So...I own a business now

Door Parkour LLC

Yeah, it’s real. I filed all the paperwork with the state of Wisconsin, got a business checking account, and looked into getting liability insurance and a professional review of my first official waiver. Exciting times!

But why? Why do this at all? What about the YMCA classes in the fall?

Let me spin you a yarn 🧶 

I was energized after returning from the ADAPT Level 2 course in Boston. I wanted to share parkour with Door County as soon as I could! And it was hard to ignore the enthusiasm I felt after hearing the encouragement from my tutors to start a local parkour community so I wouldn’t be on such a lonely journey.

I created a Facebook group called Door Parkour, whipped up some flyers on Canva, and printed out 20 copies. I was ready to spread the word 📣 

But let’s back up for a second.

On the plane ride back from the L2 course, as I was writing the blog post about my experience on the L2 course, I was gathering links and images and ended up looking on the Wisconsin Parkour site. I’d been under the impression that Wisconsin Parkour was no longer operating, but I had some memories I wanted to touch on.

And wouldn’t you know it, I noticed something when I was visiting their website, something I’d never noticed before.

They never said they completely shut down 🤯 

This made me wonder if I’d just assumed this for years. What could they be up to nowadays? So I reached out to one of the coaches I trained under when I used to go their classes and events back in the day.

Turns out they’d taken a hiatus and stopped offering classes during COVID, but they’re starting up operations again. Slowly, but they’re not gone! That made me so happy! 🥰 I was telling this friend about how I’d be coaching my first parkour class at the YMCA this fall and all I needed was to finalize the program plan. They offered to take a look at it, and we caught up on other life stuff, but that’s about where we left off.

A week after that, Sam and I got home from our trip to Seattle — it immediately followed the trip to Boston for the L2 course — and I felt inspired to start a parkour community in Door County. I was going to call it Door Parkour. It would be an informal space for locals to train together and make new friends, but it wouldn’t have a formal class structure.

I reached back out to my friend about this idea and they basically warned me that I might want to consider starting an LLC instead of just a community, because it came with a few bonuses:

• Legal separation, so I can protect my personal assets by getting liability insurance for the business

• Separate taxes for the business, so I can write off expenses related to my parkour coaching endeavors

• The freedom to contract as a business instead of being personally employed, if that’s what I want

The legal aspect freaked me out, so even though I’d already printed out 20 flyers to go hang around town and advertise the Facebook group I’d created for the Door Parkour community, I pumped the brakes on all that until I could get a quote on liability insurance for my business. I didn’t want to risk any lawsuits even though obviously I knew the likelihood of someone getting injured at a meetup despite the emphasis on safety that accompanies parkour coaching was fairly low.

I didn’t want this to be over before it started, basically. So I waited a few weeks and managed to get a quote:

$180/month ☹️ 

I wasn’t ready to offer paid classes yet, so the idea of draining money into liability insurance was really off-putting. I decided to wait on legal protection until I was planning to generate revenue to cover the costs of doing business.

For me, that means Spring 2026.

I ended up organizing a get-together to train on the UW Madison campus with my friend and another coach we both trained/worked with back in the “before times”. I brought up the insurance cost to them and told them I wasn’t sure how to move forward without exposing myself to lawsuits.

They told me that I could just opt to not position myself as the “leader” of the group and to make sure everyone knew it wasn’t a class, and I should probably be fine. But I should have some kind of waiver either way, and I could probably get it reviewed on LegalZoom or something.

Fair enough. So, with that knowledge, I was ready to return to “flyer mode”…but not until I wrapped up my talk at DevFest, since that was taking up any of my available mental real estate at the time.

But I’m writing this 2 days after giving that talk, and I’m still not sure if I’m ready to go advertising this yet. And I haven’t even had someone look at my waiver yet. The parkour class at the Y is coming up, and I know it’ll be a big shift when Sam goes back to work and starts her last semester at UWM.

I might just hang out for a bit and let the dust settle. Not sure yet. I have a history of chronic overcommitment so I’m being cautious.

But even so, I’m excited for what this could bring to the community!

Door County YMCA - The Parkour Class

The flyer has been sent out! Registration is open! And apparently, 1 student already signed up.

Registration goes through the first day of class — which means the 5th for the Friday class and the 6th for the Saturday class.

I have no idea what to expect here in terms of interest, but I’m hoping there’s some excitement for this new class! It’s the first of its kind in the county, so anyone who’s ever wanted to do this will probably be signing up.

The program plan took some time to finalize, but there’s a whole curriculum planned out for this. My only concern now is that I do some lesson planning for the first day. I know I’ll be nervous so I’m going to bias towards “overplanning” so I have more ideas top-of-mind when I’m in the class.

I still can’t believe this is happening 😍 

Weight Loss, Nutrition, Training

I created an 8-week workout plan that I followed for about 2-3 weeks after I got back from the ADAPT L2 course. The point of it was to help me train for the benchmarks I’d be expected to hit in the L2 Assessment.

I’ve got 2 years or so to hit these benchmarks, but some are so far beyond my current fitness level I figured I’d need to start now if I had any hope of passing the assessment.

Honestly I got bored of doing the same routine after the 3rd week and I’ve stopped working out 6 days a week like the plan says to. It’s more like 3 now. And I’m focusing more on the running aspect because my cardio is terrible 😆 Lots of visits to the outdoor track lately for sprints and 5k runs. At least it feels like it’s getting easier, but I know that the real problem I need to solve is weight loss.

If I weighed 20 lbs less, or if my fat % was lower, I’m sure running faster would be easier than it is right now.

This is a problem I’ve been stuck on for like 2 years now. It’s really hard to get myself to eat less food. I’ve gotten back on MyFitnessPal to track my food again and it’s obvious I’m resistant to eating under 2000 calories most days. I’ve been eating a ton of protein and vegetables and it’s not necessarily a silver bullet. I guess I’ll just have to accept that I’m gonna have to allow myself to feel hungry even if it sucks.

The good news is that my push-ups count seems to be going up, and my pull-up strength has increased recently. I train exclusively outdoors now, because most of the skill work I do can’t be done inside of the YMCA weight room. That’ll change with the seasons, I’m sure. I won’t be walking on rails when there’s ice on the ground and running on a track will probably suck in 20-degree cold.

Other Notes

I’m mourning the end of the summer. It’s fast approaching. I’ve really enjoyed all the wild adventures Sam and I have had this summer with her having the entire time off work (she’s a library teacher at an elementary school). We’ve never had this much time together so it’s been a real treat.

This is also the first summer I’ve felt truly connected to my passion for parkour in several years. And I feel stronger than ever because my knee no longer gives me problems. I have a lot to be grateful for.

As the fall season approaches and with it, the challenges of Sam’s school/work schedule, and my first time being responsible for a parkour class anywhere, I’ve got the feels. A lot of anxiety, but mixed with some hope and excitement and a deep desire to do everything well.

We’ll see how it goes! 🤞