Is Jackie Chan the REAL Founder of Parkour? 

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What Jackie does in his movies is definitely parkour

Jackie Chan is probably the coolest human being of all time.

Contrary to popular belief, Jackie Chan's style of action-comedy was actually NOT inspired by Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd. In a recent interview, Chan said that he didn't even know who they were up until around the mid-to-late 80s, when he started noticing that Western critics are comparing him to Keaton and Lloyd. Chan was trying to break into Hollywood at the time, so he went along with it and cited them as influences, thinking that might be a good way to promote himself in the West. But he never actually watched their movies until they became available on VHS in the late '80s. The real roots of Jackie Chan's style of action-comedy is actually the Peking Opera School, where he spent much of his childhood, along with Sammo Hung and Yuen Baio, together known as the "Three Dragons". Along with Jackie, Sammo and Yuen were also developing a similar style of action-comedy, e.g. Sammo's Enter the Fat Dragon (1978), which came out the same year as Jackie's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master. So what Jackie was really doing is building on the comic acrobatic antics of Chinese opera, while modernizing it and taking it to a whole new level.

I've always thought Jackie Chan was the godfather of parkour

When we First started doing "parkour" we used to call it freestyle running as the term Parkour hadnt been coined yet, doing gaps and then trying to implement skate varials like flatspins etc then adding in grabs and all, we used to grind handrails when they were wet in trainers (aslong as they hadnt already been waxed for skating). Even when landing for weird precissions we would Land it in a skate style stall and spin out of it implement grabs and the like. Doing Arm flips with a 360 spin and then reverting 180 as youre landing. We were all Jackie Chan fans, we even had a jackie chan lunch time club where we watched his films in our lunch breaks. He is who got is into the idea of freedom of movement, where any sport we did we were more interested in doing some cool shit rather than winning the game, from Basketball and Rugby to even Hockey.

According to Akira Toriyama, he would have never come up w/ Dragon Ball if he hadn't seen Drunken Master. It's about time that Jackie's contributions to the creation of parkour be widely recognized the same way that Bruce Lee is often credited for paving the way for MMA alongside the Gracie family.

Parkour or not Jackie’s stunts are legendary. He’s had put his life in the line more than once just for entertain us. You got to respect the man. Great video btw!👍

When I first saw Parkour in my life I was like _"Jackie Chan did these things 30 years ago"_

This video is super high quality

Jackie Chan is definately what got me into parkour. Mr Bell was pretty good in District 13 but ultimately i grew up with Jackie and wanted to move the same way. Im sure cavemen invented parkour but no one turned it into a monetizable sport.

Jakie chan's "who am I" is still one of the best films i've ever seen Anyone who hasn't seen it needs too

Parkour has always been around and will always be around, but at this point in time it just has a definition and is an organized idea. To say somebody "founded" parkour movement seems almost irrelevant, but maybe the question is more directed towards who popularized and developed further

"They were Goku"... as Jimmy shows a video of Gohan xD xD xD xD

The first time I ever saw parkour (way back when David Belle was big) the first thing I thought was this is Jackie Chan in movies but in the form of a sport. Honestly I don’t see how anybody can say what Jackie does in movies isn’t parkour.

I've watched the clip at 16:38 of David bouncing that massive height drop so many times over the years and it still blows my mind.

Perhaps in a future video, you could talk about qinggong, the set of Chinese techniques found in many martial arts that cover "natural movement" like taking drops, climbing walls, precisions, etc.? It's the basis of Jackie Chan's acrobatics skills that he learned in the Opera, so I'm surprised this wasn't covered!

I also found out the roots of Jackie Chan's "parkour" style: qing gong. That's a Chinese martial arts training discipline, and has a striking resemblance to parkour. So Chan was actually doing qing gong, but modernizing it in an urban setting. Which then led to parkour.

Day 3 of asking JimmytheGiant to make more training vlogs

16:42 what the hell was that drop? U good David

There were unnamed Yamakazi groups all over the world in the 80s and 90s, all inspired by Jackie Chan and martial arts and Hollywood stuntmen. Tricking which has now blended with parkour and free running developed from martial arts katas. I would argue that what is called parkour today is closer to what Jackie Chans movements than the martial arts and even military-inspired philosophy of the Belles. The end credit blooper reel in Jackie’s movies are like any parkour youtube video today. For many practitioners training often involves redoing «takes» until a challenge is overcome. Nobody is trying to escape from anybody, except in some rare situations with security, and in the new chase tag sport, which is probably not quite what Belle had in mind.

So glad that Buster Keaton was mentioned in this. An underrated legend. Also, the philosophy of parkour needs much more exposure.

My dad used to work with Jackie, he hold me when i was a baby, and took a picture, he signed at the back of the photo, i still got that pic now, 23 years later hahahaha, love the dude, he is one of the greatest person I've ever met

Another belter Jimmy. Slowly establishing yourself as the go-to resource for parkour fact, history and analysis. Great to see you in the WCT bails video as well, the perfect environment for JTG.

