Zac Gordon

Zac Gordon is a USA Parkour certified instructor as well as TV & internet personality and athlete. He has successfully ran a Ninja program in Harrisburg since 2014. He has taught a variety of parkour and ninja skills to hundreds of youth, growing their confidence mentally and physically all while burning calories and having a blast.

Growing up Zac was a competitive gymnast for 10 years with an extensive athletic background in recreational and action sports. Including parkour, which he has practicing now for over 2 decades.

He has also earned a living as a successful TV personality being featured on such shows as American Ninja Warrior, Americas Got Talent, Go-Big Show & is a professional tagger on the FOX TV show “Ultimate Tag”, hosted by NFL players JJ, TJ, & Derek Watt. He is a proud husband & father of three (Raiden, Eevee, & Bert), that also love parkour, attend his classes, and even help teach. His dream is to own a facility where he can provide a safe, fun environment to kids of all ages, (& adults), being able to pass along his knowledge of movement. Providing valuable mental and physical growth that anyone can benefit from in daily life, athletic hobbies, recreational or action sports, or even professional careers such as stunt work for commercials, TV shows, & movies.

Thomas Alquist

Thomas Alquist is a trained and certified WFPF (World Freerunning Parkour Federation) instructor. He is also a trained and certified gymnastics and rock climbing coach who has been working at Gymnastics facilities since 2011.  Thomas works with both kids and adults, encouraging and helping them to achieve their fitness goals.

In 2016, Thomas built a Ninja program while having only one student in the class for three weeks.  He is instrumental for the Ninja program’s growth to 180 students three years later. Thomas has organized and hosted multiple Ultimate Ninja Athlete Association (UNAA) league competitions in addition to many charity events such as Church Without Walls, Make A Wish, and Veteran Warrior.

Thomas believes that having a facility for kids and adults to express their interest in extreme sports is important for building confidence, endurance and physical strength in a safe environment. Thomas knows from his own personal experience that kids who grow up doing extreme sports develop an increased focus, a way to relieve stress, and learn discipline and persistence.  Having a facility like Urban Playground will provide all the important attributes of building character and physical strength while under the supervision of trained professionals.

Josiah Sunday

Josiah Sunday is a certified WFPF (World Freerunning Parkour Federation) instructor. He has been training parkour, ninja and other sports for about 5 years. His passion for the art of movement began when he moved to a home with enough yard space to get a trampoline. Once he realized how much he enjoyed learning new ways to move he began taking classes under Zac Gordon. He learned so much from Zac and training at home with YouTube. He even built a few ninja obstacles at home, including monkey bars and his favorite, the salmon ladder. He really likes extreme sports because it is great for improving physical fitness, focus, control and is just a ton of fun! He not only enjoys parkour, free running and ninja, but also really enjoys tricking and Taekwondo. Besides taking classes, he spent last year interning under Coach Thomas and Zac and learned a lot about how best to teach and work with kids. He is a recent home school high school graduate and is now employed here at Urban Playground. It has been his dream to share his love of extreme sports with others and he has always enjoyed working with kids. He is very excited to have the opportunity to work at Urban Playground and help teach what he loves and improve himself as an athlete and teacher.

Jasper

Jasper is a certified nice guy. He has been teaching ninja warrior since 2015 and has a degree in Early Childhood & Special Education. While earning his degree he taught preschool and he is now a 2nd-grade teacher at Harrisburg Christian School. He teaches kids at school during the day and at Urban Playground at night 😎 Jasper grew up wrestling in Annville, PA. He loves the outdoors, wiggling his ears, his favorite movie is 101 Dalmatians. Don’t let him out of your sight because he just might fall asleep 😴

Ryan Reber

Ryan Reber is a World Taekwondo Federation certified third degree blackbelt with over 11 years of experience teaching Taekwondo as well as 15 years teaching martial arts tricking. He has run programs for traditional Taekwondo for kids and adults, bully safety, adults self defense, weapons, and assistant instructor programs as well as coached competition teams and a demonstration team.

Ryan first got his inspiration for martial arts from his father who did Muay Thai in Thailand as a young child. From there Ryan would go on to study and practice various martial arts like Muay Thai, kung fu, and Brazilian Capoeria, before starting Taekwondo in 2009.

His passion for martial arts has been a lifelong journey that drives his love and ability to pass on his skills and knowledge to others. He believes through martial arts we can all learn to be stronger and more confident people to better our daily lives.