Annual Parkour 'American Rendezvous Weekend' Returns to Somerville June 26/28

ANNUAL PARKOUR ‘AMERICAN RENDEZVOUS WEEKEND’ RETURNS TO SOMERVILLE JUNE 26-28

Residents of all athletic abilities welcome.

SOMERVILLE – For the third year, Somerville will host the annual American Rendezvous weekend (ARDV) from June 26 to June 28, gathering parkour practitioners to participate in training sessions led by elite coaches from across the country and abroad. Parkour is a form of movement rooted in a variety of physical disciplines – gymnastics, martial arts, climbing, breakdancing, and track – and its popularity has grown rapidly in the Boston metropolitan area. The 2015 ARDV weekend is sponsored in part by the City of Somerville, Somerville Recreation, and Shape Up Somerville.

ARDV is open to adults and high-school students (age 14+) of all experience levels and athletic backgrounds. It is designed as a "melting-pot event” for people to meet and train with each other in a safe, fun, and hard-working atmosphere, while celebrating a healthy and active lifestyle.

The event will kick off with a half day of “Welcome Training,” plus an exclusive night training session for a limited number of participants on Friday evening, June 26. On June 27, the main event will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., both inside and outside the gym at Somerville High School (81 Highland Ave., atrium entrance). Participants will train on a specially built and very creative “Scaffolding City.” A 90-minute lunch halfway through the day encourages participants to eat at nearby establishments endorsed by Shape Up Somerville and offering discounts to registrants. On Sunday, outdoor “parkour hotspots” will be visited in downtown Boston, enabling participants to train in the type of urban settings that originally gave birth to the sport in France.

The registration fee for the full weekend workshop is $95/person, $80 for the Saturday-Sunday session, or $55 for just Saturday. Local high school students may also apply for partial or full scholarships, made possible through the generous sponsorship of several local businesses: Gentle Giant, New England College of Business, Middlesex Federal, Triumvirate Environmental, and Redbones. Several local restaurants are also offering significant discounts to registrants and the team, including Meju Korean Restaurant, Mr. Crepe, and Sound Bites. To register, or for more details, visit www.pkgamericas.com/american-rendezvous-2015/ or contact Blake Evitt, Director and Senior Coach of Parkour Generations Americas via blake@parkourgenerations.com or 617-302-7542.

Parkour was born in the banlieues (suburbs) of Paris in the 1980s and is now one of the world’s fastest-growing sports.