charles -

About charles

Charles is the co-founder and co-owner of the Rochester Parkour Gym - the first Parkour training facility in New York State. He holds a degree in Exercise Science and Fine Art from RIT and has worked as a personal trainer, strength coach, and Parkour instructor for almost a decade.

2024 Price Increases – A Word from the Founder

Hello community members!

I’m writing to you today to discuss with you the pricing increases that are taking effect on August 1st.

Starting Aug. 1st, our drop in price will be increasing from $25 to $30.

We understand that no one likes hearing news like this, especially if you are one of our students or families that primarily take advantage of our drop in option as your preferred way to patron us.

So, I recorded a video explanation to provide some background, insight, as well as a more face to face interaction so that you can better understand why the increase is happening, what you’re getting out of it, and also to share some solutions and some fun bonus features of some exciting things happening as a part of our gym and our service offerings.

If you want to hear the background, feel free to watch the video. Otherwise, read on to hear about what options you have to save some money on our services, despite the drop in price increase.

Limited Time Offer – Class Packs!

To help soften the blow of this price increase, from now until the pricing changes go into effect on August 1st, you will be able to pre-purchase drop in classes via class packages that will sit on your account for up to a year.

There are two packs available:

10 Pack

$250

Purchasable Once
Installment Plan Available

Buy Now

20 Pack

$500

Purchasable Once
Installment Plan Available

Buy Now

These packages will allow you to lock in your current rate and pull from them when you see fit.

You will be allowed to purchase up to one (1) 10 Pack and one (1) 20 Pack, making the total possible drop ins that you can pre-purchase from this offer 30 drop ins.

If you start using them in August, and you purchase both packs, you will be saving $150 over the course of the year.

Installment Option

As a further special offer, for anyone who wants to make use of these packages and take advantage of the opportunity, but doesn’t want to be out the cash immediately, we have you covered.

There is an installment option available through the checkout process that will add a nominal fee for the convenience of splitting up the payments.

The 10 class pack installment will have a $10 fee, the 20 will have a $20 fee.

If you have any other questions regarding this price change, the packs, or anything else to share, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask!

Memberships

I want to also point out, at this time, Membership prices are NOT changing. This includes both our non-renewing and auto-renewing options.

As a reminder of what these options are, please consult the pricing table below:

Kids/Youth

$105

30 days
5 classes
Discounted Training Time
Limited to Kids/Youth Programs

Buy Now

All Access

$135

30 days
Unlimited classes
Free Training Time
Free Events

Buy Now

For those who didn’t know, choosing to opt-in to our auto-renewing plans not only get you an immediate $5 off, but also get you a free guest pass every single month, as well as access to family discounts (10% off, 30% off, and 50% for each additional membership).

If you have questions about any of these options, you can send us an email, text us at 585.449.6705, or send us a message through the Momence app and someone will reach out to you.

Thanks so much for being an integral part of our community! All of us here at RocPK are so proud to be surrounded by such amazing people.

Charles

By charles|2024-07-11T00:08:32-04:00July 11th, 2024|Featured, News|Comments Off

Community members,

We’re proud to announce our most recent graduate of our Dynamic Method Fellowship Program – Sam Irvine!

Many of you have seen him around and some of you have had the privilege of watching him develop over the last few months with his guest teaching of the Saturday classes.

Sam is from Bellingham, Washington where he trained rock climbing for about 8 years and ninja warrior for 4 years. He most recently taught at a ninja gym in Washington before moving to Rochester, New York in order to study physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester. He hopes for a career studying exoplanetary systems for NASA or an adjacent company.

Sam might be one of the most powerful and talented movers that we’ve seen and, paradoxically, that typically works against someone learning to become an incredible instructor. With Sam, this couldn’t be further from the truth. He put in the work, on top of his first year course load, to learn everything required in our 150 hour fellowship in just 110! He’s a welcome addition to our team here at the gym and we’re excited to see him grow even more with us.

Be on the look out for him in the gym!

-RocPK

By charles|2024-05-14T18:29:35-04:00May 14th, 2024|News|Comments Off

12 minutes.

