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ARTS & CULTURE
Parkour rolls and jumps into Lawrence
Boyer works alongside Sam Sivagnanam and their "instructorin-training," Isaac Bird. Boyer and Sivagnanam have been teaching parkour in Lawrence for five years and have taught more than 100 people, including Bird.
BRIANNA CHILDERS @breeanuhh3
The parkour students at the Lawrence Gymnastics Academy (LGA) on Sunday nights vault over and roll under gymnastic beams, jump over multi-colored foam blocks and work on their form for rolling under obstacles. They're not there for gymnastics; they're there to practice parkour.
"Parkour, in its simplest form, is discipline for flight," said Jason Boyer, one of the instructors at LGA.
Bird has been learning parkour under Boyer and Sivagnanam for four years. He began as a gymnast and
when he heard about the class,he decided it was something he wanted to try.
"I really got into the free flowing aspect and spiritual sense of it," Bird said. "It's the most efficient way to get from Point A to Point B."
Boyer got started doing parkour when he was attending college at Columbia University in New York City.
"The first introduction to it was so inviting and that really launched me into a love of parkour," Boyer said.
Sivagnanam started practicing parkour after she met Boyer. They would train together on the University's campus where she was finishing up school. Today, Boyer and Sivagnanam have 40 students, ages 8 through 18. Sivagnanam said people don't need to sign up for a whole semester worth of class and sometimes people drop in and out because of school sports schedules.
JAMES HOYT/KANSAN
Parkour instructor Isaac Bird leaps off a trampoline to demonstrate an exercise to his parkour class at the Lawrence Gymnastics Academy.
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