Silent Motion - Reading Parkour - Direction :: Grace:: Fluidity :: Creativity

Silent Motion is a group of friends from Reading who share a common interest that is Parkour and have trained regularly as a group since Autumn 2004. We regularly meet up in Reading or Newbury. If you would like to contact us, please do so via the forum or use one of the individual email addresses below.

Forum Name(s):Dave
Real Name: David
Location: Reading
Date of birth: 11/07/1989
Been practising Parkour since: January 2004
Email:
Status: Active

The first taster I got of Parkour was around the Christmas time of 2003 when I watched ‘Jump London’. My first impression was that it was mind blowing, and I was amazed by how these guys had trained themselves and their bodies to move in the way that they did. It never crossed my mind to start it though until Pete gave me a call after also watching it and said we should go out with James and try it. We went to Reading Uni for our very first jam and it was so much fun. After that, and not realizing that both Alex and Danny trained in Reading regularly as well, we formed the group ‘R-PK’ compiled of just me, James and Peter. By September we had met Danny Alex and Andy on maybe two occasions, and then began training with them more often. We then met Dom and Hib who had just started at Reading Uni, and also Dave (who we had previously met in London very briefly). After months of training together we decided it was long overdue to form a new group. So in December of 2004 we formed Silent Motion, compiled of the 9 original Reading Traceurs. I PK as often as I can, and have loved every single minute of it.

Forum Name(s): Stuckinatree
Real Name: James Davies
Location: Reading
Date of Birth: 22/08/1989
Been practising Parkour since: January 2004
Email:
Status: Active

I got into Parkour pretty much the same way mini Dave did. I saw Jump London, then went out with David and Peter for our first real taste of Parkour at the Reading University in January. I had a great time and since then I’ve been pretty much hooked on it. From then till summer David, Pete and myself trained in Reading pretty much every weekend, or every other weekend. Eventually we decided to form a group consisting of the three of us; R-PK. This lasted a few months. Towards the end of these months we had met 6 other tracuers who we had become friends with and who we regularly trained with in town. So as the R-PK website had crashed and it no longer seemed fitting to refer to R-PK (Reading : Parkour) as only 3 people, so we decided to form a group with the 9 of us; Silent Motion. Since then I have enjoyed jamming with these people on many occasions. In particular I have enjoyed watching a scene grow from at first, what appeared to me, 3 people to jams with 30+ people showing up, coming from as far as Manchester and Devon.

Forum Name(s): Superfluffychunkeymonkeys
Real Name: Pete
Location: Reading
Date of birth: 03/02/1989
Been practising Parkour since: January 2004
Email:

Status: Retired

Parkour for me started back in January 2004, with the airing on Channel 4 of the Story of Sebastian Foucan taking on the rooftops of London, with the amazing production of Jump London. James, Dave and I then formed the group R-PK, the Reading Parkour group, taking on Reading as our challenge. With Parkour being one of several main hobbies in my life, its position for me slips from being the most important thing in my life, to not being. I see those who can keep Parkour as a main hobby in their life as my target, unfortunately for me, that's not how things happen. With the transition of R-PK to Silent Motion being with the death of the old website, and us as a group of people practising Parkour in reading, it made sense to have one alliance. Long gone are the days of 3 people turning up to a Reading Jam, with now on occasions more than 30 people turning up, and appearances being made in the media. Parkour is on the rise, and we were there from the beginning.

Forum Name(s): Flying Beedle or Xander Beedle
Real Name: Alex
Location: Reading
Date of birth: 20/06/1988
Been practising Parkour since: December 2003
Email:

Status: Active

Bizarrely, I started Parkour about a week before Jump London was aired after reading a bit about it in the Radio Times and started messing about at school with my mates. Luckily for me my school had a few good spots for starting out, and after watching jump London later that week, I was so hyped up that I went out for 2 hours jumping around in the woods and playground near my house. Soon after I found Urbanfreeflow, and started meeting up with Danny in Reading and Newbury. I started going to practise in London and watched as the scene got bigger and bigger until we formed Silent Motion… (Which I still think sounds like a fart!).