That’s how long it took for RocPK’s long time community member and friend to many Joel Bailey’s house to become almost completely overtaken by flames. If that’s not scary enough, it happened while he was in the shower, just after his fiance, Rach (also a community member), had left for work.

It brings me no joy to write out that Joel’s training paid off exactly a week ago, as he attempted to leave his burning house, only to find that the front door was completely engulfed by flames and thick smoke. With no other choice, he exited out a second story window and jumped off the roof, with no injuries from the drop. Their beloved dog, Bax, died from injuries.

Words cannot express how devastating this would be for myself or Nicole had it happened to us. Let alone the damage to their property and assets, they are neck deep into wedding planning, with their save the date coming in just a few months. The burden being placed on them to have to navigate the clean up of their property, the reclamation of as many assets as they can, dealing with home owner’s insurance investigations and meetings, ON TOP of planning and preparing for their wedding is extreme.

Joel’s sister has started a GoFundMe page for them to help lessen the blow that this nightmare has caused for them. If you have the means to contribute as well, any amount, no matter how small, I know will go a long way toward helping them to focus on finding some peace through all this.

Joel & Rach’s GoFundMe Link

By charles|2024-05-09T14:02:32-04:00May 9th, 2024|News|Comments Off

Hi all,

We’re bringing back the beloved Family Nerf War events starting this month and we’re bringing them back on a weekly basis!

Every Saturday, 3:30pm – 5pm, we’ll be turning our purpose built parkour gym into a glorious nerf arena to shoot foam at each other.

This event is intended for ages 10+, but kids ages 9 and below are permitted so long as they have a parent signed up with them.

Both nerf elite darts (the long, skinny darts) and nerf rival balls will be in use. Please note, rival balls do fire harder than darts (darts typically fire between 60-80 feet per second, whereas rival balls typically fire between 80-100 feet per second). This is sometimes noticeable, so talk to your kids ahead of time and make sure they’re comfortable in this environment.

You may absolutely bring your own blasters, but leave your ammo at home, we’ll provide it all for you. Eye protection is required. If you need eye protection or a blaster, they will be provided for you, complimentary with your enrollment.

Our standard gym rules still apply, so indoor shoes are required to be changed into upon arrival by all participants. Shoe rentals are available for $5 (new shoes can also be purchased through us for $35).

This event is $15 per person for this week only and will then be increasing to $20 per person starting July 17th. All Access Members get free enrollment. Kids/Youth Members will be given a $5 discount off their ticket price.

Signup for this week can be done by clicking this link: https://momence.com/s/86492401

Let us know if you have any other questions,

RocPK

By charles|2023-06-06T12:30:45-04:00June 6th, 2023|News|Comments Off

Greetings RocPK Family!

The time has come to inform everyone that starting June 15th, Rochester Parkour will be assessing a price increase due to the rising costs of operating a business. Read on for more detail, or skip to the bottom to see the tl;dr simple pricing chart.

Some background for those that are interested: our little gym has been open and running for 12 years! When we opened our doors for the first time in March of 2011, we did so with a commitment to make sure our program remained accessible and affordable for people in our community and to not be an exclusive, private club. In February 2011, we did some research on what a typical drop in price was for similar activities and landed on our $20 drop in. This drop in price has literally never changed in these 12 years.

It goes without saying, we all know the current circumstances of our local and national economy, and even though we’ve managed to grow in these last 12 years without changing this anchor price, there’s no getting around the math that $20 in 2011 is the equivalent of $30 now.

While we won’t be going that drastic, our new pricing anchor, starting on June 15th, will be a $25 drop in price. As such, membership prices will also be adjusted around this new pricing anchor. Seeing as this price increase still does not match the current inflation numbers, RocPK will be undergoing small, annual pricing increases starting in 2024, with a goal to catch up to inflation rates by 2028.

Full priced, Kids/Youth Memberships will be increasing to $105, up from $90.

Full priced, All Access Memberships will be increasing to $135, up from $120.

Those opting into auto-renew will continue to keep their $5/month Select Tier discount and their $20/month Sustaining Tier discount.

