Parkour picks up steam in SW China's Chongqing

CHONGQING, May 18 (Xinhua) -- Youngsters in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality have recently turned up the heat on parkour, an urban sport that first originated in France in the 1980s.

At a local parkour training stadium, Wen Shunyao, a 32-year-old parkour coach, has been helping a six-year-old boy practice backflips. After just five classes, the boy, Wei Zicheng, can perform several stunts that would amaze most adults -- leaps, vaults, rolls in mid-air and landings.

"My son's arms used to get dislocated easily due to a lack of muscular strength, so I sent him to learn hip-hop and parkour," said Wei's mother. "Also, China's 'double reduction' policy to ease academic stress for schoolchildren has ensured the kids have more spare time for exercise."

Thanks to parkour, Wei has not only got fitter, but has also fallen in love with sports, she added.

There are over 400 students enrolled in Wen's parkour training agency and most of them are adolescents. Wen is the most experienced here. He started coaching the sport in 2009 when he was a sophomore at Southwest University.

Thrilled by cool scenes from the action movie "Brick Mansions," Wen began to learn about the extreme sport, in the hope of becoming a parkour practitioner, or "traceur."

"At that time, there was a video called "44 Basic Moves of Parkour" that went viral among the traceurs. I mastered these moves within just two months, and then I joined the local club Jump Fly Parkour. When the club developed its training services in 2009, I became a coach," said Wen.

Due to his great speed, local parkour fanciers now refer to him as "Wenzi" -- or mosquito in English.

A decade of coaching has allowed Wen to keep a close eye on people's changing attitudes to the sport. Before, the learners were mainly adults, and many people in society thought it was a useless hobby, including Wen's parents.

However, since his club started to teach teenagers in 2015, Wen found that many parents were keen to send their kids for lessons. They began taking the sport more seriously, with many hoping that their children would learn some escape skills that might be useful in emergency.

Last October, at the first International Gymnastics Federation World Parkour Championships, Chinese athlete Teng Gaozheng won a silver medal in Men's Freestyle. This was an encouraging news for many Chinese traceurs and the relevant training agencies.

Since then, more and more people have begun to participate in the sport, while the learning process has become increasingly standardized. In 2019, parkour clubs from the cities of Chongqing, Beijing, Zhengzhou and Wenzhou teamed-up to formulate a set of training standards, covering teaching methods, testing systems and so on.

Chongqing is known for its mountainous terrain, and its numerous stairs and slopes make the city a perfect venue for parkour lovers. Wen and other enthusiasts now shoot videos while practicing parkour, displaying the city's signature landscapes through the sport.

"Parkour is more about self-exploration and challenging oneself, and it never has an end, which has turned into my life-long pursuit. And I am happy to see the younger generation taking part in the sport," said Wen.

He added that Chongqing is a city built upon hills and rocks, which symbolizes the great tenacity of the locals. "We are proud to hail from the mountain city, and we're fearless in the face of any challenges that we may encounter in our parkour journey across the city," he said.