Forum Name(s): Danny or Some inspiration
Real Name: Danny Pack
Location: Newbury
Date of birth: 29/09/1988
Been practising Parkour since: December 2002
Email:

Status: Active

Parkour is a very large part of my life now. I first began after accidentally taping Transworld sport, which had a feature on Parkour. back then, it was just something to fill the time with. I guess that's why I had quite a slow start, although not having anyone to practice with always held me back as well, there were only 150 or so traceurs in the country then. eventually, jump London was aired and a large number of people joined the UK scene - I began to meet up with Alex around Newbury and reading, and eventually with the other reading traceurs (r-pk, who did not know that others were training around the same places at the time). as Parkour has grown, it has become much, much more to me. I try to practice 3 times a week minimum. to me, my Parkour falls into 4 elements - fluidity, grace, direction and silence. I try to bring these elements into my practice of Parkour, and also into my everyday life. I also share an interest in tricking, which is somewhat shown in my Parkour style.

Forum Name(s): Big Dave or The Freerunning Man
Real Name: David Chapman
Location: Newbury
Date of Birth: 11/02/1984
Been practising Parkour since: November 2003
Email:

Status: Active

I, like Danny, saw the transworld sport piece on Parkour and was interested. However, it didn't occur to me to try this crazy art. But in the late summer of 2003 I watched jump London air and Parkour intrigued me. I started looking for things on the internet to fuel this desire to learn about Parkour. I soon found Urbanfreeflow, where i learnt about the movements, watched videos and talked to like minded people.

Eventually I decided to go out and try Parkour. In November 2003 I started, and soon after met Danny in Newbury. After this I was soon travelling: doing Parkour in other places, meeting more people, and learning. I met r-pk in the summer of 04 and met the rest of Silent Motion throughout the year. We formed during the end of 04; just before the airing of Jump Britain, and the local scene has grown 10 fold. That is me so far.

Forum Name(s): Andy
Real Name: Andy
Location: Bracknell
Date of birth: 12/05/1986
Been practising Parkour since: February 2004
Email:

Status: Active

I first started practicing Parkour after watching a David Belle clip online. I decided to take to the streets of my small village, where my enthusiasm was met with a lot of negative comments from the local ill-educated vermin, so I decided to practice at night. I then moved to Reading, and moved in with my girlfriend. I now live in Bracknell which has got to be one of the worst places for Parkour ever, save maybe the Sahara.

Forum Name(s): Dom
Real Name: Dominic
Location: Devon & Reading
Date of Birth: 29/12/1985
Been practising Parkour since: January 2004
Email:

Status: Active

The first time I heard about parkour was back in September 2003 from speaking to a friend on msn. He explained a bit about it and showed me a link to Urban Freeflow. There was something about it that appealed to me but I was busy with something else at the time so I just glanced through a few pages briefly before dismissing it as a craze for suicidal maniacs. A few months later I happened to see Jump London on TV and after watching it through, I found myself fascinated by the movements and the philosophy. At first the concept seemed quite alien to me, not the the least because I'd never really done any activities involving this much physical activity in my life but also cause I questioned what my parents, friends and family would think of my new, somewhat strange interest with French origins. After doing a bit of research on the net to find out more about it, I actually started doing pk in January 2004.

Due to the lack of obstacles where I lived and not having anyone to train with meant I progressed quite slowly to start off with and tended to spend lots of time in secluded fields practicing the basics where I knew nobody would be watching me. In the summer I met up with levity and les voleurs a few times but lack of transport made this difficult to do regularly. A few months later I started at Reading uni. Eager to continue practicing parkour and progress further, I introduced Hib to pk (a friend from uni) and shortly afterwards we met up with r-pk after discovering their website. As time went on, r-pk disappeared and Silent Motion was formed to encompass all the traceurs who regularly practiced parkour in Reading at the time.

Forum Name(s): Hib
Real Name: Andrew
Location: Up North & Reading
Date of birth: 23/07/1986
Been practising Parkour since: October 2004
Email:

Status: Retired

The first time I had ever seen Parkour was Jump London. I thought the stuff these guys where up to was amazing, however never thought to go out and try this for myself. A few friends at home skate, so every now and then I would fail miserably. This eventually turned into something similar to Parkour by hurdling objects and jumping to see if it could be done. This never really had any purpose but was still fun to do.

After moving to Reading Uni, I met up with Dom and we started talking about robots and PK. After Dom found R-PK we arranged to meet them at a jam at the station, which eventually formed Silent Motion with Danny, Andy, Beedle and Big Dave. I now try and PK whenever I am free.

Forum Name(s): Nikk Real Name: Nick Proffitt Location: Wokingham Date of Birth: 06/12/1991 Been practising Parkour since: February 2005 Email: Status: Active
I started pk after a friend sent me some videos of 3run. I trained with him a couple of times and i knew it was something i wanted to do. My brother told me about silent motion because he knew james. I jammed with silent motion and found they were really helpful and have kept jamming with them reguarly and have now become a member of the team.