Luci Romberg is

practicing corkscrews over a blue gymnastics mat on a sweltering day.

Most of the other 16 members of Team Tempest are here at the gym, too,

also rehearsing methods of launching themselves airborne: flipping off

ledges, leaping between walls, vaulting off foam blocks. They're rarely

all right side up at the same time.

Corks aren't Romberg's best

skill. She takes three running steps and launches into a 360-degree

sideways twist, limbs taut, ponytail flying. But she doesn't kick off

properly and lacks the height to land on her feet. “I suck!” she shouts,

even before her hands slam into the mat.

Perfection is elusive in

the world of acrobatics; wipeouts happen. But Romberg knows that

already. The compact tumbler is a top figure in freerunning — a

grueling, extreme sport that employs gymnastics, speed and eye-popping

tricks to traverse urban environments. Developed by Sébastien Foucan in

France in the late '90s, freerunning is an offshoot of parkour, adding

artistic flourishes to parkour's goal of efficiently getting from here

to there.

Imagine: Between here and there are rooftops, flagpoles

and a sea of guardrails. Now consider freerunning's philosophy: The

landscape is a canvas; your body is the paintbrush.

Romberg, who

goes by “Steel,” is the only female member of Team Tempest, the

L.A.-based athletic collective whose members include some of

freerunning's pioneers. She twice competed on Japanese TV phenomenon Sasuke (called Ninja Warrior

stateside and elsewhere) after qualifying to represent the United

States at G4 TV's American Ninja Challenge in 2008. In 2010, she was the

first athlete inducted into the World Acrobatics Society for

freerunning — a milestone for this predominantly male sport.

“A

lot of times, I'm the only girl,” she says, catching her breath after a

running cat leap against a graffiti-covered wall. “But I don't care. I'm

not competitive with the guys; I'm competitive with myself. At the end

of the day, I just go out there and do my best.”

Romberg wasn't always this confident. In fact, she's now gearing up to shoot a short film, Beautiful, about a much different part of her life story.

Check out this video to see an example of freerunning

Raised

by die-hard tennis-player parents in Colorado, Romberg, who declines to

give her age, was tracked early for a life of athletics. She learned to

swing a tennis racket at age 3 and started gymnastics lessons at 6.

After winning a gymnastics scholarship to Texas Woman's University, she

led her team to two national championships.

Romberg was always working out, and the constant spotlight on her body began to take an emotional toll.

“I

always felt like I wasn't skinny enough,” she says. “Having to be in a

leotard in front of thousands of people, you become self-conscious — you

always think you're fat.”

Her solution: bulimia. “I tried to

starve myself as much as I could, but it was really hard,” she recalls

with a self-deprecating chuckle. “I'd end up eating a ton and purging.”

The chaotic bid for perfection mirrored the “chaos inside my head,” she

says.

After school, she moved to Hollywood and began auditioning

for stunt roles. She met a few members of Team Tempest on the set of

Clint Eastwood's Changeling and was captivated by the creative freedom of their sport. Nearly five years later, she credits it with saving her health.

“Freerunning

was my cure for my eating disorder, for my lack of confidence,” she

says. “In a traditional sport like gymnastics, there's not much room for

individual style. With this, everybody's different. New moves are being

invented every day. It's whatever you can create in your mind.”

Romberg

spends hours each week training at Tempest Freerunning Academy, a

cavernous indoor playground in an industrial corner of Northridge.

Outfitted with warped walls, balance beams, a maze of horizontal bars

and a red springboard floor, the gym is a mecca for thrill-seeking

locals and a natural hangout for Romberg and her agile associates.

But

she also hones her craft outside, where the sport was conceived.

“Anyplace with a staircase and a handrail, I can spend hours at,” she

says.

At 5 feet tall, Romberg is a blur of sneakers and

dirty-blond hair as she flips off ledge after ledge, like a Slinky.

After practice runs, she joins the guys in good-natured sibling

needling. They all have nicknames: Brian “NoSole” Orosco, Paul “Diddy”

Darnell. Fans usually assume Romberg's “Steel” moniker is a reference to

her strength, but its true origins are secret. (Let's just say alcohol

was involved.)

Freerunning doesn't pay the bills, though.

Romberg's day job is still stunt work. She has jumped off buildings,

rolled under trucks and crashed bikes in films and TV shows, including Green Lantern, Zombieland and True Blood.

On a recent job doubling for Melissa McCarthy, she landed in the ER for

the first time, with a gash on her forehead. “I did a car hit, and I

hit the ground on my face,” she explains with a giggle that suggests a

hint of pride.

Her scars — emblems of “putting myself out there,

getting over my fears,” she says — contribute to the kind of

nontraditional beauty she hopes to celebrate with her film.

“Everybody

knows that our society has a fucked-up impression of what beauty is,”

she says. “I wanted to talk about not adhering to all the social

expectations of what a woman should look like — it sounds cliché, but

really focusing on inner beauty rather than outer beauty.”

Beautiful,

produced by her brother, stuntman Brady Romberg, and directed by

Tempest teammate Victor “Showtime” Lopez, is scheduled for release early

next year. Romberg hopes to organize a public screening; the film will

later be posted online for free viewing. It will feature all the “cool

shit” viewers might expect from an ode to freerunning, she says, but

also reach deeper.

“I try to encourage other girls to get

involved, like, 'We can do this, too.' [But] I want to inspire people

not necessarily to freerun but to find their freerunning — something

they can excel in, that they're passionate about, that they can use to

build self-confidence.”

Romberg considers herself “lucky” to have found her panacea.

“Freerunning

helped me be OK with who I really am,” she says. “It opened my eyes to

accepting myself, to realizing that I am good enough. I am who I am. And

eff you if you don't like me, you know what I mean? I don't care.”

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