_Thank you, J. Chan is my best character ever. I am older than you. Chan is ma childhood. a lot of motivation comes from him for example, to learn English._

Jackie Chan didn't invent parkour but he certainly inspired it more than anyone else. His combination of martial arts and acrobatic stunts made his action movies unique.

I have been waiting for this video forever. Jacki Chan and AMerican ninja worrier. Both not try parkour but they both inspired me to look up parkour and I saw storm volume 1. Those were my inspirations

I love this connection you make of parkour to martial arts. It rings true. An in depth video on the subject would be fantastic. And man, great video! Thank you.

finally,i've been waiting for this

Absolutely amazing video man. It's been a long time since I've heard anyone talk about the discipline side of parkour. It's cool that you're able to take popular clickbait-type topics and create content that works to preserve our history and culture.

Lee Jun Fan (Bruce) cannot be replaced. But Datuk Fang Shilong (Jackie) delivered great consolation with his own acrobatic, hilarious, creative, entertaining style. Living Legend.

Amazing! Really interesting to hear the historic links with parkour and martial arts. Would love to see more content like this!

Absolutely knocked it out of the park with this vid Jimmy. Thorough, interesting, and the bit at the end totally exemplifies my attitude to parkour and movement. We are born to move.

just imagine jackie chan writing a coment on this video... xD

Well done Jimmy. I'm going to watch every Jackie Chan movie, I used to love them when I was a kid !

Oh my God... This for me was the best video in this documentary style you've ever done! Thanl you, and please keep doing them

Can't wait to see Part 2 'Is Parkour a Matrial Art' video, great stuff man this had a lot of cool insights

I have watched almost all of his movies (With my family) on netflix and we are almost always laughing hard So knowing that he might be the actual founder of one of my favourite things to do is really great

My friends and I used "Jackie Chan" as a verb before parkour had a name

Loved this one! Good work man!

This video blew me away great job! Absolutely amazing!

I had the opportunity to train with Chau Belle during my Adapt cert in Singapore. The guy is a machine! I thought I was good at conditioning, etc. But he was on another level all together! What an experience! Everyone who practices Parkour needs to experience training like that, it's life changing.

As a big Parkour history nerd, this video is pretty good and I really loved it! I appreciate you bringing to light some of the lesser known aspects of Parkour's history and the founders' inspirations!

Thank you Jimmy! Been dying for someone to make these points, thank you🙏

Thanks for the time and effort you put into these Jimmy 🙏

HE USED HIS KNEES TO CLIMB!!!! (lmao)

This one was extremely interesting.

I’ve been training 10+ years and I’m learning new things historically about this amazing thing we call parkour every day.

Such a well put together and narrated video - excellent job 👏👏👏

I trained with the Yamakasi's for 6 years, especially Chau (they have a school in france called ADD wich translates to Art of motion) it is the first time in all my life that I have seen someone be so accurate about their mentality, they trained us in the discipline but most importantly, they taught us what being a good, respectable and strong man is. They focused a lot on building a familly like bond between the student's, we had to take care of the younger ones, and we had to give our all during training to lighten the burden we put on the older ones that were looking after us. Even as a child, i could see the passion they had for the sport and teaching. Those were the best years of my life and to this day, when i go through hardships, i remember what they taught me and it stil helps me better myself and overcome obstacles in my life, just as it did with obstacles in the street. Thank you for putting a light on this.

The Great Bamboo Bambino himself Chan The Man!!

Keep up the work, Jimmy. Like seriously- these vids are great.

best vid yet man, awesome job. thank you!

Jackie Chan said: "Become dragon? Nah." "*Become Monkey.*"

Man, this video is perfect, you said everything. And I still can't imagine the amount of work you put in your videos. Big up from France

This is the best video I've seen on any of the subjects mentioned. Thank you for this

This is the video i been waiting for!!!

Another interesting aspect is how parkour started out as a form of peaceful rebellion - a way for the youth to reclaim the city and its arcitecture, using it in way that was never intended by the establishment. There was more than a little situationism and adbusting to it. But the establishment has since tried hard to control parkour by attempting to move it from the streets and rooftops to gyms and parkour parks, and by creating organized sportsevents and selling commercial products such as parkour clothes and videogames, etc. I’d love to see you diving into that theme @jimmythegiant

I was keenly aware of the link between parkour and martial arts/self defense when I first started: 11 years ago. I can talk hoouurs on this subject! For example, parkour is the most pacifist martial art because it teaches us personal protection without needing to hurt anyone. Now that I think about it, it makes sense for Chan to specialise in parkour because he's such a nice gentle sweetheart! He'd never want to hurt anyone. I also started training regular martial arts recently and had maaaany discussions with fighters about utility of parkour. Outside of myself I, unfortunately, don't know anyone who is as serious on these two topics as myself so I'd looove to compare my experiences of combining the two disciplines with someone!

Man this is one of the most informative videos I’ve ever watched! You really did your research man! Well done!

impressed with the consistency of content release. Making one video a week at this pace and quality must be a goddamn mission. If you can keep it up, you'll definitely see those subs continue to increase.

