“What if I’m not in control and my body takes over and does something, I don’t want it to do”
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From YouTube flip tutorials to running with the pros Jared Nahulu talks about the art of movement, mental heath, and his creative journey on this episode of DLT
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Okay. So who are you?
nahulu
I am Jared Nahulu. I am currently 25, and I heard that you have come to talk to me about parkour. One of the main things that I do.
And movement?
nahulu
Yes. Movement in general. Yeah.
What is parkour?
nahulu
The most basic definition is just going from point A to point B as fast as possible– which is kind of been the thing since it started– but it’s definitely broadened out into more creative things other than just going really fast. The broadest way I would describe it is just: interacting with your environment in a creative way part of the creative aspect is you could say that you’re going from point A to B to C to D to E in really creative or unique ways.
And how long have you been doing this?
nahulu
A little over ten years. Almost 11 years now. Almost half my life. Just kind of crazy.
How did it start?
nahulu
I was in middle school, and I had a friend who I would spend a lot of time with, and he showed me a video that was called “Front Flip Tutorial”. We watched it and then took the pillows off of his couch and then put them in his front yard. We had a little tiny hill and we just tried to do front flips based off of the front flip tutorial video, and it turned out…probably not very great, but it was really fun.
After that, that same friend showed me a gym called Apex Movement, and I did one open gym there and then the rest is pretty much history.
The History:
nahulu
I started with that open gym, and then I think I did maybe 1 or 2 more sessions before my brother and sister got me classes. And then I started off in level one and then level two and then level three. And then somewhere in the first year or two, I got a work trade job. So I wasn’t getting paid, but I could go in and basically clean the gym, and then I could go in whenever I want for free.
I think I was still taking classes, but from that point on, it was kind of just: I went in whenever I wanted and trained for however long I wanted, and then that definitely gave me the opportunity to get really good and get really obsessed with being there and training parkour very often.
“That definitely gave me the opportunity to get really good and get really obsessed with being there and training parkour very often.”
What kind of conditioning do you have to do?
nahulu
I would say there’s a bunch of different kinds of conditioning you can do, but I honestly have only gotten in shape for parkour by just doing parkour. You can definitely like, lift weights or go for runs or swimming, but I think a lot of people, including me, just do parkour.
I feel like I see a lot of flips, but then you have more montages of you doing other things as well. You’re running on really narrow beams and you’re jumping in a really controlled way.
When you’re practicing, how much time would you say is dedicated to doing flips and then how much time is dedicated to jumping from one thing onto a really small thing? How much time are you spending doing these, these different skills?
nahulu
That’s a great question.
It’s definitely a lot of different days and different weeks in different months and different years of just going back and forth between whatever is on my mind that day.
“It’s definitely a lot of different days and different weeks in different months and different years of just going back and forth between whatever is on my mind that day.“
When I started out, I originally actually didn’t even really want to do flips.
I was mainly inspired by somebody who is really good at jumping and landing on really tiny things– and running on really tiny things. That’s where my training started, and after that, I definitely got more inspired by other people who were doing flips.
I feel like it definitely depends on my mood for the day.
“When I started out, I originally actually didn’t even really want to do flips.”
I wouldn’t say that I go in and I work on one sole thing. Like I wouldn’t say, I go in and I’m preparing to just do flips that day, or I’m just preparing to jump or climb or whatever. It’s kind of also depending on who I’m with and the environment.
There’s some days I go in to the gym and there will be a very cool bar set up to swing on, and I might have gone in thinking about jumps I wanted to do, but as soon as I see that set, I’m like, okay, I’m doing swings and I go and do swings for a couple of hours.
And then also my favorite thing to do in parkour is definitely swing on bars. So, It’ll either be me seeing somebody doing a jump or doing something creative or doing a cool flip, but most of the time, it’s seeing somebody swing on a bar, and then I just get this, this hunger to swing on bars because it’s really fun.
nahulu:
And, that’s mainly my obsession
“I just get this, this hunger to swing on bars because it’s really fun.”
I also used to have a far different mindset when I trained and it’s definitely evolved over the past 11 years, but I would say, in terms of jumping on things and landing on things and running on tiny, narrow things and doing flips, it’s kind of just random.
…As far as the way that my mindset has changed after I did get into flips and I got really good at doing flips. There was a pretty decent amount of time where it felt like I just wanted to get as good as possible so that, my teenage angst would get validated. And I’d feel like I was worth something because I was good at something.
