When I’m in costume, one of the most common heckles I get from people is, “hey, Spidey! Do a flip!”

If there’s any superhero who’s the poster child for acrobatics, it’s Spider-Man. Flipping is sort of his modus operandi. People like to presume upon this and make all kinds of jokes when they see cosplayers dressed as him.

For a while, I enjoyed countering with my best in-character excuses as to why I couldn’t flip.

“Sorry, man. I was fighting Doc Ock earlier and took a Honda Civic to the chest. It was either that or let him destroy my favorite bodega. I know you’re disappointed, but listen—if you ever try the pastrami from that place, you’ll 100% get why I had to eat that car.”

But there came a point when I entertained a new idea: what if I did know how to flip?

Any guy can buy an extravagant red and blue spandex onesie and wander around a convention hall like a hapless puppy, but how many of them can honor the athleticism of Spider-Man?

(Minus the super strength and crawling around on the ceiling, of course...)

How much more satisfying would it be if I could actually do a flip on command and completely dumbfound those silly hecklers? Was there really anything stopping me from trying?

“Yes,” objected my conscience. “I like having a spine that works as God intended.”

Me too, I thought. How about I find a coach who can teach me safely then?

“Good idea.”

That’s why in June of 2025, I went looking for a coach online. To my surprise, this guy Aj Rachetta (one of Henry’s childhood friends) had been running his own parkour coaching business not far from where I lived.

Aj is fourth degree black belt in Kenpo Karate. He was notorious for his martials arts demonstrations at school talent shows, demonstrations which he often punctuated with a backflip or badass-looking trick kick. He was also, occasionally, a professional birthday party Spider-Man.

Based on this information, I knew he was the right guy to be my coach.

From my first session, Aj and I hatched a humorous plan: he would teach me, a guy with zero martial arts or gymnastics experience, how to confidently do a front flip—in complete secrecy.

I would document the whole journey. But I wouldn’t broadcast it to my friends. I wouldn’t tell my immediate family either, and we both agreed that he wouldn’t post any footage of me on his social media prematurely.

Part of me wanted to do this simply because it would be funny to bust out my new party trick to the bewilderment of everyone in the room. Another part of me wanted to do this to push the perceived limits of my physical and mental abilities.

But the copywriter in me thought, if I could capture my brother’s reaction to my flip on camera, it would be a killer hook for a social media ad.

So, just as Peter Parker must hide his true identity from the public, I was fortunately able to keep my training a secret for five months—long enough to learn the flip, surprise my brother, and record his reaction on camera.

With the footage in hand, it was time to make an ad for Rachetta’s Parkour.

Let me tell you a little bit about that process.

I learned that most good copy is assembled rather than written.

Meaning, there’s “great power” in carefully observing the language other people use to describe their paint points, and then reflecting that same language back at them in a focused and persuasive manner.

It makes your prospects feel like, “wow, this person really gets me!”

Having been a student at Rachetta’s Parkour for months, there were some feelings I was naturally able to intuit in terms of why someone would be compelled to learn parkour/tricking—and what obstacles may stand in their path to doing so.

Still, I wanted to see what other people were saying online.

I dedicated one afternoon to conducting some “indirect voice of consumer research.” That is, I went to my Google search bar and started typing questions and keywords as if I were (once again) in the shoes of someone who wanted to learn front flips for the first time.

“How to front flip.” “Front flip tutorial.” “How to front flip safely.” “How to front flip no spotter.”

From there, I combed through as many YouTube comments sections and Reddit threads as possible.

I was on the hunt for four criteria:

• Desires - The goals that drive a person, whether to increase pleasure or reduce pain.

• Notions - Beliefs a person has about the world around them.

• Identifications - Interests and emotions that get attributed to a specific chosen identity.

• Characteristics - Plain attributes that people have.

As I studied everyone’s comments, I copied the relevant ones into Google Doc beneath one of those four categories. Basically, I wanted to make a psychological/emotional profile of my target customer.

If you’d like, you can click here to see a comprehensive summary of the comments I collected. You’ll notice how a great deal of this language translates into my final script.

But in the interested of ease, I’ll share the most important findings here.

Fear of injury was the number one deterrant from learning how to flip.

A lot of people said this. Some described how they felt physically capable of doing the move, but there was a “mental block” stopping them from trying.

The phrasing most often used was, “I’m too scared I’ll break my neck/back.” Paralysis was too high a risk to their quality of life.

But I’d learned from my own experience how a competent coach and proper equipment could diminish this risk significantly, and even make it fun. I knew I’d need to disarm this fearful objection in my messaging somehow.

A smaller sample of people said their primary motivation for flipping was to impress a sibling, friend, or crush—perfect to match the hook of my ad.

A handful also claimed that doing a flip was “impossible.” It was for those “superhuman” kids they used to know from grade school, but never for people “like them.”

To me, this read as a shakeable notion: a belief that someone would be pleased to have disproven if it meant there was a benefit to be gained. After all, if an average, reasonably athletic guy like me could learn flips (from nothing) with consistent practice and instruction, then surely lots of other “average” people could learn too!

Lastly, I wanted to investigate why people chose to learn flips in the first place. Why did they fall in love with parkour/tricking?

“Because it makes me feel cool.” “Because it feels like an updated and more mature way of playing.” “Because it makes me feel like I’m a fictional character.”

This checks out. Many of the guys I train with got into parkour because (like me) they grew up loving superheroes or playing video games.

But there were also some people for whom parkour became an escape. It helped them “heal parts of themself they didn’t know were broken” and helped them to “keep moving forward, physically and emotionally.”

Because when you can overcome the anxiety of rotating violently through the air and still manage to land on your feet with an increasing level of consistency and grace, relationships and job applications don’t seem as crippling anymore. There’s a certain self-confidence and steadfast discipline you cultivate during training—one that starts to overflow into other areas of life.

And that emotional benefit is not to be understated.