**Matt Prindle, who engages in the training discipline known as tricking, flies through the air wielding nunchucks. • Photos Submitted**

By Tom Victoria

Ninjas Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow got nothing on Matt Prindle. Unlike the fictional G.I. Joe characters, what Matt does — flipping through the air and wielding weapons such as nunchucks with relative ease — is very real. Astoundingly, his skills are self-taught.

“I always wanted to be able to do what other people can’t do,” he said.

Matt, 22, of New York certainly has accomplished that. Being a tricker — the more acrobatic offshoot of parkour — his videos depict flips in all directions, sometimes more than one way at a time.

“What I do falls under many categories, depending on who you’re talking to,” Matt said. “Most of what I post I would say can be described as tricking and are more parkour or stunt-related. Tricking in essence is basically the acrobatics of martial arts routines. Nowadays, it has separated from the world of martial arts and is trying to become its own sport. But I see it as much more of an art form.”

A particularly demanding move requires a literal twist.

“You have to be vertically and horizontally moving at the same time,” Matt said.

He pointed out the one move people are typically impressed by is actually not as difficult as believed — the backflip.

“The backflip is definitely easier than most people think,” Matt said. “Rotating backwards is actually easier than forward because of the weight shift of your hips. It is just much more mentally challenging to commit to because of the blind spot going backwards.”

He said the key to learning how to flip is to take it one step at a time.

“The primary goal is to avoid landing on your head,” Matt said.

Then, the flipper focuses on the end.

“You just want to be able to land it,” Matt said.

Finally, the job is to make it look smooth.

“Let’s clean it up,” Matt said.

He also does kicks and various tricks.

“In terms of martial arts, I do a lot more shadowboxing and that type of training,” Matt said. “The only other category I do is specifically stunts. For instance, I have done flips over creeks of water, over stacks of chairs, over people and through a hula hoop I set on fire. That was by far, the scariest, most difficult stunt I’ve done.”

In addition to wielding nunchucks, Matt does flips with such weapons as escrima sticks.

“I want people to see that almost anything is possible. I think that too often people are told that they can’t do something or that they’ll never be able to learn something unless they do it a specific way.”

“I love practicing with pretty much all weapons,” he said. “For simplicity’s sake, sticks, staffs and swords are easiest because they are one-piece weapons. Nunchucks are convenient because of their size, but I also like practicing archery with both a compound and traditional recurve bow, throwing knives and stars, blowguns, sai and other sword variations like the Chinese hook swords.”

Matt uses the name Ninjatic as his brand.

“I had a huge fascination with ninjas,” he said.

However, the original inspiration for doing flips and martial arts were ninja who were green and wore shells: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Initially, the characters were in a parody comic book influenced by such superheroes as the mutant X-Men, the Teen Titans and the acrobatic Daredevil, who found himself in the middle of a war between two ninja factions at the time. Unexpectedly, the Turtles’ franchise exploded. Matt saw the eventual cartoon version of the characters, which were mutated into humanoid form by an accident.

“It was really cool,” he said about the turtles’ ninja skills.

Matt later found his first real person for inspiration: actor and stuntman Ray Park portraying the acrobatic Darth Maul in "Star Wars: the Phantom Menace." Park later played Toad in “X-Men” and Snake Eyes in “GI Joe.”

Unsurprisingly, sports caught Matt’s interest.

“I was always into athletics,” he said.

Gymnastics was briefly one of those sports. Matt was 6 when he did it for a year or so.

“I actually didn’t learn anything from it,” he said.

He also tried a martial arts class for a few weeks, but that didn’t keep his interest either.

“I just preferred doing it on my own,” Matt said. “I wanted to customize it myself. In my mind, I didn’t understand how I could be an effective fighter if I was being taught the same exact thing as 30 other kids in the same room with the same instructor. Wouldn’t we all be at an equal skill level? I wanted to learn the intricacies that I felt would be left out of a conventional class, so I took it upon myself to try to be better than everyone else by learning the most. Gymnastics is also a little too structured. Tricking is much more of an art form where the athletes have their own styles. And that aspect appealed to me much more than traditional gymnastics.”

He drew upon family members who had military training and the Internet.

“It was a huge game-changer,” he said about discovering such training sources as YouTube videos.