“There was a pretty decent amount of time where it felt like I just wanted to get as good as possible so that, my teenage angst would get validated. And I’d feel like I was worth something because I was good at something.”
There were definitely times I wanted to do some really crazy bar trick, and I would get on the bar and it just wouldn’t be going well, and I would have stayed on that bar and tried that trick until, I either got hurt because it wasn’t working out, or I got really angry at myself because it wasn’t working out.
There was a point in time where I would go in and I would say, “okay, I have to do the hardest trick that I can do today“, and I would spend hours or days or weeks on that mindset. But eventually, as I grew up and I grew out of that mindset, my perspective on training definitely changed to understanding the mindset that whatever I feel like doing is going to be what works.
As I grew up, it was definitely, if something wasn’t working out, even if I wanted to do that thing, I would just kind of feel what my body was telling me would work out best, or just what sounded the most appealing in terms of the way that my body wanted to move. And I would just do that.
It turns out that that is where a lot of my progress came from, just listening to my body and listening to my mind and how I wanted to move, rather than trying to force it.
I would say– in a really roundabout way of answering your question– the first five years were spent, a little more methodical of going in and telling myself, I’m going to do jumps today or I’m going to do flips today…
“It turns out that that is where a lot of my progress came from, just listening to my body and listening to my mind and how I wanted to move, rather than trying to force it.”
The last kind of five years have been just listening to what I want to do and then just going with that. And luckily enough, as negative as that training may have been the first five years because it was slightly unnatural and I was forcing myself in some ways I did. I did, give myself a broad set of skills, like I would consider myself a pretty well-rounded athlete.
How are you able to to find the courage and the trust in yourself to perform daring feats?
nahulu
It’s definitely, also a very good question and also very relevant.
In my opinion, I think anybody who starts doing really any kind of actions sport young just has an advantage of being young and being ignorant to injuries, probably, hopefully.
And also you just recover quicker when you’re younger. That was certainly my case when I started out. I was, I think 13 or 14 and I did have a background in swimming, and that definitely helped a lot with the physical aspect. I had a lot of strength to do everything. But as far as the mental game, it was very much just, “I don’t know really what I’m doing I’m just going to try it“.
I was definitely still scared of things. But compared to the fear that I feel, these days at 25, which is not old at all, it is far different than being 16.
I’ve definitely faced a couple injuries now.
I had one major injury in 2017 where I hurt my ankle. I think I had, like a hairline fracture on my ankle that I got mid-competition. That was my first kind of major parkour related injury.
After that, my early teenage years of fearlessness definitely just vanished. And I was like, okay, well, this is this is real. This is serious. Like, I can actually really get hurt, apparently.
“I had one major injury in 2017 where I hurt my ankle. I think I had, like a hairline fracture on my ankle that I got mid-competition. That was my first kind of major parkour related injury.
After that, my early teenage years of fearlessness definitely just vanished.”
And then after that, I had another random parkour. I guess I had two random parkour related injuries where I fell on my head in a really bad way and got knocked out and had a concussion.
Then there was another trick I was doing where I was swinging off of my legs and trying to do a double backflip, and I got too close to the bar and I hit my head. Luckily I barely skimmed my head on the bar, so when I hit it, I just skimmed the top of my head and I bit down during the head contact and I knocked my two front teeth loose– That was also a prior injury– but it kind of just, ruined the double root canal that I had in those two teeth. So they basically just came loose. Luckily they were already dead because they were root canal, I didn’t feel anything, but they came loose. That led to me being toothless in my the top set of my teeth for two and a half years.
I just didn’t have to front teeth. And that was interesting.
But after that, the only other injury I had was I, tore my MCL, and that was kind of a long process was: I landed a jump wrong and compressed my knee weird. And it definitely…probably sprained my MCL. I kind of just went back to training too soon. I did another thing where I compressed my knee the same way, but just way harder. And then I definitely sprained it that time and I was afraid that I tore it…but after like five days, it felt normal again and I was still I didn’t have the discipline to be patient with healing and recovery. So all it took was just literally pivoting on my left leg. I just turned the way that you would round the corner and it tore and I tore my MCL. And then that was probably the last straw. I was like, okay, this is like really serious. Parkour is actually very dangerous and very scary now.
“I was like, okay, this is like really serious. Parkour is actually very dangerous and very scary now.”