Additionally, we’d like to outline a few changes regarding how our family discounts will operate. Moving forward, we’ll be creating a loyalty system for family add-ons that reflects the same one we use currently for our full priced memberships (the $5 and $20/month discounts we just talked about). However, in order to keep things affordable for large families, the discounts will still be percentage based, rather than flat rates. It’s more complicated, but it ends up saving you more money.

Starting June 15th, there will now be two tiers of family discounts attached to our Select and Sustaining Loyalty tiers.

Select Tier Discounts (status achieved by opting in to auto-renew)

1st Person = $5/month

2nd Person = 10%/month

3rd Person = 30%/month

4th+ Person(s) = 50%/month

Sustaining Tier Discount (status achieved after 12 auto-renewals)

1st Person = $20/month

2nd Person = 25%/month

3rd Person = 50%/month

4th+ Person(s) = 75%/month

By charles|2023-06-03T15:21:24-04:00June 3rd, 2023|News, The Gym|Comments Off

Schedule Changes for 2023

Greetings RocPK Community,

2023 will see some great changes for our little gym and some changes will be starting as soon as January 5th! Notable additions to our service offerings will occur on Thursdays and Saturdays. There will also be some schedule changes that will come into effect during Charles’ and Nicole’s parental leave sometime around late January or early February (the baby doesn’t seem to want to agree to any set schedule…). Read on for more details!

Thursday Changes – Adult Acro and Kids and Youth Level 2!

***EFFECTIVE JANUARY 5th***

Our 6pm and 7pm time blocks on Thursdays are being adjusted to offer two wonderful new additions to our Adult, Youth, and Kids Programs.

Kids Level 2 6pm Thursdays – This class has been requested for years and it’s always been a challenge trying to find the right way to implement it. This advanced level class is available to students who show an aptitude for dynamic movement and faster paced learning. Just like our Youth Level 2 program, there is a set of requirements that must be met and signed off on by an instructor in order to be granted entry into this class. If a student between the ages of 6 and 9 can…

Hang from a bar for 30 seconds
Hold a straight arm, straight body plank for 30 seconds
Broad jump their body length
Balance on a rail for 10 seconds without falling

…an instructor will talk to the student and the parent about the possibility of moving up to this special Level 2 offering. Students in this class can expect more learning on advanced level techniques and slightly more freedom than is permitted in a typical Level 1 class for this age group. If you believe your child can already satisfy these requirements, tell your instructor the next time we see you for class and we can make sure to assess and let your child know if they passed or what they can work on to gain entry into the Level 2.

Youth Level 2 6pm Thursdays – The biggest complaint we’ve heard about the Tuesday Youth Level 2 class is that 7pm is too late for many families during the school year. Also that there’s only one day option. Youth Level 2 will now have class options on Tuesdays at 7pm and Thursdays at 6pm to make attendance easier on families.

Adult Acro 7pm Thursdays – If you haven’t yet checked out an Adult Acro Basics class, you really should! We’ve only heard incredible things from this class and Josh has been KILLING it with lots of interesting tricks and moves that you likely have never heard of nor knew could be so easy to learn! Given the popularity of the Basics class, we’ll be adding Adult Acro back onto the schedule.

This Acro class falls within the parameters of our Level 2 program and will incorporate a faster paced learning environment as well as more dynamic and complex tricks such as flips, handsprings, and aerial twists.

Saturday Changes – Earlier time block, Kids and Youth Game Days, More Tinies!

***EFFECTIVE JANUARY 14TH***

We’ve heard a number of complaints that 2pm is a little too late to start some services for some families on a Saturday. We’ve gone in and adjusted our time block to reflect that of our Sundays, 12pm – 3pm. Here is the new schedule for Saturdays:

12pm Tiny Movers
12pm Kids Level 1
1pm Adult Level 1 (one hour earlier than current)
1pm Youth Level 1 (one hour earlier than current)
2pm NEW Kids Game Day
2pm NEW Youth Game Day

What is Game Day?

