2014 Red Bull Parkour Competition Kicks Off, Chongqing "Flash Mob" Warms Up with Eye-Catching Performance

    On March 29, the 2014 "Art of Movement" Red Bull Parkour Competition was launched in the mountain city of Chongqing. On a bustling commercial street filled with crowds, parkour masters from across the country unveiled the curtain on the Red Bull Parkour "Crazy Gods Ranking" with an intense and thrilling "flash mob." As the highest-level and highest-prize professional parkour competition in China, this year’s Red Bull Parkour Competition will begin in May, with seven stops across the country: Chongqing, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Nanning, Changsha, Urumqi, and Beijing. The finals will be held in November.

    The concept and plot of the "flash mob" were inspired by common chase scenes in films and TV shows. Three friends accidentally come into possession of a token that grants them entry to the legendary parkour "Crazy Gods" convention, where they can have their names inscribed on the "Crazy Gods Ranking." But the token is accidentally exposed, attracting a host of pursuers including Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman. The friends are forced to use all their skills to flee through streets, elevators, rooftops, and bridges, eventually arriving at the "Crazy Gods Convention" venue, where they embed the token into the "Crazy Gods Ranking," officially launching the 2014 Red Bull Parkour Competition. This "flash mob" mainly took place around Jiefangbei and the Yangtze River Bridge. Due to the large number of participants and the long duration, it attracted many onlookers to stop and take photos, but it did not affect road traffic.

    Unlike traditional parkour, which emphasizes speed and practical techniques, the Red Bull Parkour Competition adopts the FREE RUNNING format, a freestyle parkour skills competition. Competitors can use buildings and artificial props to perform various moves, with judging criteria focusing more on originality, fluidity, movement style, and expressiveness. There are no set routes or "required moves," aiming to showcase the free-spirited and artistic nature of parkour.

    The launch event for this year’s Red Bull Parkour Competition was held during the annual gathering of the parkour community, a tradition that has continued for many years and is typically held during the anniversaries of major clubs around the country. March is the anniversary month for the Chongqing Yuefei Club. Months in advance, the Yuefei Club had widely issued invitations online, receiving responses from leaders of major clubs across the nation. Many traveled from as far as Xinjiang and Hainan to attend, bringing their members to Chongqing at their own expense to exchange ideas with other clubs over the two-day event. More than 200 parkour enthusiasts were present on the day.

    The "token" sought after by the various masters in the "flash mob" is actually the medal for the 2014 Red Bull Parkour Competition stop events. This year’s competition has expanded in scale compared to last year, transforming from a single-event competition into a tour-style series. Between May and October, stop events will be held in seven cities: Chongqing, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Nanning, Changsha, Urumqi, and Beijing. The top three from each stop and three national wild card spots will earn a token to the finals, along with the top eight from the previous year’s competition, making a total of 32 participants for the national finals in November. Registration began on March 29, and each competitor may only register for one stop and cannot sign up for multiple events.

    According to the organizers, this year’s finals will be held at a film studio and will feature international top-tier parkour masters as judges. "Many people don’t understand parkour; it’s just that they’re not familiar with the concept. In reality, many of the action movies we know well—like those of Jackie Chan—heavily feature parkour moves," said Tu Fenghao, the 2013 Red Bull Parkour third-place winner and organizer of this "flash mob." "The combination of parkour and film culture will bring even stronger visual impact and more imaginative possibilities to the Red Bull Parkour Competition."

    Aside from movies clearly labeled as "parkour" such as *District B13*, action films like *Bodyguards and Assassins*, *Swordsmen*, and *The Man from Nowhere 2* also feature a lot of parkour movements. But what parkour enthusiasts praise the most are Jackie Chan’s films. "Jackie Chan often performs high-risk stunts himself, and his creative fight scenes have been very inspiring to us. When audiences get tired of conventional chase scenes, it’s these creative moves that truly captivate them." Latvian parkour expert Pasha Petkuns, 21, who served as a judge at the 2013 Red Bull Parkour Competition, also said, "Jackie Chan and American actor Chuck Norris’ films were a huge inspiration for me. It was seeing their parkour scenes in movies that made me realize what a cool sport this is and led me to take up parkour."

    Parkour, also known as "urban running," is characterized by performing creative and dazzling difficult moves using the surrounding environment, making it highly entertaining and skillful. It is considered one of the coolest and most stylish extreme sports in the world today. Although it may appear to involve "leaping over walls and rooftops," parkour doesn’t have distinct schools or sects like martial arts—being "self-styled" is parkour’s greatest appeal. This grand annual gathering is the best opportunity for domestic parkour enthusiasts to showcase their signature skills. The same parkour move can be interpreted differently based on each person’s understanding, personality, and flair, influencing the direction of China’s parkour scene for the year.