Parkour Dreams of Tieling Twins

"If I know Kongfu and can run over the wall..." As sung in the song Nunchakus, there are people who run over the wall in daily lives, but they are fashionable talents rather than kongfu masters. They can pass over any obstacles in front freely and explore human instincts by actions like running, jumping, and climbing. There is such a pair of twin brothers in Xintaizi town in Tieling county. With the same dream, they love this action special of young people. While doing parkour, they have firmed their beliefs, accomplished self-challenging, and gained courage to overcome difficulties.
    
Parkour spirits:

Belief

"We got to know about the fashionable limit sport parkour incidentally." Xiaoma said, "One day last year, My brother and I happened to met a video on a website while surfing on internet. In the video, a foreign man was doing various cool actions by passing through all kinds of obstacles. We got overwhelmed and surprised. The name for that video was Russian Agent Training, and we thought it as the video for training foreign agents. We didn't know that was parkour at that time and just thought it cool. Then a friend asked us whether we knew about the sport parkour and introduced some parkour videos, and we realized that Russian Agent Training was actually a parkour video. From then on, my brother and I began to concern the sport parkour and to dream to pass over the obstacles freely with cool actions like the video one day."

Dama said, "My brother and I were very interested in the sport parkour, and we searched for relevant information on internet. Then we found the QQ group of Shenyang parkour team and got registered. We got to know a lot of young people with the same interest and realized they all get trained on weekends. We were taking a temporary job in Shenyang at that time, and we got trained together with them them, and joined them finally."

In the beginning, the brothers had no idea at all. With the help of the Shenyang team, they started from some simple actions immitating gorillas, and cats. Dama said, "No I can climb on 3-metre-tall wall in two second. My favourite is to reverse my body like a flag by hold an upright pole and I can keep it for as long as ten seconds. The best parkour in the world has the record of one minute. Mine is pretty good for a new beginner."

"Like other sports, parkour also requires persistent beliefs. Keep doing it and you will acquire something from the constant practice no matter whether you can become a professional one." Xiaoma told reporters, "Parkour belief is to have the resolution to overcome all obstacles and go ahead."

Parkour spirit:

To challenge

"In the beginning, we were attracted by the fancy actions. But when we knew parkour really, we realize that we should challenge ourselves rather than showing off the difficult fancy actions." Xiaoma played a video for the reporter when speaking.

The reporter saw that was a video of the training for Shenyang parkour team. The boys in the video pass over the obstacles one by one nimbly with the action of parkour, like what describes in action novels. Xiaoma told reporters that it was the scene of the team players being tested, and they can get the team recognition only by passing a series of obstacles with the parkour actions in limited time. Xiaoma said, "Some of our team players are university students or company staff, and there is even a girl. Although they all look fluent in the video, they need to practise hard. They used to train in large parks like Wanliutang or Wulihe, and lacked necessary facilities. Then they paid and rent a gym, and got improved rapidly."

As a limit sport, parkour is kind of dangerous, and people may get hurt easily. However, the brother Dama and Xiaoma didn't give up their hobby because of the hurt. Dama said, "Any sport may hurt, even playing basketball or football. The key to play parkour is to learn to protect yourself while practicing. Some green hands may want to try the difficult ones like the experienced players, only to get hurt. So you need to do the actions according to your own ability."

"Certainly, sometimes we get hurt on the hand or leg because of mistakes. It is also a kind of self-challenge to overcome the psychological problem of being hurt. It is cold now and not suitable for outdoor exercises, and we do some simple ones like pushing-up, sitting-up, or jumping at home, from simple ones to skilled ones. We get happiness from such self challenges." Speaking of the happiness of parkour, Xiaoma felt very pleased.

Parkour spirit:

Courage
　　
"In the beginning, when climbing over the handrail, I felt afraid. That flight of stairs consists of several slopes, and there were handrail on the two sides of the stairs. We needed to climb up along the handrail, and that is a parkour action called cat climbing for balance. It's easier said than done. It was difficult to keep balance on the handrail, and I was afraid of falling off the handrail. It came out I only did the first slope before I was scared to stop." Dama told reporters that courage is indispensable in playing parkour. "Actually, courage is the most important. People all feel afraid psychologically, but truth is, the more worried you are, the less possible you are likely to do it well, and then you may get hurt. There is a player called Kuangren the crazy guy in our team, and he is quite skilled now. He earned each action, which couldn't have been accomplished without courage."
　　
The brothers also got some exercise for courage too, like practising balance with eyes closed, or playing handstand on the balcony. With some exercise, they overcame the psychological obstacles and didn't feel afraid when playing parkour. But they suffer from another psychological obstacle: the passers-by.

Xiaoma said, "There are passers-by watching us practising every time. Some of them don't know about parkour and thought us as in bad psychological condition." Dama said, "There is a garage in front of our home, and I usually do some actions on the wall. But I only do like this when there are no passers-by, otherwise I may be taken as a thief."

The brothers told reporters that it is difficult to face the strange sight of others, and they feel awkward sometimes. There are passers-by too when practising with the team, but they don't feel awkward because there are a lot of players. But when practising alone, it requires courage to face the passers-by. Xiaoma said, "Parkour is a new game in our country and it's not popular yet. Hardly anyone knows it in Tieling. There are specialized public facilities for parkour players in foreign countries. But there are not many places to exercise in China, and that may be part of the reason why people feel strange to watch us playing."

About courage, Dama said that from parkour, they learned that one should face and overcome the incoming difficulties with courage. Also, they wish more Tieling young people to join them in parkour.