I am a Sonoma County local born and raised. At age two, my parents put me in classes at Rohnert Park Gymnastics (RPG) because I was scared to go down the park slide. I started in the parent-assisted class, but it wasn’t long before I was pushing my mom away and wanting to try things on my own. I ended up sticking with gymnastics, joining the competitive team at age eight and stopped as a level 10 gymnast at age 17.
Towards the end of my time in gymnastics, my passion for it had faded and I wasn’t doing all that well competitively. It was during this time that I found parkour. Parkour interested me in ways that gymnastics no longer did; it felt unique, adventurous, and exciting. I quit gymnastics and started practicing parkour in 2008, and have been practicing it consistently ever since!
My personal parkour experiences include professional parkour/stunt work, parkour competitions, community events of all sizes, and a lot of parkour instruction! Parkour has helped me find friendships and community, a stronger body and mind, and a path for creativity, goal setting, and play. It allows alleyways to feel like playgrounds and encourages people to become more heroic versions of themselves!
By 2008 I was already coaching youth gymnastics at RPG and two years later I convinced my boss to let me start teaching parkour classes as well. Partially thanks to this, many of my parkour friends also got jobs teaching gymnastics and parkour at RPG.
I enjoyed practicing and teaching parkour, but at the time I had loose plans to move away. During a semester I spent out of town in 2012 I got a call from my friend Brett inviting me to take part in a new company he and our friend Erik were founding, “Flying Frog Freerunning.” The owner of RPG was very generous in letting our new company rent space and run classes out of the gymnastics gym. In 2014 we found a building to create Sonoma County’s first parkour gym, Flying Frog Academy, and co-owners Justin, Dee, and Kelsey came on board. We have been teaching parkour here ever since!
Since then, you may still see Dee teaching Happy Hoppers and Strength & Conditioning classes, or Justin occasionally building us new obstacles, but Brett, Kelsey, and Erik have moved on in different ways and passed the reins on to me to continue the original goal of encouraging “better living through movement” through parkour and other non-traditional movement based sports and providing a safe space for people of all ages to work, learn, and grow. I’m very happy to get to share my passion for parkour with all of you!
Parkour and jiujitsu are my two main passions. Parkour training has been constant since 2008 and jiujitsu just since 2018. I’m extremely passionate about both and my favorite things are to play/train either with friends. My other hobbies include some swimming, slacklining, rock climbing, DnD, tricking, board games, hiking, camping, fantasy novels, skate/snow/surf, some television and anime, and the occasional video game.
You can find Christian on his Youtube channel and on Instagram. Be sure to check out his most recent video!
Christian has also been featured in several commercials, including for Samsung and FireMon.
Thanks,
Flying Frog Academy