Liangjiang tweens push limits on parkour adventure

Zhang Enrui performs in a competition. [Photo/J.F. Parkour club] 

After taking a leap and swinging his arm up, 12-year-old Zhang Enrui, wearing head-to-toe black, rotated 360 degrees in mid-air and landed on his feet, performing a perfect backflip.

Zhang, a first-tier tween parkour practitioner in Chongqing, was first exposed to the sport when he was eight, saying "I was impressed by a backflip in a parkour clip. So I tried out a training session and enjoyed it right away. I am always running around and playing, and parkour means I can do it in a wider space while accomplishing all sorts of moves".

Challenge is what he loves most about the game. As a former break dancer, Zhang quickly learned basic parkour moves. His first and biggest challenge has been the butterfly twist, which features a 360 twist in the air while the body is kept horizontal.

Lacking the solid core strength required by the move, Zhang spent most of his time exercising. There were many falls and injuries before he finally mastered the move.

"To practice, get better, master a move, and then face the next challenge, that is the fun of parkour," Zhang said.

Kindred spirits were his inspiration. In his first national competition, Zhang met Fu Jinhao, a rising star in the parkour community of Zhang's age group. Zhang watched his video before and saw him as a role model. 

"We talked and clicked at the competition. I learned from him and practiced his moves after the competition, but he was still better than me. I want to surpass him," Zhang smiled.

Zhang struck his coach Bai Lyu as a goal-oriented and committed athlete, who always sticks to his goal and goes the extra mile. Zhang has the potential to become a professional parkour athlete given his passion and skills, Bai said.

Top parkour athletes such as Teng Gaozheng are Zhang's heroes. "They are capable of excellent moves and represent China in winning games, I want to be like them," Zhang said.

At Zhang's parkour club, the 11-year-old Zhang Xinyu excelled in a recent national competition. For her, parkour is a game that reshaped her mindset.

A pivotal lesson she learned from the game is to stay focused. Having participated in multiple competitions, Xinyu found competitive nervousness helped her concentrate and consequently improved her performance, even for some moves slightly beyond her level.

An example is the Kong Vault, which requires an athlete to jump over a long object and land on the other side of it. "The barrier was high, and I always hesitated during training, not sure if I could jump over it. But during competition, the only thing on my mind was to jump over it, and I managed to do it for the first time," Xinyu said.

She suffered a hard fall when trying to land a jump from a high elevation and took a long time to recover. But instead of being deterred away from the game, she saw it as a lesson that teaches her how to protect herself and she could land properly next time.

"I used to want to give up if I wasn't good at something, but now I will stick to it and try my best," Xinyu said.

Zhang Xinyu performs at a competition. [Photo/J.F. Parkour club]