For those that remember our class structure pre-covid shutdowns, classes were 55 minutes long and those extra 10 minutes usually went to structured games with the kids classes. While covid forced us to adjust our class length to accommodate other tasks, we have decided that the benefits of this shorter class length, and the extra time allotted in between class services, makes for a much better service. Instructors can actually talk to parents now in between classes and have much more time to field questions and set up for their next class. This also meant that games have slowly been shunted away, as many kids remind us on a weekly basis.

Kids and Youth Game Day is an experiment we’re going to run to see if games can be utilized as its own standalone service as a supplement to our Kids and Youth Programs. Some days will only have one game be a focus while others might have multiple smaller games structured during the 45 minute service. Games to expect: every version of tag known and unknown, co-operative exploration games, challenge games such as Parkour TicTacToe or Parkour Golf, and many others.

Restrictions! Seeing as this new service allows for more open ended movement and elements of free exploration, participants of this class cannot use it as their only experience with us for safety reasons. $20 Drop Ins will not available and no one without an active membership will be permitted to enroll. Participants must be students in other classes and attend them regularly. As such, entrance into this class is only available to All Access Members or Kids/Youth Members.

Participants with a Kids/Youth Membership will be given free access to this service for 4 weeks, starting on January 14th, that will allow them pre-enroll for these time slots and experience what it’s like to be an All Access Member. Should you love how much fun your kids will have during this time block, upgrading from a Kids/Youth to an All Access is just $30.

If you want to get your kids enrolled early, please contact us either through the Momence app or rochesterparkour@gmail.com and we can add this promo membership onto your account so that you may enroll your kids at your own convenience starting as soon as you’re done reading this post.

Schedule Interruptions for Parental Leave – Closed on SUNDAYS

Josh, Jonathan, and Teaghan are rock stars and we’ve formulated a schedule that will see very few interruptions of service once Charlie and Nicole’s baby is born. The ONLY day that will be affected by parental leave will be SUNDAYS which will be cancelled. Sundays will be back on the schedule once Charlie is off parental leave and back in the gym.

Questions? Comments? You can actually reply directly to this post if you wish. You may also email us at rochesterparkour@gmail.com or send us a message through the Momence App.

-RocPK

By charles|2022-12-30T17:12:59-05:00December 30th, 2022|Uncategorized|Comments Off

Community members,

Wednesdays are about to get a whole lot more interesting with a new class service being added called Acro Basics! This class will be taught by the incredible Joshua Hale and is designed to help guide new students looking to begin their journey into the world of Tricking and Acrobatics. Here are the details and if you’re interested in learning more about this class, read on.

Wednesday Schedule Changes Effective 12/8:

Adult Movement Circuits ~~7pm-7:45pm~~ 6pm-6:45pm
Acro Basics 7pm-7:45pm
Strength 8pm-8:45pm

Important to note for those who remember the old Acro Class and how it operated, this is not a return of that class. The old Acro Class was attached as a part of our Level 2 program and focused on much more dynamic and complex flips and tricks such as front and back flips, handsprings, corkscrews, and other more advanced acrobatics. We are hopeful to bring that class back to the schedule at some point in the near future and this new beginner friendly offering is a part of that overall plan.

By contrast, Acro Basics is being added to our Adult Level 1 program to serve as a gateway for those looking for more guided and structured curriculum to both learn and reaffirm acrobatic techniques as well as conditioning drills to open the way for more dynamic acrobatic tricks for students looking to learn those. This class will be tailored more for beginners. Here is a brief list of what to expect:

Cartwheels
Handstands
Tricker Kicks (Crescent, Front, Side, Hook, Round, Tornado, Pop 3)
Transitions (Scoot, Machine Scoot, Blaster Scoot, Macaco)
Butterfly Kicks
Tricker Aerials
Sweeps

This class will include both on and off AirTrack learning, but students looking to join should always come prepared to use the AirTrack with appropriate attire (soft clothing, socks – grippy socks recommended, but not required, no hard objects such as zippers, rivets, buttons, stud earrings, belt buckles). However there will be a lot of exploration of creative tricking skills learned and applied in our regular movement space.