In recent years, aside from the injuries and the fierce fear that comes from injuring myself again…There was a trick I was learning…
It’s a standing backflip with two twists, and I never thought that I could do it. And then one night, it just randomly happened, and I didn’t even mean to do it. I was trying to do one twist, and then my body kind of just kept pulling, and I did two. When I landed it, I was blown away.
I was super excited. And it is still is one of my favorite achievements. But I lost the ability to do a standing-full because I did standing-doub-full and my brain just… wouldn’t take control of what my body was doing.
That was the most recent, scary hiccup in my training when it comes to fear, because that feeling of telling myself that I’m going to do something and then my body does something different, definitely put me in a terrified headspace because I just apply that to anything I was doing.
What if I’m trying this really easy skill that I always do that I’ve done probably a million times, and then my body just decides that it’s going to do double, and then I land on my neck.
The fear that I’m not in complete control of what my body does has been the most recent really giant obstacle that I’ve had to overcome.
“The fear that I’m not in complete control of what my body does has been the most recent really giant obstacle that I’ve had to overcome.”
I’m still like, even as of today, I’m still trying to get over that block that developed with the standing double full. That was two years ago now, I think, which is also crazy. But every day since then, it’s been kind of a battle to regain the trust that I have in myself whenever I do something.
Ever since then, there’s a slight hesitation of what “if I’m not in control and my body takes over and does something, I don’t want it to do“, so a lot of a lot of, basic skills, even, in terms of flips, I’m a little more scared of now than I definitely ever have been. But when it comes to the bigger, or more focused goals that I have, it’s definitely a huge hurdle that I have to overcome in order just to get myself to do it and not be terrified and not get in my own way.
I still want to do so many things, and I’m trying to maintain the belief that I can do the things that I set out to do, and not just back down, because I’m afraid something is going to go wrong.
“I still want to do so many things, and I’m trying to maintain the belief that I can do the things that I set out to do, and not just back down, because I’m afraid something is going to go wrong.”
I went to the gym today, and I did, a trick that I was very scared of, but is working towards a goal that I have.
But it definitely took probably half an hour of just standing there and picturing myself doing the trick before I could actually do it, because I was so in my head that my body would do the thing it did two years ago and it would, do something I didn’t want it to do.
The first couple tries that I was trying to do this trick, I did the wrong trick because my body decided that I was going to do something else. So I spent a long time just thinking about it. Eventually I did do the trick that I wanted to do, and I it took a lot of time just standing there, making the motion, closing my eyes and picturing it, and calming myself down and working up to it. Eventually I did gain the courage to trust that I would do the right thing. And then I did it like seven times, and it felt great. But it’s definitely a difficult obstacle. Though I would say in general, similar to the obstacle that I have been facing for the last two years, obviously, a lot of the difficulty and fear comes from like, the physical aspect of jumping really far, landing on hard objects or flipping a lot.
I would even say more than 50% of it is just mental. If you work on something enough, you start to trust yourself more because you have familiarity with it.
I think the most progress comes from just overcoming the fear aspect of it…as well as obviously getting stronger and being able to physically do something.
“…more than 50% of it is just mental. If you work on something enough, you start to trust yourself more because you have familiarity with it.”
What inspires you to do what you’re doing?
nahulu
I definitely am inspired by other athletes in the sport that I do, obviously, because that’s kind of just how it works.
But also I was inspired by a couple things in media ,like– I can’t remember which James Bond film it was, but it was the one where there was a chase scene and they were climbing cranes and jumping off of cranes and through elevator shafts and a whole bunch of really crazy technical stuff. Now I actually know that the stunt double– who actually wasn’t even stunt double, it was just him acting as the actor– but the person who is in that scene is kind of seen as one of the founders of parkour.
“I definitely am inspired by other athletes in the sport that I do, obviously, because that’s kind of just how it works.
But also I was inspired by a couple things in media, like…James Bond…”
In the early 2000, he was one of the first people who started kind of the revolution of jumping off of things and climbing things and vaulting things and doing parkour. But him in that movie, watching that movie scene when I was probably 12 or 13, definitely inspired me to some extent.
Other inspiration, honestly just comes from the imagination that I have. I have many things that I consider to be possible that in the past ten years I’ve visualized and it’s basically just the process of me seeing something in my mind and going, “oh, that would be really cool“.
And then I go to the gym, or I go outside and I pretty much just do whatever that vision was. Which is also going back to earlier, why I think that process works so well of listening my body, because ultimately that’s kind of just the route that training goes, is you’ll see something and then you’ll want to do it and then you do it.
Parkour specifically, you kind of have to have an eye for it. Because if you don’t know anything about parkour, I feel like it’s hard to visualize specific things. In general, I feel like anybody could see a really interesting environment or really intriguing architecture and get the urge to just climb on it or jump around on it. I definitely feel like innately, we want to interact with our environment in some kind of way.
“Parkour specifically, you kind of have to have an eye for it. Because if you don’t know anything about parkour, I feel like it’s hard to visualize specific things. In general, I feel like anybody could see a really interesting environment or really intriguing architecture and get the urge to just climb on it or jump around on it.”
In America, it’s definitely different because of the architecture and also just, the police. They just don’t like you climbing on their walls in America. And it really, really sucks, but in other countries, there’s definitely very fascinating and intriguing architecture. And I’m pretty sure that in a lot of places throughout Europe, the police are more laid back. So like, you can actually just see a wall and jump on it or climb it and ideally– if it’s like a house or somebody’s living space and you’re jumping on their walls, they don’t really love it, but– you’re probably not going to get the police called on you and get arrested or anything like that.
“In America, it’s definitely different because of the architecture and also just, the police. They just don’t like you climbing on their walls in America.”
But even in America and even in Denver, there’s definitely enough architecture that’s, I would say inspiring enough definitely to parkour people. Also, I feel like, yeah, I would say the the average person can probably see an interesting environment and go, “well, that looks cool“. I think that’s definitely something we all have an eye for.
There’s definitely many things, flipping related and not flipping related that I see in my mind. Very clearly, very often. Throughout high school, I would sit there (and probably one of the reasons that I was struggling to pass my classes because I was definitely daydreaming).
“There’s definitely many things, flipping related and not flipping related that I see in my mind. Very clearly, very often.”
A lot of my inspiration has come from just seeing things that I want to do in my mind and wondering if it’s possible, if I haven’t seen it before or thinking of people who have done it and wanting to do it because it looks cool, or it seems like it would feel really good or feel really fun.
“A lot of my inspiration has come from just seeing things that I want to do in my mind and wondering if it’s possible.”
And is also part of just our inner child and comes from playing on playgrounds and climbing trees and such, and it’s definitely, good for the body and definitely good for the soul.
There’s so many kinds of movement now that I feel it’s so easy to be inspired, I feel like, if people do parkour, they’ll know what I’m saying.
I feel like it’s not, something restricted to parkour. I’m sure any sport you want to just copy what you see because you’re passionate about it. But, if you’re scrolling online or something like that, you’ll see something, and it’s very inspiring.
I feel like, at least for me, it’s very easy to be inspired by what I see. It’ll be somebody doing something really creative in a really simple space. I have a couple friends who are really good at that, and that definitely inspires me to look at more simple environments and try and interact with them in creative ways, because that’s definitely the beauty of parkour over the last couple of years.
It’s taking something that looks boring or seems to have no opportunity, and working with that space in a creative way that also looks cool and feels rewarding.
But, yeah, I don’t know. I think inspiration comes from, a lot of places for me.
You are also a diver.
nahulu
Technically I am a diver.
You have been diving.
“Technically I am a diver”
nahulu
I have been diving, yes, I do work at Casa Bonita as a diver now.
Yeah. It’s a pretty cool place. You should definitely check it out. Take your kids there. It’s a great place for kids. It’s super fascinating. Even to adults. It’s just a bizarre, wonderful place. I wouldn’t say that you would necessarily go there for the food, even though it is technically a restaurant. You definitely go there for the entertainment. The food is kind of just an extra aspect of it.
But yeah, there’s cliff divers. I’m one of the cliff divers. There’s a magic act, there’s roaming characters, there’s a puppet show. There’s, contracted artists. So there’s like caricature artists. There’s other magicians. And I’m probably forgetting a couple things. There’s an arcade. There’s just a couple weird caves to walk around. It’s a very interesting place that it’s kind of absurd to believe actually exists. And somebody actually made it. Yeah. But it’s pretty cool. Being a cliff diver there is very fun. The best job I’ve ever had by far.
