15-year-old Eric Reinhart has taken his love for parkour and is sharing it with youth in Lloydminster.
Parkour is the act of moving creatively from point a to b by way of running, jumping, and climbing. Reinhart says he was always interested in parkour but never went as far as practising in his basement, until a year ago.
“I’ve always wanted to do it since I was a kid but I never had the chance. I got into it about a year ago. I had a buddy who was doing it and IÂ got in contact with his teacher, 2J Pantoja. We got in touch and since he is in Edmonton we started doing Facetime classes.”
Reinhart has done gymnastics off and on since he was five and went from being curious about parkour to a Canadian Junior Champion. In February, he had placed first in junior freestyle and speed in a Parkour Federation competition taking place in Edmonton.
“That was pretty cool because first of all I haven’t been training for very long and after the competitions, I realized that that competition was actually for Canada. So, technically I am the junior champion of Canada. I didn’t know that until after, it was a cool surprise.”
Reinhart is currently in his second summer of teaching parkour to youth in Lloydminster at Explosion Gymnastics.
“I enjoy teaching because I find when I teach the trick that I am doing it helps to understand the trick more deeply when you’re teaching it. It gets it more locked in your brain which helps a lot.”
Reinhart says in the future he would like to possibly start a company specifically focusing on parkour in Lloydminster, as well as taking his talents to the big screen.
“I’d like to get into a little bit of stunt work and be kinda like a Tom Holland, who is an actor who does his own stunts.”