Additionally, this class will be operating in a similar hybrid age fashion like our Strength and Mobility classes and will be available to our Youth Level 2 students who wish to join.

If you have any other questions about this new class offering you can send us an email to info@rochesterparkour.com or give us a call at 585.204.7537.

Come get your acro on!

-RocPK

By charles|2021-12-02T14:42:43-05:00December 2nd, 2021|News|Comments Off

Dear RocPK Community,

Today it was announced by the Monroe County Health Department that our county has surpassed the threshold of â€œsubstantial transmissionâ€ of COVID-19. As a result, Monroe County is now recommending residents wear a mask indoors, regardless of vaccination status.

Given this new information, RocPK will revert to requiring masks for all participants inside the facility for all services, regardless of vaccination status. No other changes will be reverted at this time, meaning we will not be lowering our enrollment caps, observing distancing, or restricting lounge access. This change will go into effect tomorrow, Tuesday, August 3rd.

As of todayâ€™s notices, Monroe County crossed into the â€œsubstantial transmissionâ€ category by 0.02 cases. Itâ€™s expected that this number will increase in the following two weeks, but quick action now can help ensure that we fall below this threshold as quickly as possible.

Reminders: masks must be double-layered and snug fitting. Bandanas, gaiters, vents, or otherwise loosely fitting masks are not permitted.Â

While this announcement might seem like a giant step backward, putting masks back on is a really simple and easy action that has the potential to make a huge impact. After all, it’s also something our kids have been doing this whole time. We will continue to monitor this situation closely as it evolves and will update these policies as new data become available.

See you in the gym!

RocPK

By charles|2021-08-02T18:14:08-04:00August 2nd, 2021|News|Comments Off

OVERVIEW

2 hours on Fridays 6-8pm
$15/person
Restricted to fully vaccinated adults only
Blaster and shoe rentals available for $5
Online pre-enrollment mandatory
No walk ins accepted
Indoor shoes required
Ammo provided

The first Adult Nerf Night since March 2020 is now on the schedule for July 30th! Reserve a spot using this link.Â

DETAILS

Geetings RocPK Nerfers!

At long last, we are excited to finally be prepared to get Nerf back on the schedule! Itâ€™s been a long time and the gym is in a completely different place than we were prior to shutdowns. We hope to be as accommodating as possible and appreciate whatever courtesy you can give us as we do our best to try and offer this amazing event as best as we are able.

The biggest new changes that youâ€™ll notice are the price, the vaccination requirement, and the pre-enrollment policy.

As much as we wanted to keep things the same, our rent has increased, insurance costs have increased, payroll wages have increased, and taxes have increased (not to mention the exorbitant losses from last year). We still believe that $15 is highly competitive to the prices you see for other fun amusements you might choose on a Friday night. We hope that you agree.

The vaccination requirement was a decision we did not make lightly. Our parkour classes, for example, can operate with both vaccinated and unvaccinated participants. The only difference when it comes to nerf is that nerf requires eye protection and eye protection plus masks makes fogged glasses. While there are many clever solutions to get around the fogging, the chance that a solution proves inadequate and results in someone running into an object, tripping over an object, or otherwise injuring another participant is too great.

Given these challenges, all participants must be prepared to prove their fully vaccinated status on arrival to their first nerf night. Once status is approved, you will never have to prove it again. This will ensure that nerf can operate as similarly as it did to the before times when the world was magical.

Finally, in order to ensure seamless arrival and ensure that we start the event on time, we are no longer accepting walk ins to nerf nights. Participants must pre-enroll ahead of time and pay with a credit card. This one new change should drastically improve event start time and maximize the total nerf game play experience.

We know that many of our past attendees would often times pay for each other or cover each other by paying in cash at the door. As much as we wish we could continue that, the limitations of our registration system will make this practice impossible.