Matt said developing the skills to handle weapons becomes more complex when there are multiple, moving parts such as nunchucks.

Matt then started on the path to acrobatics.

“I started parkour when I was 15,” he said.

Matt stressed he was only doing the actual parkour at that point.

“It’s not what people think,” he said. “Parkour is efficiency of movement to avoid obstacles. The flipping didn’t start until I was 19.”

It’s fitting superheroes were Matt’s initial inspiration as a youth as he now has the physique of an acrobat like Marvel’s Daredevil or the company’s answer to the kung fu craze in the 1970s: Shang-Chi. To achieve that look, Matt also focuses on body building workouts.

“The end of junior year of high school, I started going to the school gym to work out.”

Although Matt didn’t gain significant mass, he did attain the aesthetics and increased strength.

“I only gained six pounds, (but) my physique looks completely different,” he said.

Matt said he is nearly as strong as people weighing as much as up to 50 pounds more.

“I can push almost the same weight,” he said.

Matt pointed out how the flipping, gym workout and weapon handling work hand-in-hand.

**Matt does a handstand in a yoga-like position.**

“You need to be quick and powerful,” he said.

Matt also cited flexibility. But don’t expect any videos of him stretching. He said that content would not draw much interest.

According to Matt, all of his training works in conjunction with the main goal.

“Overall, I want to have complete control over my body,” he said.

Matt’s weekly training schedule is broken down into an estimated 8.5 hours weightlifting in the gym, 4 hours for tricking and other parkour, and 2.5 hours for martial arts.

Complementing Matt’s passion for fitness is his career path to becoming a Physical Therapist. He is in the accelerated program at Nazareth College in Rochester.

Along with helping people rehabilitate from illness and injury, Matt wants to teach fitness on the side and open his own gym.

“I want to eventually help people,” he said.

Matt said diet watching for weight control is knowledge many people lack.

“Schools should actually teach about how to control weight and build muscle,” he said. “Let’s face it, that’s what everyone wants to know anyway and is arguably the highest benefactor of health overall. They need to teach about what calories are and how they work instead of focusing on the textbook definition of what a complex versus simple carbohydrate is, because that does not have a real-life application.”

Matt’s interests aren’t restricted to physical skills. He plays the guitar and piano.

“I was also in an acapella group during my undergrad and enjoyed singing base and beatboxing, also a self-taught beatboxer,” he said about the vocal mimicry of drums using the voice, lips, tongue and mouth.

When training outside, Matt does not seek an audience.

“Most of the time, they’re secluded spots,” he said.

Matt said the problem is gawkers make him nervous, affecting what he is trying to accomplish. He often feels pressured to do moves he already can do well. But, is daily goal to learn something new wins out.

“Other times, I don’t care how I look,” he said.

When there are folks around, they do notice there is a man flipping through the air.

“I get a lot of reactions from people,” Matt said.

One day, he was flipping over a creek when an older couple made a request.

“They said ‘that’s so cool. Can we record you?’” Matt recalled.

He did not even start using social media until he was in college.

“I had zero interest in it,” Matt said.

That changed as people started encouraging him to post videos of his feats.

“All my friends knew what I did,” Matt said. “They said you really should put videos up.”

A year ago, he started an Instagram account and adding flipping videos to his YouTube channel. He explained the intent of his channel.

“I want to help people because I understand the struggles of learning things on your own,” Matt said. “Because I never had a coach or mentor, there were a lot of issues that I ran into that no one could help me with. I want to be that person to give others guidance where I could not find any, whether that comes to fitness, tricking or just motivation in general.”

Although he originally started posting to track progression of his skills.

“But as I’ve grown my audience and skill set,” Matt said. “I want people to see that almost anything is possible. I think that too often people are told that they can’t do something or that they’ll never be able to learn something unless they do it a specific way. I personally have been told that many times, that my methods aren’t good enough to learn these things and that I’ll never be able to do this or that. I always hated when people would say that to me. I want to show everyone that they can do it, too. I was just a normal kid when I started all this, why should it be impossible for anyone else?”

Matt said he when he has a bad session or bad day, he does not give up when there are things to accomplish.

I tell myself you need to get this done,” he said.

He encouraged others not to give up either when times are tough.

“You may not feel like working out or loading a video,” he said. “Just remember why you started.”