One of the best things you can do for yourself is get your body moving. It helps keeps muscles loose and limber, promotes a healthy heart and contributes to an overall better sense of wellbeing. But in Toronto, finding a place to run around and rediscover your inner kid isn’t always possible. There are gyms, of course, but memberships are expensive, and city parks – in the downtown core – tend to be small and designated for kids more than adults.
Enter Dan Iaboni, who opened The Monkey Vault Parkour Training Centre in 2008 and moved to its current, 10,000 square foot location in 2013. With Toronto’s long, cold winters causing mass migration indoors, finding a safe spot to run, jump and flip was a rarity. “Everyone who did the sport of parkour in Toronto really didn’t have a home or somewhere to go once it got cold,” Dan says. “There was no such thing as a place where we could go in and play, so I figured I would create that.”
Opening The Monkey Vault was a natural extension of Dan’s passion. He describes himself as a kid at heart, someone who never wanted to leave his carefree and physical days behind. “I was always a kid who climbed trees and tried to climb my school – stuff like that,” he says, “and everyone always told me, ‘No, you can’t do that.’” Dan didn’t listen, of course, because he knew that retaining a youthful spirit is essential for a happy life.