Itâ€™s been over a year and a half since weâ€™ve last had a nerf night. The hobby has changed since then and weâ€™ll be looking to make adjustments with it to match. Some of those changes include the plethora of new printed blasters and new ammo types, such as nerf hyper. RocPK will be adding hyper into the ammo types provided. The new full list of provided ammo is:

Full-length darts
Half-length darts
Rival rounds
Hyper rounds

Vortex and Mega will continue to be allowed in play, but will not be provided. Feel free to bring your own to an event, but be prepared to lose them.Â

By charles|2021-07-22T17:01:23-04:00July 22nd, 2021|Uncategorized|Comments Off

We Asked, You Answered – Gym Policy Updates

Dear RocPK Community,

With the recent news last week from Governor Cuomo ending all State mandates on businesses, we were forced to do a lot of thinking on how to best move forward and update gym policies. It ended up being harder than we thought so we crafted an anonymous survey and sent it out to our long-term patrons to ask for their honest thoughts on the matter.

Your answers were extremely informative as well as diverse. Thank you to all who added in their comments to help us land on these changes.

Before we list our updates, itâ€™s pertinent to again state the imposition weâ€™re put in as a small business. As we are currently, the gym remains completely unsustainable. Weâ€™ve lasted this long because there exist some extremely amazing families in our community that have financially assisted the gym to give it this chance of survival. Government programs have made up the difference, but those are slated to end in the upcoming weeks.

Given the wide range in diverse answers, any policy changes we make will likely make it seem like weâ€™re alienating some of you. Our goal is to maximize the safe space opportunity for as many of you as possible. We apologize if any of these changes feel like an act against you or your family. We are trying the absolute best we can.

With that said, effective immediately, here are some adjustments to the way our gym will operate:

Masks are required for unvaccinated patrons
- This policy is obviously the most contentious and likely to cause some of you concern. Almost every comment mentioned this in some form or fashion, but the truth remains that an overwhelming majority of RocPK members feel more comfortable with this policy for the time being.
  
  There was an overwhelming majority support for our continuing to ask for proof of vaccination status in order to unmask. We will continue doing so for the time being as well.
  
  For as long as we require masks for those who have no ability to become fully vaccinated, RocPK Instructors will continue to wear their masks in solidarity when running those services.
Distancing is no longer required
- Maintaining social distance has always been the biggest struggle for our unique gym experience. Our classes revolve around movement and our objects make distancing even more of a challenge. This one policy has had the greatest financial impact on our ability to function as a business and has necessitated our small class sizes. Regardless of square footage, you canâ€™t see through walls. If we are to become sustainable again before assistance runs out, we hope this will be the change that makes the most impact.
  
  This policy change can help improve the quality of instruction we provide. Up to now, instructors have been limited in designing curriculum that would allow for distancing throughout the entire class and refraining from techniques that might require spotting or hands-on assistance. We are excited to add these techniques back in!
Sanitization updates
- Hand washing/sanitizer was praised in a majority of the comments as well. This policy is here to stay for the foreseeable future but will be revised to say the following: Clean hands when entering the movement space. The movement space is defined as crossing over onto the black rubber floor.
- Mask touching will no longer necessitate sanitization – Up to this point, weâ€™ve been extremely diligent in maintaining the movement spaceâ€™s cleanliness by enforcing sanitization whenever someone (staff included) touches their mask. We will continue to educate you that the movement space is a shared space and we are constantly touching objects that other people have touched. While we still think itâ€™s not great that you might crawl on the ground and then immediately rub your eye, we will no longer force you to go sanitize.
Lounge updates – No more distancing, no more observer limitationsÂ
- With distancing no longer required and our vaccination proof requirement in place, the lounge can now be opened back up fully to whomever wishes to use it. We will no longer be limiting access to one parent observer.Â

These changes should be presumed as temporary. Many comments that were received in support for maintaining our current operating policies mentioned the difference between the Stateâ€™s and CDCâ€™s guidelines. Some of these policy changes could be subject to change should the CDC update its guidelines or new research come out that necessitates changes or updates.

Again, weâ€™d like to extend our deepest gratitude and thanks to those of you that have continued your support (verbally, emotionally, as well as financially) throughout this marathon of sacrifice. You are champions by any definition.

Sincerely,

RocPK

By charles|2021-06-21T14:28:35-04:00June 21st, 2021|News|Comments Off

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