Friday, April 25, 2008

TEAM SF and the Online Tricking Community

TEAM SF is proudly the most hated name among other tricking teams in the US and abroad. This originates from our teams' movement. Let's call this movement "Tricking 2.0" because it is being greatly driven by forums, Youtube, and various sites on the internet and is an evolution of the sport. Tricking 2.0 represents a new wave and breath in tricking that separates Team SF in many ways from the already established (old) tricking mentality which is non-competitive, strictly rooted in martial arts, and tightly-knit to only certain people. By definition, tricking is a mixture of martial arts, breakdancing, parkour, and gymnastics. Tricking 2.0 focuses on all of these aspects intensely as opposed to mostly just the martial arts aspect. We'll call the old tricking mentality "Martial Arts Tricks" because it's firmly and primarily consistent of kicks with a few flips thrown in. Tricking 2.0 is an extreme sport in which there is an element of danger. For example, Tricking 2.0 is not limited to spring floors and can occur on the street, in grass, on a basketball court, on the freeway, or in your own home. Also, taking from the element of parkour, Tricking 2.0 promotes flipping and kicking over things in the environment like garbage cans or cars and flipping and tricking off of things like ledges ad balconies. In addition, there is more of a flipping and dynamic twisting element to Tricking 2.0 to which Team SF promotes.
Team SF is still involved with the already established tricking community because it is evolving sure enough, but our mentality of tricking is very much different than the way it is now with MA tricks. For this reason, and like change usually does, there are many conflicts between our team and many of the MA Tricks teams.
Does this render us in any aspects? Not really. If anything it helps. People talk trash and make demeaning comments on tricking forums about our teams and we counter, but for reasons that most people that are arguing don't understand. We want the competitive nature among teams, without that there is no sport, no reason to watch, no interest. Tricking 2.0 pushes competition.
Also, we have been revolutionizing what can be done with tricking. Before it was just something tricksters did at gatherings and with their spare time, Tricking 2.0 is a lifestyle.
With our bi-monthly webisodes, we show how our team is trying to further popularize tricking by spreading the know via nightclub performances, battles, sports sponsors, and touring. With our webisodes, other teams have also been inspired to do so and trailers have been released using the same term "webisodes." We feel this is a step in the right direction and feel if the sport keeps heading in this direction and we can get more kids involved through our non-profit organization, Tricking Above the Influence, we can make tricking an alternative to inner-city kids to recreational drug use and abuse. Also, this will put a sport into free-minded youth who can bring their determination and hunger into revolutionizing tricking to whole new levels.
And that's why Team SF is the most hated name among other MA tricks teams.

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