“I have been diving, yes, I do work at Casa Bonita as a diver now…
There’s a magic act, there’s roaming characters, there’s a puppet show. There’s, contracted artists. So there’s like caricature artists. There’s other magicians… There’s an arcade. There’s just a couple weird caves to walk around. It’s a very interesting place that it’s kind of absurd to believe actually exists.”
Did you have to audition?
nahulu
I did, yeah. I won’t talk about it too much, but yeah, when I got hired, I had to do a short list of dives, which for my parkour-self was not too bad. There are some pretty terrible dives as a parkour athlete, because I spent 10, almost 11 years training myself to always land on my feet and never, ever, ever your head, but in diving, sometimes you have to go to your head because that’s how dives work.
The forward dives aren’t bad, but any kind of backwards moving direction towards your head is just it was awful to work towards as a, parkour athlete, but, yeah, the the list of dives that I had to do in my audition wasn’t too bad. And in the 7 to 8 months I’ve been there, I’ve definitely started picking up some dives that used to be terrifying and I thought were impossible.
But it’s very fun. Very fun.
“…in diving, sometimes you have to go to your head because that’s how dives work.”
How how high is the cliff or are there multiple?
nahulu
Yeah, there’s a couple. There’s, a 15 and a 16 on the stage. And then on the other side there’s a 13 and 14ft, but they’re pretty chill.
That doesn’t sound too bad.
nahulu
Yeah, it’s not too bad. In the old days, you used to dive from the top. Like from the top of the waterfall. And I think that’s about 20ft, which is insane, because the pool was smaller and it was more shallow.
I heard they used to have to swim through this little panel into the electrical room.
nahulu
Correct. They did have that. They still have that there because they used that tunnel. But now, it is very much improved. And you swim out through this secret way and climb out through the secret way and come back out. And it’s, definitely more ideal than the old setup was unsafe.
Do you think that Tarzan and Jane Club did it? Do you remember that?
nahulu
In an elementary school?
gym class with the ropes?
nahulu
Oh, man. Yeah, yeah. You’re, you’re accessing deep, deep core memories that I forgot I had. Yeah, I completely forgot about that. Probably. I would say certainly that whatever I grew up doing at a young age was definitely instilled into my mind. So if I had fun, swinging on a ropes and jumping on whatever kind of mats they had, I’m sure that was imprinted on my youthful mind. Then I kind of just forgot about it until it got reignited by that front flip tutorial video. But yeah, I would say, yeah, probably.
“whatever I grew up doing at a young age was definitely instilled into my mind.”
You were the fastest kid in the (elementary) school.
nahulu
Yeah, yeah.
How for how long?
nahulu
I remember maybe third and fourth grade and I was in fifth grade, but then that one kid came to school who came from a different school, and he was also really fast. And I was like, “oh, my God, I’m not going to be the fastest kid anymore“. And he was really intimidating. And then the field day came and I somehow beat him, and it was like the best day of my life.
And I was like, “oh my God, I’m the fastest kid in school” it was so epic for my nine-year-old brain. But yeah, I started swimming when I was, four. Technically, my parents taught me how to swim when I was four, and then I joined a swim team when I was six. So I think growing up in the water and definitely growing up swimming absolutely helped with my athleticism.
Growing up I’d also taken a parkour class.
nahulu
Oh, yeah.
Did you know this?
nahulu
I did not know this.
In 2008.
nahulu
Okay. That’s crazy. That’s like when it just started becoming a thing.
My dad learned about parkour on YouTube,he showed me a video.
nahulu
Oh, man, I wish I knew what video that was. That’s fascinating.
He signed me up for this parkour class. I was not the youngest person there, but the second youngest person. And me and the other guy were, like, young by a wide margin.
nahulu
Yeah. Yeah.
Because I was like eight and he was like eight.
nahulu
Yeah.
And these other kids, I was also the only girl, these other boys were all like 13. It was not as challenging in this first low-level class for an eight year old as you would maybe imagine, because I think I had that child strength, I had a lot of control over my body. It was it was pretty easy because I’d also done gymnastics before that. But it was very weird for, for me, like just as an after school activity. Yeah. Just because it was like really awkward.
nahulu
Yeah.
I had nothing in common with anyone. Yeah, but I did like the jumping.
What’s funny about this, how it all connects back is: my parkour career was, was short lived because, I think a few months into me taking this class, the gym that I went to– which was also a boxing gym—
nahulu
Okay. Sure.
–Moved into apex and became Apex.
nahulu
What? That’s insane.
I was there when it opened, I was like nine.
nahulu
So you’re at the first Apex Gym. That’s legendary.
Yeah.
nahulu
So you were doing parkour before me? Well before me.
It’s funny because I remember in middle school it started to get really popular, not just among like not just you, but among other people I knew.
nahulu
Yeah.
And it was so interesting because for me, it was like a really niche thing that that I got put into when I was a kid. And anytime I tried to explain what it was to say when I was a child, they’d be like, “oh, are you doing gymnastics? What are you doing?“
nahulu
Yeah, it was definitely a very niche thing back then for sure.
That’s a good segue to “Ten Years”, your last big project. You’re a video maker.
nahulu
I am also equally passionate about videography and storytelling through video.
“I am also equally passionate about videography and storytelling through video. “
I thought it was really moving because, I followed your parkour account, right around when it started.
And so I remember following and seeing what you were doing and being impressed by it at the time.
But I never went back, so it was really interesting because I’m watching this, these videos and it’s just like one flip at a time, you know.
I’m wondering if it was as jarring for you, or more jarring for you, going back and and seeing like, sort of how small the things you were doing then in comparison to now were. Did you know what to expect?
nahulu
I definitely knew to some extent what to expect, because (I don’t know if everybody does this thing) I’ll just, like, get curious and go back through my Instagram and watch all the stuff that I used to do, just because it’s fascinating to me.
Also sometimes I get reminded of things that I was doing and I want to do it again. Or I’ll randomly get inspired by some kind of movement or trick that I was doing way back then. But, I definitely had watched very, very old clips like a good amount of times before I made that video, compiling it all for that video and really combing through those years, more finely, was definitely a far different experience.
It was it was jarring in a way of, first of all, realizing that it’s been so long since I was that, young and that version of me, because it does simultaneously kind of feel like the stuff that I was watching and saving and archiving for that video, that was 9 or 10 years ago, kind of does feel like it was more like two years ago.
And I can kind of remember the feeling of going to the gym or hanging out with the friends that I was hanging out with, 8 or 9 years ago, like it was just yesterday. And I remember the feelings that I had very clearly. And, the things that I was going on in my life, in terms of, parkour and the actual tricks I was doing, it was also a little jarring in a different way
“It was it was jarring in a way of….realizing that it’s been so long since I was that, young and that version of me, because it does simultaneously kind of feel like the stuff that I was watching and saving and archiving for that video, that was 9 or 10 years ago, kind of does feel like it was more like two years ago.
And I can kind of remember the feeling of going to the gym or hanging out with the friends that I was hanging out with, 8 or 9 years ago, like it was just yesterday. And I remember the feelings that I had very clearly.”
The only way I can describe it is being a little surprised at how fast I got good at a lot of things. When I went back through my Instagram and YouTube, it seems like I got, pretty good at what I was doing faster than I remember. And it’s definitely been weird and definitely was weird last year when I was making the video, watching myself at at 13 or 14 or 15 and even 16, having taught or kind of helped teach, children who are 13 or 14 or 15 or 16 at apex and realizing that that’s how old I was when I was doing the things that I was doing, and it kind of just hits me in, made me realize that I, was very, very lucky to have been able to do the things that I was doing.
And I’m very grateful for the path that I had.
I’m very grateful for, just being able to do so much of what I did and it actually working out and my progression happened so fast from when I started and picked up pretty fast, and it was almost exponential for the first two years.
“And I’m very grateful for the path that I had.”
It’s definitely a little jarring watching myself go from being 14 and learning how to backflip, to then being 16 and competing in the biggest competition at the time against one of my idols. And like tying him in that competition.
It was very, surreal watching that unfold. And in just two years, but, other than that, it was it was, a pretty clear image of I knew what story I wanted to tell, and I knew how I wanted to tell it and how I wanted to show it through my progression in the sport and all of that.
“It’s definitely a little jarring watching myself go from being 14 and learning how to backflip, to then being 16 and competing in the biggest competition at the time against one of my idols. And like tying him in that competition.”
Actually, originally when I first started editing, the video is only going to be three minutes long, and it was just going to be the first song that’s in the video. And then I got to the end of that song, and I wasn’t even done with the first year, and I was like, “oh my gosh, okay, this is probably not going to be a five minute video“.
“‘oh my gosh, okay, this is probably not going to be a five minute video’.”
