Damien Walters Interview

We wrote about Damien Walters and featured his 2010 street gymnastics show reel last week. Well, we've been fortunate enough to be able to get in touch with Damien by email this week and he gave us a quick e-interview about his career in gymnastics. How old were you when you first ventured into Gymnastics? Tell us a bit about your progress within the sport? I first got into Gymnastics at the age of 7 at Amber Valley Gymnastics club. At the age of 10 or 11, I started to realise i was more suited to tumbling so trained more in this and at the age of 12 i did my first little tumbling competition.I never really took it seriously until one day when i was around 17. I was taken down to see the national coach, Vadim Skakun. I think he must have seen a little talent in me as he told my coach at the time he should put me in the British Championships. I went into the comp.... and I did rubbish! But i decided from then that that is what i wanted to do and I would try my best to make sure I was never that bad again! From then, I started training more and more down at Lillishall until one day when i was 19 i was asked to live there. I competed in my first World Championship in 2001. I did ok but nothing special so I went and trained again and came back in 2003 and came 5th overall and we won the World Championships as a team. As you can tell, I was pretty happy and from then on and I just had the confidence to keep going and going. I got to winning world cup and being ranked number 4 in the world at one point. You are, without doubt, incredibly fit and unbelievably strong. Are there any lifestyle habits, aside from regular training, that you would say are essential to achieving and maintaining your level of fitness? I would honestly say that fitness will come easily if you just find something you like doing. I mean, nobody likes doing things they don't want to do and if you see exercise as a chore then it's much harder work. Find a sport you love with a group of people you like being around and you will be fit in no time. I'm lucky as i do somethig I absolutely love with the people I love being around. How did you become involved in free running? I don't really see what I do as 'free running.' I just see it as acrobatics outside. My friends do free running and parkour but I just do little bits to fit in with the moves i want to learn. For me, it's just trying to invent new things and take on new challenges . Some people call it 'free running,' and that's fine - It doesn't matter how people refer to it. Street Gynastics seems to have captured the imagination of a whole group of people who might not previously have considered themselves interested in "gymnastics." What are the similarities between the more traditional forms of gymnastics and what you do? They are very similar. As I say, it more or less is just acrobatics outside, but it's generally seen as a bit of a 'cooler' thing to do so people love it lol! Your first role as a stuntman was a pretty impressive one - in hit film Hellboy II. How did you get involved? I became a stunt man by fluke really! I got a phone call from a guy called Brad Allen, who is Jackie Chan's lead stunt coordinator, and he said he needed a tumbler in a movie called 'Hell Boy II. I thought he was joking at first, but he convinced me he was serious. Within 2 weeks, I was out there filming. I honestly thought it would be the end of it when i finished but he rang me again and said he liked the way I worked am was interested in doing another movie with me, with even more stunts in. From there the stunt work just kept coming. I never really initially wanted to be a stuntman but since then I've done loads of different types of films. You've been ranked 4th in the world for tumbling, won the Taurus World Stunt Awards, had TV stunt man roles in films such as Hellboy II, Scott Pilgrim vs the World and Kick-Ass, taken part in the Trampoline World Championships and enjoyed some Internet success with your 2009 showreel video becoming one of Youtube's most viewed. That's an impressive CV. But if you had to choose just one achievement to name as your best, what would it be? If I had to choose one I would choose winning world champs in 2001 as a team and world cup 2004. They really were highlights for me and made me feel like everything I'd worked for was worth it :) That's not to say the others havent been great, of course, but the tumbling was the best for me. I know we've already featured one Damien Walters video here... but his stuff is absolutely engrossing to watch, so we're going to include the 2009 one here! You can find Damien's Youtube channel here.