FRENCH TROOPS INVENTED IT TO QUICKLY traverse chaotic battlefields, James Bond uses it to catch bad guys and modern day YouTubers abuse it to rack up views with increasingly risky jumps and stunts captured on video. Now Sarasotans can get in on the high-flying action with Rad Parkour, a new gym just west of the Celery Fields dedicated to parkour training. Transforming an empty 2,500-square-foot space into an indoor obstacle course of ramps, jumps and Lache bars for swinging, Rad Parkour Founder Josh Hill designed the layout himself, teaming up with a couple friends (including a carpenter) to build the whole thing in-house and by hand. Now he offers afterschool and after-work classes for both children and adults, and close to 60 kids and half a dozen adults have already started training. “People find the word ‘parkour’ intimidating,” Hill admits, but with Rad Parkour he wants to break away from the image of parkour as being only for daredevils and secret agents, and ground the practice as an athletic mindset with real-world applicability. Less flip and more function, the training at Rad Parkour stresses safety, confidence and self-improvement—all of which can transfer to everyday life. “You’re going to see things differently when you’re approaching an obstacle,” Hill says, whether that be running late for a bus or being accidentally shoved down a moving escalator—something that actually happened to him not too long ago. “I instantly went into a back roll and rolled out,” he says. “I got some hair caught in the teeth [of the escalator], but that was it.” But even when life throws something he can’t tuck and roll out of, Hill knows parkour can help him back on his feet. Struck by a car while riding his motorcycle, Hill suffered two broken legs and a detached heel, but that didn’t keep him off the parkour course any longer than necessary. “When I’m not moving my joints, I’m not happy,” he says, and in October made his triumphant return with a first place finish at the Nova Gymnastics parkour competition in Davie, FL—clinching the win with a 13-foot standing jump between two parallel bars.