Halloween’s excitement started a little early this year as I shook Spiderman’s hand. Sure, it wasn’t the real Spiderman. He’s just an RA for Garfield Hall from Glenwood Springs, and while he cannot climb walls and shoot webs, he can still do some pretty epic maneuvers.
Isah McKenzie practices parkour, a type of gymnastic that overcomes obstacles in an environment using different abilities of the human body. Its goal is to go from one point to the next in the most efficient way possible with vaults, jumps, climbing, fancy flips,and many other movements.

“Now, here I am as Spiderman,” – Isah McKenzie, resident assistant and parkour aficionado

McKenzie took time out of his day to talk and show off some of his skills. To spice things up, he came dressed as Spiderman. Ordinarily, McKenzie only pulls this costume out for orientations and Halloween to wow children with his leaps and flips.

McKenzie began parkour in his freshman year of high school. “I didn’t even know it was parkour,” he said. “I just wanted to try flips on the ground.” He taught himself, taking his lessons from Youtube tutorials.

“Once I came here to college, I met a lot of other parkourists, and they really inspired me to try harder and do bigger things.” He became part of a parkour group on campus and got involved with Move to Inspire, a local business that helps to share and practice parkour with the public.

“You just gotta start somewhere. Do one thing, and build up to more… There’s definitely a few falls and trials, but I just kept working through it.”

McKenzie puts a lot of time and effort into everything he does; he fully invests himself in various aspects of his life, including his parkour. Watching his flips, leaps, and graceful landings, it is obvious that his practice is well spent. It took a lot of work to get to get his current level, but he persevered.

He is happy that he pushed past the rough landings and bruises.

“Now, here I am as Spiderman,” he said.

rslind@mavs.coloradomesa.edu