It was a very quick realization of “okay, this I might as well just make this everything I want it to be, because this isn’t going to be some kind of ten minute video. That’s just a quick flash and montage of a bunch of tricks. I might as well use a lot of time to show, in pretty good detail what my journey was and what it felt like.” And it’s kind of crazy that it turned out to be a 45 minute video that was originally just almost a three minute video, which is insane.
And then I got back to editing, and then that’s when I realized it was going to be, much, much bigger.
“I got back to editing, and then that’s when I realized it was going to be, much, much bigger.”
You said that in the video. You said some of the clips were lost to time. So how did you go about getting the footage together?
nahulu
Yeah, some clips were genuinely lost to time. I remember doing some things that I wanted to put in the video that I just couldn’t find anywhere. But, a lot of what I meant by that was just, I have had like four phones since 2014, and the original clips that were on those phones are just very, very long gone. At the time of editing, I only had like 20 clips from 2020 and on. So everything before 2020 was either strictly on YouTube or strictly on Instagram. I had to download, an app that I could save videos on Instagram and then anything on YouTube I just screen recorded, which is so, not ideal, but, yeah, a lot of it.
I think, honestly, I probably spent four hours just going through Instagram, saving old clips and going through YouTube and screen recording old clips that there’s probably a handful of hours spent, like just scrolling and finding old clips because I didn’t have them.
How much time did you spend editing total?
nahulu
The whole video probably took a little over a month. I didn’t necessarily edit every single day for a month, but, it was probably at least every other day I would edit a little bit of a certain section of the video for around a month, and also just my very stubborn self was determined to edit the entire thing on my phone, which is just… not a good idea for a project of this size.
“The whole video probably took a little over a month… I would edit a little bit of a certain section of the video for around a month… my very stubborn self was determined to edit the entire thing on my phone, which is just….not a good idea.”
I discovered this app called Video Leap in 2021, and I made my yearly 2021 video using Video Leap. And I was kind of just like, “oh, wow, there’s a lot more to do now than just cut and zoom and slow down“, because that’s pretty much all I could do in iMovie.
When I found this app, it was just like it really unleashed a lot of my, creativity. And it gave me a lot of, a lot more to work with. So I edited all of ten years on, on Video Leap on my phone.
I have my personal phone, and then in some time after 2020, I bought another iPhone strictly for filming because I figured it would be easier for anybody to just pick up and press record than a camera, even though it’s also the same thing. You just hold the camera and press record. So I edited the entire thing on my other phone, and that was strictly just a camera phone.
“I have my personal phone, and then in some time after 2020, I bought another iPhone strictly for filming because I figured it would be easier for anybody to just pick up and press record than a camera, even though it’s also the same thing. You just hold the camera and press record.”
And it didn’t have a SIM card. It was just strictly camera roll and that was the only thing I use. But the way even though this other phone that I had had a terabyte of storage and was strictly just camera roll, nothing else, I had to edit almost every year separately and then pray to God that when I put all of the years together in the final edit and I tried to download it, that it wouldn’t crash.
“I had to edit almost every year separately and then pray to God that when I put all of the years together in the final edit and I tried to download it, that it wouldn’t crash.”
Originally, I think this is probably what took most of the month was honestly just, trial and failure of realizing that my ways of editing weren’t going to save on this phone. A lot of the time was spent trying to save, I think I did the first four years all together in one video, and there was so there were so many cuts and so many effects that every time I tried to save it, it would get to like 2% and then just crash and I just couldn’t save it.
So I had to bite the bullet and reedit the second and third years and I cut the first two years, saved it. And then that’s pretty much what I did for the entire ten years. I would do two years at a time and then save it or whatever went with the entirety of the song that I was using.
“And then that’s pretty much what I did for the entire ten years: I would do two years at a time and then save it or whatever went with the entirety of the song that I was using.”
I would edit with just that song, and then I would save it and then, yeah, that final step of putting all eight pieces together and really, really, really just hoping that it would save. And luckily it did. But it took a long time. And I think the the entire 45 minute edit, probably took like–I think I remember putting a movie on and it was still exporting– it took probably like over an hour and a half just to export the thing, because I also really wanted it in high quality, even though there were screen recorded clips and all the clips that were like 480p, I really wanted the whole thing to be 4K60. So it took like an hour and a half to save 45 minute edit 4K60 on my phone.
