Travis Wong plays the character of good-guy-gone-bad Jimmy Angel. Below, he discusses his profession, his training, his future, and of course, the LXD.

Source: 24-7 Magazine

1. Tell us a little about yourself and your movement?

My name is Travis Wong, I’m 25 years old from Los Angeles, CA. I’m a member of the World Freerunning Parkour Federation (WFPF), The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (LXD), The Lost Boys Family, and the co-owner of the White Lotus Martial Arts Center.

In reference to parkour and freerunning, my movement is highly influenced by my martial arts background as well as my passion for tricking and dancing. I try to implement elements of all of these into my movement or “style,” and oftentimes I’m more concerned about creating my own movement rather than making sure that I can do all of the same moves/tricks as everyone else. I love trying new things and manipulating previous vaults that have existed in parkour since its origin, as well as trying to base new movements on what caters best to my body and muscle memory from prior training. Whenever I go to training spots or recognizable ones throughout the world that I’ve never visited, I always try to make a video or work on movements that I had never seen performed in that space rather than recreating the movements that I’ve already seen.

2. How Long have you been involved in movement?

(Brief overview from child hood to present about your involvement in diff forms of movement)

I’ve been involved in movement since I was an infant, my parents beginning my martial arts training at the age of 6 months. As a result I was able to walk at a younger age than most children and actually began competing on the national Kung Fu circuit at the age of 3 1/2. I competed religiously and trained until I was inducted into the Inside Kung Fu Hall of Fame at the age of 14. I was a national forms and weapons champion for several years, and the 3-time grandchampion at the International Karate Championships in Long Beach, which was the same tournament that introduced the world to Chuck Norris, Bill Superfoot Wallace, and Bruce Lee. At that time I chose to retire and focus upon running track & field more seriously, a sport I had taken up a passion for since I was nine. I ran primarily long distance events specializing in the mile and 2 mile, and was fortunate to qualify to the Junior Olympics once as well as placing within CIF Finals for Los Angeles County.

In my senior year of high school I stopped both martial arts and running out of rebellion towards my parents as well as the desire to have more time for myself, and began slowly picking up tricking again. Once I went to college I no longer had anyone to train with or a proper facility, so I kept up with my college’s Beginner Tumbling classes which gave me access to a gym a couple days a week. In my last year of college I met one of my teammates Andrew Eng in the first week of tumbling class, as he was the first person I had seen “trick” since I was in high school. We started exchanging his knowledge of parkour for my knowledge of tricking, and eventually ended up reconnecting when I graduated to train and eventually form the Lost Boys Family.

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