it work, I’d need to stop coaching at the YMCA, which I was absolutely not willing to do.

So I shelved it. I pushed it out 2 years and figured by then, I’ll have the right financial situation to make it work, and I’ll have more time in the community forging relationships with key decision-makers and potential clients. There’s absolutely no rush, after all. It’s a passion project, not something necessary to my livelihood. And if I’m not in a position to make it work in 2 years, it was probably a bad idea to start now anyways.

Plans for the Parkour Program at the YMCA

I’ve got a few ideas I’m cooking up right now:

1. Getting grants for parkour equipment

The YMCA has a grant writer who helps them get funding for exercise equipment, and I decided to see if we could get funding for these precision trainers from American Parkour’s website.

From what the grant writer told me, it’s likely we’ll get approved for the funding, but no guarantees just yet!

2. Outdoor parkour classes through the YMCA

Before yesterday’s class, I decided to scope out the Door County YMCA grounds to see where, if anywhere, beginner parkour classes could be held. As it turns out, I was wrong about there being “no good spots” for training. The playground area and the pavilion have plenty of options for teaching basic skills to students of any age group. My plan is to record myself doing the kinds of movements I would ask students to do, and turn it into a showreel to show to management.

I figure if I can spell out exactly what kind of equipment uses I’m envisioning, I could get a hard “yes” or “no” on whether or not they’d be interested in talking to their insurance provider about it. They haven’t shown resistance to looking into it but we also all remember when they said they wouldn’t support outdoor classes back when the program was first founded in Fall 2025. It’s possible that if we’re specific enough, we could convince them to back outdoor classes near the playground or pavilion.

Next Steps

I’m back on the weight loss grind and I’m down 5 pounds already, still hovering around 101kg. Looking to get under 100kg this year and stay there, with a stretch goal of 90kg.

Other than that, by the time summer hits, I’ll have all 40 hours needed for my ADAPT Level 2 certification, so the only remaining thing for me to work on would be preparing for the performance assessment. My current fitness level is nowhere close to where it needs to be in order to pass that, which is another great reason to wait 2 years to launch a coaching business. Hopefully that’ll be enough time to get my ADAPT Level 2.

The only other thing I want to work on is resting more and decreasing my stress levels. I’m starting to meet with a therapist in May and may look into anxiety meds. I haven’t ever entertained the idea of pharmaceutically treating my anxiety, but it’s definitely a comorbidity of my ADHD, and it’s only gotten harder to manage with a highly demanding career and now all of these other goals I have outside of work. I’ve almost burnt out a number of times because I struggle to allow myself to be bored. I’m finally going to give my mental health some more TLC this year (my health in general, honestly).