Latest News
Gymfloor limited on Sunday
For those who check the site before coming… The gym floor will not be available Sunday March 7th from 1-3pm because of a booking. Regular hours will be from 3-9. Sorry for this inconvenience.
Girls Meet Sunday March 14th
On Sunday March 14th at 1-3pm, there will be another girls meet, in hopes of starting the one-a-month girls training sessions again we were doing last year. The cost for the training session will be 15, and you are free to stay as long in the space afterwords. The theme has not been chosen yet, but we usually go over 4-5 different skills, hand out a few challenges, and do some obstacle coursing. Most of the things we do will be scalable, so its a perfect fit for all and a nice intro to Parkour if you haven’t before. If you know of someone who would be interested in this, please pass it along! We ask that you please email us and let us know you are coming, so we can prep the lesson plan according to the numbers we get. See you all there.
PoorButSexy Photoshoot
This week Danno took part in a photoshoot for POORBUTSEXY magazine, which will be shown in it’s second issue. The theme of the picture was ‘falling’, and it portrays dan falling upside down from, well I guess were not sure, alongside a whole bunch of bouncy balls of different colors. Thanks to Thomas at Seed9 for contacting us with the cool idea!
Gymfloor limited on Sunday
For those who check the site before coming… The gym floor will not be available today from 1-3pm because of a booking. Sorry for this inconvenience.
AGYU Parkour art project…
The first phase of a new project with the Art Gallery of York University and Panama artist Humberto Velez has just begun. It will lead to a live art piece featuring Parkour later this summer somewhere in the city of Toronto. We’re really excited as Humberto has an very interesting and very real opinion on what we do, and it should end up being one of our most interesting live events displays yet. More news to come mid summer!
Year off with a Bang
January has been a crazy month here at the MV with some of the highest attendance numbers we’ve ever seen. Thanks again to those that took advantage of the yearly passes, and we are reinvesting it to get some goodies for Feb! I personally love asking people in the training centre, “what do we need next!?” and I’m going to take this a step further by making a section on the site that mirrors a whiteboard in my office where we list off the top 10 things the space needs according to it’s users. Ropes, more gymnastic blocks, a vertical opening garage door (seems weird but YES!!) and a sign are on their way for Feb, well see what makes the list for March and April. As always, feedback is always welcome so if you think the MV needs something, let us know! Who knows you could be the one that points out something we don’t see, and, can’t grab and play with yet… 
Monkey Vault Year Pass Discount
In order to offset some of the costs we go through during the beginning of the year, we are going to offer 5 discounted year passes for anyone willing to help us out. The passes will work from January 1st 2010 to January 1st 2011 and will cost $500 tax included. We think this is a great deal, especially for people who buy a lot of monthly passes (its like 50% off). These will be available first come first serve until they run out.
Holiday Schedule
We have been getting a lot of emails this last week about our holiday schedule at the MV. We were going to keep hours the same, but then we realized there would be a few obvious times no one would show up. We are also opening a little earlier to emulate the summer schedule since most of our members are out of school. Also, if you or your friends can get together a group that wants to train during a closed time, please email us and we’ll see what we can do based on the group size. That being said, below is a revised holiday schedule:
18th Closed
19th 1:30-10:30
20th 2-8
21st Closed
22nd 1pm-9pm
23rd 1pm-9pm
24th 1pm-7pm
25th Closed
26th Closed
27th Pkto Dinner and Training (see pkto.ca website)
28th Closed
29th 1pm-9pm
30th 1pm-9pm
31st 1pm-6pm
1st Closed (May be open for a special workout, news coming soon)
Limited Floor Space again..
Tomorrow (13th) there will be limited floor space again because of a group session taking place at the training centre. We have guests from the university of Waterloo coming back for their 3rd time (or is it 4th) and we need all the room we can get! Sorry for this inconvenience. The floor will be available the second half of the day during open gym time.
WestJet Christmas Party Performance
This weekend a 5 man team will be flying out to Calgary to put on a live show for WestJet’s end of year Christmas Party. There will be 1800 guests and multiple cameras displaying all the action on 3 massive monitors suspended in the room while we perform on scaffolding and some objects. The theme is ‘Arabian nights’ and we will only leave you guessing who is playing the role of ‘Aladin’.
