It goes without saying that males & females serve different biological roles in the animal kingdom, and that within Tricking there is no exception - though depending on the lens by which we perceive the sport, the ability to recognize & identify who people are helps us to make informed decisions about how we can proceed forward safely.
There are already pre-determined patterns of human migration and the individuals that set these tones have been in the sport for a very long time, and have been layering, insolating and accumulating sources of power to ensure that not just their hold over the sport remains in tact, but also for their own survivability. As one of those older beings who has come to understand the industry, now from a greater distance, and thus with greater clarity, the particular contribution I make to the sport is one of understanding and the intention of encouraging self awareness to help lead people away from danger.
Personally, I never had the best guidance growing up, and so I stumbled into the sport without as much education as I have now, and admittedly I have even made my own fair share of mistakes as well - but the forces I am up against are a commercially motivated group that seeks to exercise control, in many cases coercive control over athletes that do not even know their own legal rights nor have the education to identify the tactics or know subtle laws that are less known or ways to fight back -
( you can fight back ).
Hi my name is David Milner and my goal is to turn my life experiences into a model that can maybe, possibly, even just a little bit.. help the next generation out to avoid going in the wrong direction. As I said I never had a guardian, and though imperfect as I may be, I do this because it is what I wish I had when I was a kid. Here is journalism with advocacy to help improve the lives of Trickers everywhere ~
I am a human being just like every body else, so it goes without saying that I can relate to all kinds of people, and I can understand others because we all kind of share the same soul to some degree, though who we become depends on what we feed into. Some of us build in one direction. Generally speaking though, we get an impression as to who people are by how they present themselves outwardly - and of course we manage our image in order to be perceived the way we want to be perceived.
Though we can't always trust people or identify people based on appearances - we kind of have to take a deeper dive, and gain a better understanding by recognizing things called "patterns of behaviour".
Time helps to reveal people and their intentions based on their patterns.
People come into the sport for various reasons, not always overtly known. Tricking is highly attractive, but also a potentially useful skill to have. I know personally when I found tricking it was because I fell inlove - and the vast majority of my career has been spent on a personal journey exploring that love. I have interacted with other people, but I always felt like I was in my best place when I would find my own park to train at, or go to open gym on a day and a time where I knew it would be kind of empty, and go to do what I would visualize in my mind. I really just wanted to train and improve and get some of those memories on camera. Kind of wanted to be like my heroes and just do cool stuff. I would say I was an athlete - and still to this day, I am a Tricker at heart.
Other people recognize that Tricking is a skill that helps people to make their way into the entertainment industry - live shows, stunts, battles. Kind of like how there had been circus performers that would entertain a king back in the day. Trickers are also expanding the field of being paid to provide services related to education, and guiding athletes towards self improvement and helping mold them into champion athletes. Running a gym can also be a high reward business as well.
When people get into the sport, when they find a community they might already have the desire to find a stunt crew, and so might go to a gym that has a strong presence of people who are connected to the industry. They spend their time integrating, adapting the lingo, customs and general ideology and political viewpoints that show that they are similar and deserve to be accepted. Others seek community to simply train with people who are like-minded, and others have business ideas and views that they believe will benefit the industry.
But there are also another category of individual, one aimed at females ( sorry females ) and a term was coined by a tricker I knew growing up named Benjamin Atkins who goes by the name "Towels", who came up with the term ( and brace yourself as there is an inappropriate term ) this term is TGS " Tricker Groupie Slut " - an admittedly rude term, but it was an observation made as a teenager that he used to describe how some females would come into this predominately male sport ... just to be physically "close" and "available" to these athletes. You could maybe refer to them as fans of the sport, but groupies typically harness their physical attractiveness in order to establish physical relationships and so seek to be within proximity.
( As a side note: I am merely pointing out that the term exists, not a criticism on Benjamin Atkins at all, as it was created when he was a teenager, and did point out a very real phenomena in various spaces such as groupies that follow bands around, or ones that hang out near artists or athletes. Benjamin has made numerous contributions to the sport via video journalism detailing some of the greatest lands in history [thank you, Ben !])
As I learned more about the world, I see how society works in terms of pipelines, and why laws have been designed to ensure that people don't just get pipelined into the clutches of business owners who run off-the-books businesses that seek to exploit labour or the anatomy of females for sexual purposes - those are what trafficking laws are designed for and for people who have been paying attention to the news lately, Jeffrey Epstein is a famous modern day example of someone who ran one for politicians and big business heads mainly in the United States. Actually, it fed from international models as well as orphanages, and the women were brought to his private island for the purposes of exploitation.
Is it really inconceivable that Tricking could be affected by corruption? Particularly by people who have a mindset that develops systemic, commercially driven, concealed business practices that operates to scout & recruit athletes ( and also females ) for the purposes of making use of what happens to be available to them in their local environments?
In Tricking, Internet groups ( possibly anonymous ones ) & in particular the "open gym" programs are two places where individuals that come into the sport have the potential to be pipelined and trafficked without even knowing that they are being influenced into a scheme, often because the way artists market the situation could be misleading, or omit important details.
