the best of parkour in china ::
:: I have always been a fan of parkour and free-running, so I was thrilled to (literally) crash into a group of local teenagers / 20-somethings yesterday parkour’ing near People’s Square in Shanghai – it was great. I tried stopping one of them to find out more information, etc. but all of them were too busy jumping over stuff to talk to me…fair enough.
Later in the evening I got online to see what more I could learn about parkour in China, and, to my surprise, I came across several online Chinese parkour groups / communities / forums – they all start linking to each other after a while, but if you’re interested, start with these: City Monkey (Beijing based), Love Parkour (爱跑酷, national), China Parkour & Freerunning (national), Guangxi Parkour, Parkour Jilin, Ningxia Street Culture Union, Fujian Parkour, TNT Parkour Club (Nanjing based), etc.
Also, see below for a series of superb parkour videos from practically every corner of China. I have to admit, I was entirely unaware of the depth and breadth of parkour culture in China – it’s exciting to see how Chinese youth have taken to it. From what I gather, it’s only been around in China for a few years. Either way, very cool. Oh, and get this, parkour is translated in Chinese as 跑酷 (pao2 ku4), how great is that?! It’s perhaps my new favorite word.
Lastly, the marketer in me notices that there is zero brand presence (maybe that’s a good thing?) in any of this content; seems like a massively missed opportunity to connect with an edgy, emerging (i.e. trendsetting and influential) subculture in China. // AjS
in Xinjiang…
in Beijing…
in Hunan (inside a dorm room at the Hunan Industrial University), H/T to Youku Buzz…
in Xian…
in Shanxi (maybe also Xian)…
in Nanjing…
in Chengdu…
not sure where, looks to be in Western China and appears to be a soldier or police officer of some sort…
location unknown…
in multiple locations (Beijing, Nanjing, Qinhuangdao, Shenzhen, Shenyang, Fujian, Xian, etc.)
in Shenyang…
in Guangxi…
in Wuhan…
in Jinan…
in Yunnan…
in Yangquan…
in Tianjin…
in Wushan…
in Hangzhou…
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Brilliant. Thanks for this post. Was just searching for Parkour in China and stumbled on your blog post which had been uploaded just a few hours ago. :) Fantastic to see that China has a growing Parkour community, and nice to have evidence of it on an English language site. Keep up the good work. :)
March 24th, 2009 at 12:15 am
@ Kiell, thanks for your response.
Glad you found it useful. Out of curiosity, what is your interest in Chinese parkour?
// AjS
March 24th, 2009 at 2:45 am
[...] 56minus1.com :: » Blog Archive » the best of parkour in china :: [...]
March 24th, 2009 at 2:53 am
as a british born chinese practitioner, ive been searching for freerunners in shanghai as i am one of few in the u.k.. and i go to shanghai every summer and look for chinese local practitioners…
March 24th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Cool videos
Adam, do you play parkour?
March 24th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
@ Jason, not active. But when I was younger we did a lot of similar stuff…difference then was that we had no idea it was French. ;-)
// AjS
March 24th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
@ Barry, thanks for your response.
Hope this post helps you find your Shanghai counterparts. Link around to some of the community forums I mention above, you’ll find them. Seems the free-runners hang out in the same places online as the Parkour’ers.
// AjS
March 24th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
[...] you know China had a burgeoning parkour scene? We didn’t either until 56minus1 discovered a bunch of online Chinese parkour groups, communities and [...]
March 25th, 2009 at 3:14 am
a parkour practitioner is called a “traceur”, most practitioners do both freerunning and parkour and there are very few in a minority whom train just in parkour or just in freerunning.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:17 am
sorry, my chinese isnt very good, and im new to this site, is it possible you could give me a link to a shanghainese parkour community website?
that would be very helpfull, thanks!
March 25th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Awesome post; I’ll make sure to check those sites before my next trip to Shanghai. Should be interesting training with Chinese traceurs (although I’ll have to brush up on my Chinese a little).
About the marketing thing: You’ll find most traceurs (and probably freerunners?) are highly opposed to branding and commercialization of parkour. We want to keep it a free and pure activity without any sort of competitions or merchandising. Of course, you’ll find companies like Urban Freeflow who advertise themselves as the “official parkour clothing” brand or whatnot, but they’re very often looked down upon by traceurs (and in this case, even denounced officially by David Belle, the founder).
March 25th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
[...] Schokora at 56minus1 shares some observations on parkour in China, and includes one video of parkour enthusiasts practicing their art in Xinjiang. Parkour, also [...]
March 30th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Nice to get some more input on this; I had found that there is parkour in China before, but had not really looked for sites yet (my Chinese still being limited). Maybe I should continue my research into parkour in China, after all… might be a project for the summer. Hmmm…
April 5th, 2009 at 4:46 am
Good post, but there is a lot more to say about these communities… they are all different in their own light. The Chinese Parkour scene is actually quite developed. The most dominant communities being the Wuhan, Beijing, and Nanjing, in that order.
There is in fact a large Shanghai group. They are quite active and involved in numerous things as well. They don’t make many videos, but there are some out there if you search hard enough. They do have a lack of online presence simply because they don’t use forums, websites, etc to connect. They use QQ or personal contact. If you are interested in the Shanghai group, get a hold of me and I’ll push you in the right direction.
I’ve been seeing it lately that the Chinese groups have been slowly moving into English, but it’s still a far way from that. For any non-Mandarin speakers out there, it is best to find local foreigners within the groups to help you find them.
April 6th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
@ KShap, thanks for you response. Great information. I will drop you a line via your blog.
@ Barry He, I haven’t been able to find a specific online community for traceurs in Shanghai, but if I do I’ll be sure to make a note of it here.
@ Fyrel, thanks for your response. They do seem to be a very pure community, but I am always suspicious of that. Everyone has a “price,” especially in China. :-)
// AjS
April 7th, 2009 at 8:49 am
@Adam re: Fyrel’s post – they are very community oriented, though. That’s a big misconception you have that everyone has a “price” especially in China. That could be true about the general population, but I gladly found that these guys are different. They understand the philosophies much more than you may think. It does not mean that they aren’t willing to do shows, performances, and whatnot… who wouldn’t, but they do know the difference between doing shows, and aiding in negative exposure and being taken advantage of. The difference is sending the right message vs. a distorted or negative message. They understand that difference.
re: Barry He’s post – As I said, there isn’t really an online presence. They sparsely use the http://www.paoku.com.cn website. You can make a post there if you wish, otherwise you can join their QQ group: 31544905. There are limited English speakers, however.
April 7th, 2009 at 11:24 am
@ KShap, thanks again for your response. Great information.
// AjS
May 25th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
[...] In addition to Neocha and 56minus1, check out Douban.com, Chinavisual.com, and Arting365.com for some of the bigger sites. Among smaller sites, there are just too many to list, but for every subculture and creative endeavor in China, there are usually several dedicated websites or BBS discussion forums. Also, you can just pick a topic you want to learn more about and search on Baidu or any of the big user generated content portals (Youku, Tudou, Tianya, etc.). I recently did this – I wanted to learn more about Parkour in China and was blown away by what I came up with; I did a post on 56minus1. (LINK) [...]
June 4th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Amazing! Some forms of freedom will never be taken away! I just hope it doesn’t go from being called free runnning to governement running…..