I still have all the the different pieces that I used to edit that video on videotape on my phone, and I actually kind of want to do a yearly celebration of “Ten Years” by going back and just showing how stupid it is that I made the whole thing in like ten different parts on my phone with a whole bunch of, really crazy determination and editing.
You talk about Odesza, the electronic duo. You mentioned them in your video. And you show footage from different shows. I thought it was really creative that you use that for the thumbnail because before I watched it, I was like, that’s a cool thumbnail. I thought, you graphic designed it.
But then it was from from an Odesza show.
Do you associate their music with parkour or were you just shouting them out?
nahulu
It was definitely both. But, a lot of my earlier videos and I would even say, like the concept of wanting to make an edit of me doing parkour comes from listening to their music, and the first ever video I made on my YouTube is called Odesza, and the first real like big project I ever worked on concluded with an Odesza edit of me going to their shows.
And then I think there’s been a couple more videos where I use clips from their shows just because I love them so much, and I’m so infatuated by seeing them live. It just felt like ten years was the time to really just fully dive into that idea of, kind of honoring what has inspired me since day one to make edits and just saying thank you to them for being such a big part of my inspiration, in parkour, but also just life-wise. Completely unrelated to parkour. Going to their shows has been such a big part of my life for the past, eight years. So it’s definitely both.
“The first ever video I made on my YouTube is called “Odesza”, and the first real like big project I ever worked on concluded with an Odesza edit of me going to their shows…
I love them so much, and I’m so infatuated by seeing them live. It just felt like “Ten Years” was the time to really just fully dive into that idea of, kind of honoring what has inspired me since day one to make edits.”
This is probably this is definitely completely unrelated, but did you have, senior honors thesis in high school?
I didn’t take that class.
nahulu
Okay. Yeah, that’s a shame. That was the only class I ever liked in all of high school.
People loved that class. It was sought after.
nahulu
Yeah.
I was taking, like, creative writing or something.
nahulu
That’s cool too. That’s cool.
One of her. projects for senior honors thesis was to make a video edit of something, I think, just like of your life. And then that’s the first big project I ever worked on, and that I did edit on iMovie. And that was even worse to to export and figure out. But it was, like an eight minute video just about parkour.
I used a lot of it Odesza music, and that is pretty much the start of me wanting to take videography– and just making video edits– seriously. It was that assignment that she gave us, and then after that it was like, “oh, I want to keep doing this“. I definitely think that project was the first domino that ended up being ten years, eventually.
So you should have taken that class.
Did you take *News* Report?
nahulu
I did not, but I watched it every morning because we had to.
That probably would have changed my outlook on video editing. If I had to do *News* Report every week, that probably would have tired me out.
Would you say that *news* report led you here to making your website and doing podcasts?
Not really.
nahulu
Yeah.
I feel like you move the way a video game characters move.
nahulu
Yeah.
Do you relate to that?
nahulu
Yeah, I definitely, when I’m spending time with people who don’t do the thing I do, they definitely liken it to me being a video game character or, or, a movie character or something.
“When I’m spending time with people who don’t do the thing I do, they definitely liken it to me being a video game character or, or, a movie character or something.”
Would you ever use your skills for vigilante justice?
nahulu
Ooh. I wouldn’t be opposed to it. That’s something I haven’t thought. I haven’t put too much thought into that, but. Yes. Yes, I probably would. Yeah.
I was thinking about how, as far as people, you know, who I knew from elementary school– I don’t know what a lot of people are doing– but I do know that as far as, people I know from elementary school who are like, doing the thing that appears to be just right for them– You’re the top of the list. Jared is doing exactly the thing he was meant to be doing.
nahulu
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I would agree, I would agree I appreciate it.
Okay. Well, that kind of brings all my questions to an end. Do you have any parting words for the listeners of Denver Life This and the supporters of bottlerag.org?
nahulu
Find what you’re passionate about and never stop doing it. Treat it like you’re a kid coming across it for the first time until the day you die. And that is one of the many keys to a happy life…I think.
“Find what you’re passionate about and never stop doing it. Treat it like you’re a kid coming across it for the first time until the day you die. And that is one of the many keys to a happy life…I think.
Amen, brother.
nahulu
Amen, brother.
All right. Thank you for joining us.
nahulu
Thank you for having me I appreciate it.
Yeah. Cut.
nahulu
Cut.
Thank you for listening or reading! Thank you to Jared Nahulu for talking with us. Take a listen to his parkour playlist he shared with us here.
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