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Finn Evans: Manitou’s parkour king
Teacher Advice For the class of 2021
by Flor breuer
Senior Finn Evans has participated in the sport parkour since a young age. He was always climbing, jumping, and getting hurt. “I got into parkour in elementary school, through YouTube videos and things like that,” Evans said. From there he started learning on his own. “In 2016, I started training consistently; and I started taking classes at Flipshack where I am currently employed.” But, parkour hasn’t always been fun. Evans suffered a serious injury a couple years ago. “I broke one ankle; and after 13 days of being able to be active with parkour again, I broke the other ankle.” Evans made a documentary about this experience. His injuries have been, according to him, “mainly due to dumb stuff. I broke my wrist but that’s from a mat falling, and then I’ve had some shoulder issues from falling and not being in the right mindset to train.” Thankfully, nothing has been life threatening.
Photo courtesy of Finn Evans
“Life goes by pretty fast and if you don’t stop to look around once in a while, you might miss it!” Ferris Bueller
Evans doesn’t just do parkour for fun. In 2017, he started competing. “I started doing Jump Fest, which is a parkour camp,” Evans said. At the end of the week there was a competition. “I thought it was really cool, cause you can do speed, skill, and style.” He has done it all; however, his favorite is speed, as he’s too tall for the other categories.
-Mr. Bonner
Following through with the flow and keeping pace is also a specialty of his. One of his main influencers is Jesse La Flair, who’s a stunt man in California on a team called Tempest. “He has his own shoe, and he’s always on Instagram doing these crazy 360 videos and that’s really inspiring. There’s this guy named Jason Paul. He’s a German freerunner and is sponsored by Redbull, he has his own clothing company. He makes these crazy videos, so he’s somebody I look up to as well.” Finn Evans hopes to reach the same level of fame and success.
Don’t fear failure. It is totally OK, normal, healthy, and expected to experience failure. Don’t dwell there; embrace it as a reality to grow from, not something to fear and avoid at all costs.
In 2019, Evans competed in the Rocky Mountain Parkour Championship for the youth division in speed. He planned to compete in the Adult Division this year, but due to Coronavirus, he was unable to compete. He has hopes to go farther even though he is at professional level. Evans coaches as well as takes classes on his own. “I want to try and get more into the stunt side of parkour and action modeling,” Evans said. His plan is to take a gap year next year and train vigorously in hopes to get even better than he already is. “I want to get better at double flips and double twists. That’s something that has been really difficult for me because of my length and my dimensions, you know. A lot of jumps and basic A-B stuff is my specialty.”
-Mr. Gillard
Photo Courtesy of Finn Evans
Emmett Wolfe Takes sixth at State Wrestling Tournament By Colt henricks
Wolfe made his team, his coach, his family and his classmates proud as he placed sixth as a pound wrestler at State this school year.
Photo Courtesy of Paul Bonner
Sports have been unpredictable this school year, and this has caused anxiety and disappointment for many student athletes; but for Emmett Wolfe, a senior here at Manitou Springs High School,
wrestling has been a successful piece of his senior year. There was never a doubt in Wolfe’s mind that wrestling would become an issue this year. This demonstrates the positive mindset that he has towards wrestling.
Emmett Wolfe has been wrestling for eight years now and has loved every moment of it. The path towards reaching State was quite different with Covid this year, but this simply did not stop Wolfe from achieving great things on the mat. “Every morning I made sure to go on runs and go to the gym to stay in shape during Covid,” Wolfe said. Going into the season he was ready to go; and especially as a senior, he was incredibly dedicated towards making it to State. This year, qualifying for State was far more challenging as only the top two wrestlers at each weight class from each region made it to
State. This meant that Wolfe was one of eight wrestlers in his weight class. Wolfe placed sixth place. “I knew I could have placed better losing two close matches, but I was happy to have gotten where I got.” During the course of Wolfe’s wrestling career at Manitou, he formed a great relationship with head coach, Mr. Bonner. Mr. Bonner, who has been the wrestling coach since Wolfe was in middle school, is incredibly proud of him. “I am honored to have been his coach, and I will miss his leadership and dedication”, Bonner said. He will also miss having Wolfe as a team captain. “Emmett makes everyone around him better and is a great voice to the rest of the guys,” Mr. Bonner said. The relationship goes two ways. “Mr. Bonner has
been what made wrestling so great for me. He is the main reason I love wrestling so much and helped me get to where I am today,” Wolfe said. Next year, Wolfe plans on pursuing a college wrestling career. Wrestling has been such a successful part of his life that hopefully, he will be able to maintain his level of success in the future. Even with a shortened season caused by Covid, Emmett Wolfe’s dedication and continuous hard work for the past eight years paid off. Hopefully, that will lead to many doors opening up for him in the future. So many people around Emmett Wolfe are so incredibly proud of what he has been able to accomplish not only as a wrestler but as a kindhearted person in the world.
Do things that you enjoy and surround yourselves with others who make you happy and appreciate you! -Ms. Mack
If there’s something you’ve always wanted to try or something you’ve wanted to learn, don’t hesitate to go out and do it or learn it. My favorite life moments (the good and the bad), and some of the best people I’ve ever met have all come from pushing myself to move beyond my comfort levels. -Mrs. Litzelman