Some athletes who use that lingo might see females hanging around the community and aren't driven to improve themselves, or even make it in the industry. It's entirely possible that people who use the term TGS might say to themselves or their friends " there's a TGS over there " and because many Trickers who go to open gym do so engaging in the sport as a personal hobby, it's not out of the realm of the ordinary that people will strike up relationships, or at least attempt to.
I've previously written in great length why here in Canada it is a logical conclusion to create a sports governing body, with the appropriate roles for employees who develop proper business models and systems who deal with athletes for legitimate purposes. Clear visibility in terms of a business structure, with individuals that have written duties and responsibilities, and paperwork to confirm and validate these facts. Mechanisms and channels for reporting - and being free to complain without being threatened to be blacklisted from events or even sued for simply defending oneself or reporting wrong doing - all things that safe and healthy companies do in many parts of the world - but something Tricking greatly lacks.
Having proper governance could mean that people who are well educated on these subjects, including managing conflicts of interests, could intervene and assist in ensuring that all relationships are going to be fair and appropriate for the environment - we currently do not have guardians that intervene, and as a 35 year old, I highly doubt that your average teenager or young adult will know about complex laws or laws that require proper research.
Proper intervention could not only deter wrongdoing - but there are also people who may even intend for wrongdoing to occur - because once that happens, anything damaging could be used as leverage to extort and therefor control people - we do live in that kind of world after all, and in a healthy community with professionals, harmful situations are prevented with pro-activity and good faith.
Because I have been a solo player for the vast majority of my career, I am essentially free to evaluate free of bias. I don't have to accept or be pressured into believing anything that Tricking organizations might want me to believe in terms of adopting whatever views or narratives they might wish to impose on me, or any system they might want me to participate in.
Since I took time to study these subjects, which by the way are never talked about ( at least publicly ) I'm exploring a niche aspect of the sport but it is important. Tricking is an underground, newly establishing sport, and with that comes growing pains. There is room for mistakes, I think, because it's natural, but we should also seek to repair those mistakes once we realize we've made them - it's not an excuse to keep going and cover it up, it's better to work in the right direction - that's what good intentioned people do in society.
Tricking exists in a grey area, and grey areas are particularly dangerous due to ambiguity - people can be intentionally opaque about who they are and what their intentions are, but my best recommendation is for people to establish themselves clearly, properly.
If you are an athlete, present yourself as one. If you are a professional, run your business properly & if your goal is to come into the sport just to establish personal and intimate relationships, this is a much more difficult area to manage, because this aspect of life can create something called a conflict of interest, and industries that deal with these topics are often highly regulated or might not even be legal to begin with, depending on the country.
Most people wouldn't go to karate class to find a partner, but it is understandable that for some people, they might not see any other possibility than finding a partner that does karate, and that isn't something we can really stop - some people will come into the sport with those fixed intentions, but it's an entirely different industry if the purpose is to make a financial gain or it could outright be illegal to use deception in order to influence individuals to engage in sexual activities - business owners who intend to run their establishments properly typically have rules that ensure that only lawful conduct takes place in the area that they have liability over. If it's known that there are people that have motivations of this nature, it's an obligation to intervene and correct the situation.
Since the "Open Gym Program" is often where a lot Tricking takes place, it is also where a lot of grey area activity in Tricking takes place, it is the highest risk environment for exploitation to occur. That is something I now understand much better. Throw power differentials on top of that, and people that come into the sport who are easily submissive, trying to make it into the industry, who trust "professional coaches" are the most at-risk for falling for a trafficking scheme. That is why business owners in particular need to be the most careful about being in a position of trust, especially if you advertise yourself as a professional coach, and have "followers" that trust you.
Trickers are more international than ever before, and 2 or even 5 seemingly unrelated competitions or tricking brands, could actually be linked by a common friendship group that may or may not make their existence known publicly or even legally. We do live in a world where people think in terms of systemic and widespread control over people, and use different tactics to funnel, coerce and deceive people into that life - people hide things for a reason, and as I mentioned, image is carefully crafted in society.
Business owners have an obligation to society, but also to parents and to their athletes and customers who trust that they are not being mislead about the direction they are going in, and when we recognize that people come into the sport for the wrong reasons, we have to moderate their behaviour and at least protect everything we do have control over.
Artists have the capacity to market and use visuals to impress, but it could also be a form of distraction and to omit key facts and details about events. It's easy to fall inlove, just like I did, but the most important part is integrity and self awareness. It helps to ensure that parents are involved and know what their children are doing, but that trafficking can affect anyone of any age.
It's one thing to establish a genuine boyfriend/girlfriend relationship - these things are bound to happen naturally, but it's another if women are being scouted and deceived into a romance scam or worse - because those things are bound to happen as well, and we just need to be ontop of it, and to mitigate as much harm as possible.
Know your true friends, but also who the real enemy is,
Thank you
Champion David
Canada
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