YOUNGSTERS in Chongqing Municipality have recently turned up the heat on parkour, an urban sport that originated in France in the 1980s. At a local parkour training stadium, Wen Shunyao, a 32-year-old coach, has been helping Wei Zicheng, 6, practice backflips. After five classes, Wei can perform several stunts including leaps, vaults and 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. 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 movie “Brick Mansions,” Wen began to learn the extreme sport, aiming to become 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 the moves in two months, and then joined the local club Jump Fly Parkour. When the club developed its training services in 2009, I became a coach,” said Wen. 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 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 encouraged many Chinese traceurs and training agencies. Since then, more people have begun to participate in the sport, while the learning process has become increasingly standardized. In 2019, parkour clubs from Chongqing, Beijing, Zhengzhou and Wenzhou teamed up to formulate a set of training standards. 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 often 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,” he said.(Xinhua) | 