Limited Floor Space today
Today we will be running several classes, and as such there will be limited floor space until about 5pm. Sorry for this inconvenience.
Lost and Found Donations
Over the last 1.5 years we have collected a lot of sweat pants, t shirts, random shoes, bandannas, and even items like underwear (how?!) and other unmentionable things. As much as it’s been like a treasure hunt with each new item we find, it’s come time for them to all go. We are giving people 1 week as of today to come and pick up anything they may have lost here. Next week, we will be donating whatever is left over to a charity that provides clothing for the homeless over winter. If you don’t come pick up ‘your donations’, thank you very much ‘for donating’ to the cause, and if you want to drop off other things (hats, scarfs, whatever is old for you but useful for the homeless), you can do so and I will add it to the collection!
“Hobo Vs Ninja”
Check out this cool new fight demo by Brayden and Riley Jones of our MVTeam, and 2 of our bestest friends Mat Ledoux and Yan Lecomte. The MV looks pretty cool when lit all funky like that and Yan’s camera is so nuts I’ve set my next goal to buy one.
Construction/Painting this weekend
As mentioned in the previous post the training centre will be closed all day Sunday to the public. During this time we will be doing some painting all over the space, construction of a new roof in the storage room, and finishing up a lot of other projects. If you can come help out, please let us know because we definitely need it! To the people who decide to come help, we will be giving community hours if you need them for school, and also a free pass to come back another time and train for free. Chances are we will be ordering lots of pizza too because pizza and construction seem to go hand-in-hand at this place.
Parkour Birthdays are back!
This weekend we will be having yet another Parkour Birthday party. For those wondering what these cover, we usually go over things covered in our intro class + some fun surprises, we have some group challenges (like highest wall climbs), and for the younger ones, plenty of foam pit jumps. Because of this party on Sunday and another event planned the same day, we will be closed to the public ALL DAY SUNDAY. If you want to come play this weekend, come out Saturday.
1.5 Year Thoughts…
This year was an interesting one, and October marked 1.5 years since this training centre first opened its doors. There’s been some great times, and of course some bad times, but in the end its been a constant journey of self-growth for me as I try to find my place within it all and come to terms with the fact that I actually run this place. Sometimes its easy to forget it’s my job when you are having so much fun and hanging out with the best group of people ever! Running a training centre is FUN!!! The people you meet, the ideas they bring, the new things you constantly learn…. I look back and wonder how I even had the courage to open up this place knowing what I know now. Scary, but it thrills me to think I took that risk! To all the great times and awesome people that have come through this place, to all the ideas, thoughts, and training tips people have shared with me, to all those who have helped me along the way when I needed it, to everyone who makes this place what it is and still hasn’t yet become… Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Long Weekend Closures
Please note we are closed on Sunday October 11th and Monday October 12th for Thanksgiving. Saturday October 10th will run as a normal day. If things change it will be updated via the main page here, but otherwise have a safe and happy weekend with your families. It is also worth noting we will be closed from 2-6:30pm on Wednesday October 14th as we are holding auditions for a new football commercial during that time.
News Backlog
Sorry about the backlog of news posts that will happen today. My computer at home decided it wanted to die on me, and trying to update the site from the MV laptop has proven useless! Enjoy about 3 weeks of news postings all in one day! Finally I know!
Monkey Vault welcomes 3run
For the next two months Chase Armitage and Nathan Barris from 3run.co.uk will be training in and out of the MV for a movie they will be taking part in this fall. These guys have only been here for a week, yet, already they have proven they have some of the best best attitudes out of all the practitioners I’ve met in the world. Hopefully everyone gets a chance to meet and train with them!
Out with the Old….
In with the NEW! This week we have ordered and brought in a bunch of new equipment and mats for you guys to play with. As well as this, we have sketched up and put plans into motion for our new bar and rail setups being installed in the space. Big foam cubes, video games, office, … going. New mats, blocks, rails and scaffolding… coming! Like the old Parkour slogan said back in the day; “On avance toujour, et vous?”