The year is 2003. It’s a Saturday morning at my dojo in southern Florida, and my sensei is pushing a DVD into the player. Our small but scrappy team of Xtreme Martial Arts athletes is already sweaty from drilling hook kicks and front handsprings, dreaming of maybe landing a 540 kick or aerial one day. I haven’t even heard of a corkscrew.
Sitting around the old TV, we gaze up with near-religious reverence as a man wearing a black gi appears onscreen in a grassy field. We then watch Jon Valera teach a masterclass in explosive kicking technique, leaping and slicing through the air in a way that makes my nine-year-old brain melt. It’s epic beyond words. And god, I want to do that.
Maybe it’s just my early 30s talking, but I find myself feeling nostalgic for those days decades past—when everything about tricking felt strange and magical and new, when I could be blown away by a simple butterfly twist (some of us used to call it a “barrel roll”). It was an early, formative era, both for me personally and for tricking at large, and it had been starting to fade from memory—until, a year ago, a new Instagram account emerged from the digital ether.
Since then, Classic Tricking has been posting daily reminders that we, the current tricking community, stand on the shoulders of giants. The trickers featured (like Jon Valera!) are always trailblazers and often unsung heroes, people that shaped the culture back then and helped make it what it is today. But the identity and intentions of the mastermind behind the account are among tricking’s greatest mysteries—so I decided to send them a message. And we did an interview. Enjoy.
(P.S. Our conversation took place via email. I’ve included their responses here exactly as written, with adjustments made only to the spacing for readability. So if you wanna go full Pepe Silvia and analyze every bit of punctuation to figure out who they are, this is all valid source material.)
JP: In the fragmented world of Instagram, you've found a way to bring trickers together over iconic clips that many have forgotten and others have never seen before. How did you first come up with the idea for this project?
CT: classic_tricking was a necessary creation.
It is the duty of those trickers from bygone eras, many who have devoted multiple decades of their life, to preserve the culture of Tricking by sharing their stories and passing down important historical knowledge. This includes presenting it in a language that is spoken by the next generation, or we may see Tricking completely fall away from where it began.
"Just because something has been lost does not mean that it must stay forgotten."
JP: Until now, your identity has remained a mystery to the community. What has motivated you to stay anonymous? Are there any details of your identity (age, gender, nationality, etc.) that you would feel comfortable sharing?
CT: No comment.
JP: How do you select which clips to feature, and where do you get them?
CT:
adjective: CLASSIC
- Something judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality, serving as a standard and an outstanding example of its kind.
noun: CLASSIC
- a work of art with recognized and established value. Something timeless in aesthetic, noteworthy of its kind and historically significant.
JP: Tell me about your personal relationship with tricking. Do you train? Mostly admire from afar? What does tricking mean to you?
CT: It has been said before; Trickers are the greatest athletes the world has never seen. No sport is more expressive and no art form is more athletic. Tricking deserves its rightful recognition but if passionate + forward-thinking members of the community don’t make it happen, then Tricking will never get the respect it truly deserves.
JP: What members of the tricking community have you, personally, found most inspiring?
CT: Anyone who is part of the community and who actively gives back. eg. Gym owners, Content creators, Stage performers, Media professionals, Gathering organisers, Tricking coaches, Brand ambassadors, Pioneering athletes who although not at their peak anymore, still make the time to show up to session and engage with newer Trickers to keep the fire burning.
"To head in the right direction requires that you know where you came from."
JP: You may be the closest thing our community has to a true historian. How do you think tricking has changed over the years, as both a sport and a culture?
CT: Tricking has never been bigger yet the community feels increasingly disconnected. The death of online forums silenced the conversations around Tricking and the transition into short-form content affected how Tricking is now practiced + presented.
In pursuit of the highest possible skill level, the importance of balancing other areas (like finesse + individuality) found in the “Martial Arts Tricking” of the past has been sacrificed.
However just because something has been lost does not mean that it must stay forgotten. No matter when you started Tricking, the next generation always finds a way to supersede and eclipse the limits of what seemed possible for your time. This is the nature of Tricking.
For Tricking to reach its full potential, all areas must be nurtured, respected and valued equally in training. Only then will we really see just how far Tricking can go.
But remember that more importantly than any forgettable + questionable world’s first you might be chasing, the Tricking community is what truly matters; past, present + future.
"Start taking action, always believing that there is more that can be done."
JP: Classic Tricking has been such an inventive and valuable project. Are there other tricking-related projects that you may bring to life in the future? Or maybe a tricking project that you'd like to see someone else work on?
CT: This is much bigger than an Instagram account. Watch this space.
JP: What hopes do you have for the future of tricking?
CT: Without any guidance, the future of Tricking is left in the hands of younger + less experienced trickers who may not know or even be capable of taking it in the right direction. The nature of Tricking means that it will always evolve, but to head in the right direction requires that you know where you came from.
Not enough has been done to consolidate the archives of Tricking, and older members of the community owe it to future trickers to continue to educate in order to not watch our culture erode and fade away.
The reason classic_tricking has made an impact is purely through consistency. The first post went up on 1/15/24 and as of this interview, classic_tricking has more than 16,000,000 total views, over 1000 samplers have been shared and over 500 Trickers have been featured to an audience of 50,000 followers.
Whoever is reading this; Take some responsibility for the future of Tricking and start taking action, always believing that there is more that can be done.
“Now more than ever, Martial Arts Tricking doesn’t need your skills. Tricking needs your spirit” -Some Australian guy...
Ps. Anyone wishing to make contact, discuss further or send footage for consideration,please reach out via classictrickingmedia@gmail.com.
Thank you.
Jeremy Price is a longtime martial artist and tricker repping the [muggleslayers] and Team TrickStrong. He’s written about tricking, stunts, and heavy music for VICE, Alternative Press, and more. Follow him on Instagram at @jpricetricks.