Robbie Griffith is starting to get recognized in urban sport, and it is easy to understand why. I'll confess openly that Robbie Griffith's a lot cooler than I was at 12. For me, a 7th grade Slammin ' day meant eating Frosted Mini-Wheats while watching Animaniacs. On the other hand, Griffith enjoys the execution of smooth tuck-and-rolls on crushing concrete and hurdling across the deep chasms between buildings.
Griffith, who goes by the street name "Wee Beastie," is Parkour Generations ' youngest ever participant, a London-based organization dedicated to urban sport creation. In the "Developing Athlete Programme," a mentoring job that pairs parkour prodigies with older, wiser and certainly bruised-er free athletes, he was welcomed into the community last month as a trainee. Griffith, who often wears a backpack to practice, is "an outstanding young man with great talent, enthusiasm and commitment to discipline," writes Generations, "and we are confident that he will have a bright future in our mentoring system and in parkour in general."
The fleet-footed lad has been practising at the Coatbridge parkour course for more than a year, considered to be the first of its kind in Scotland. Fellow Coatbridge enthusiast Peter McKee posted this video of the Beastie doing his thing on YouTube, saying: "Step over Altaïr and Ezio. It looks like Abstergo doesn't need the Animus to go all of the Assassin's Creed on the streets!" (If you understand that, you may be playing too many video games.) The body runs aground.
And here's the youngster kicking it in Scotland, performing a four-part leapfrog of walls like it was nothing:
