Atilla knows where to go for the cooolest walls in Rotterdam.
Atilla Bron is already a great freerunner talent at the age of fourteen. Who are the big game changers for Atilla that made him such an avid freerunner? And is he never afraid?
Who was your big game changer?
For me, these were my trainers from the Freestyle School Rotterdam. Onur and Alex. They have trained and pushed me over the past few years, offer me mental support and know what I can do. They help me determine if what I want to do is not too dangerous. I can spar with them. That’s nice, because it can be quite exciting mentally.
When I train with friends in the city, they also help me to make choices. They also know what I can do. When I’m in doubt, they say, “ah yeah, you can do this.” But the other way around, they also say, “nah, don’t do that.”
Freerunning has always been inside me, I think. I used to climb into everything, at every playground I hung in the climbing frame. At some point, I started watching YouTube videos of freerunners. Now I’ve been serious for two years. I train a lot in the gym in Rotterdam, but I prefer to go freerunning outside in the city. With friends, and other people I make new friends with. Then we’re going to walk around a little bit and we’re all looking for walls and stuff, where you can jump well. Sometimes we freerun on tall buildings, but we don’t do that often, because it’s quite dangerous. You do play with your life.
Are you never afraid?
Yes sure. It’s also very mental. But what I do then is prepare me well. If I get to a place that I find exciting, I start with small jumps, for example. I start with one of two meters, for example, and if I succeed, I go to three meters. If I’m really confident, I’ll do tricks with it. Such as somersaults, frontflips and backflips. But with these kinds of tricks I always start in the gym, with a soft surface. Before I went outside with my first somersault, I had practiced it in the gym for at least two and a half months.
Fortunately, I’ve never broken anything. The other day I ended up badly. I landed with my leg just not well on an edge. Then I had a hole in my shin and had to put in five stitches.
When do you feel like a game changer yourself?
Together with a friend I teach small children. You can see that they look up to me. When we are freerunning outside, there are often children with us. Then they ask where we learned that, and say, I want that too! Then I tell them that you can train for it at the Freestyle School.
Where can we follow you?
Instagram: atilla._.pkr