Great video. Thank you for acknowledging the contribution and influence of Jackie Chan. But, there are some inaccuracies in your clip. 1. Bruce Lee was not from Shaw Brothers. Bruce Lee and later Jackie Chan were from Golden Harvest, competitor to Shaw Bros. Shaw Bros were the king of martial art movies at that time (with movie like Five Venoms that was shown in your clip) until Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Somebody has once said that GH would have been in bankruptcy if not for Bruce and Jackie. 2. Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee were from Hongkong though Bruce was born in San Francisco. And at that time, Hongkong (despite belonged to China) was not considered as China. At that time, both places were so different. China was very poor and isolated from outside while Hongkong, being governed by the British, was rich, modern and developed. Hongkong was returned by the British to China in 1997. 3. In your clip 07:31, you mentioned that China is getting more modern so that Jackie focused less on rural set up and more to urban set up. As mentioned above, Hongkong has been a very modern city at that time. The film you shown in your clip happened to be "Project A" (1983), it just happened that the set up was at the time of ancient China. It has nothing to do with the progress of China. China has not become more developed not until the 90's.

what, i thought parkour was way older than that. hasn't parkour been around in one form or another ever since humans have needed to traverse rough terrain while avoiding obstacles?

Great job on the video dude!

hey bro this was a sick video as always. so good to see you putting out historical content like this it really shows how much parkour means to all of us. you dont see many people doing this with other sports so its such a good representation of our passion towards the sport. big love as always keep it up

Okay so Jackie Chan had the Legacy of Bruce Lee and the pressure of an entire country on his back... no wonder he doesn’t talk much. Pretty damn humble

Early Gang!!! Let's goooo!

So good. Been waiting on these details from you. Great to teach to newer generations..

Your chanel is so important man! Congrast for great work! People will still watch your chanel in 50 year, maybe forever!

We need to see Charlie Chaplin Vs Jackie Chan in world chase tag

Jackie Chan is such a legend

wow, such a video man. you are the best jimmy. I can't admire you more for the effort you put into making these videos. I wish you were my history teacher. loved it and learned so much from a single youtube video.

been waiting for this videooooooo !!! :D

Bruce lee: "You have to express yourself honestly, and that my friend is very hard to do" Internet generation: That's where you are wrong!

There is an art called 毯子功, literally means "Kung-fu (practiced) on mat", it existed in China for hundreds years, and it is very similar to modern parkour. This art is very oftenly performed in Chinese operas, and Jackie has been trained in Peking(Beijing) Opera for years.

Thanks for the video! Top content as usual. Keep up the good work mate

what a Great video.. had me connected start to finish. Well done.. much love from Aotearoa/New Zealand

The next logical step is to merge pro wrestling with parkour Ok, that's in ring style sorted

I would say David Belle is the founder, while Chan was the creator. What Jackie Chan did was top level and dangerous, as well as in the setting of a movie. People who watched his stunts thought, "Thats cool, but i could never do that.". But then David Belle came along, and started posting videos of him and his friends doing parkour, suddenly the people who thought "I can't do that, Im not Jackie Chan/in a movie" now thought, "David Belle is exactly like me, maybe i can do parkour too"

Amazing video mate, great work

Great video, man! Multlayered connection between comedy, martial arts and other sports. Very clever & inspirational. 👍

so you guys think the real founder of parkour are human but y'all ignoring monkeys and chimpanzees, cats spiders the real founders ........... life is really unfair

I started because of him Not even joking

So many interesting connections I never new of... :o Really great work on this one Jimmy!

Excellent!! I love it! This goes to my "Inspiration" Playlist...

Parkour is simply a name for something that has been done for hundreds of years, if not more. All of those silent movies were the first recordings. then you moved into a different age of filming and you got Chan, and then the guys 'created' something that was already being done. They just named it something and recorded it in a style that caught people's attention. Everything grows and develops from something else. Jackie Chan is parkour, stuntman, and fricken genius. Jackie Chan > Bruce Lee.

Thank you for this video man! You nailed it...keep up the good work!

Great videos broda. Keep up the good work!

Okay, hot take. Jackie Chan, in his prime, could have taken an art of motion maybe three or two years before today.

I cringed a little every time you said China instead of Hong Kong

Really enjoyed your work man, thank you.

Love this video man good work

If you really want to know who "founded" parkour, than you simply have no idea what parkour is. Even in your video, no individual thought about naming his style because you never do things that way. Actions are not defined by names. You show how many people literaly do parkour way back in the past. For comedy, or for action or just to make themseles better. In the end, it doesnt matter if the action has a definition or not. I would be surprised if any of those people care if they were the "first" or not. You gave yourself an answer who founded parkour in this video, but for some reason you seem not to give it a go. In my opinion - nobody invented parkour, since people were doing it for fun and challenge probably way before those you show us. When i was little, we tend to climb walls, walk on rails, jump trees, roll over things all the time. Was that parkour ? We just had fun, make challanges and just played that way. We lacked that definition, maybe now someone would say we were doing parkour. Adults just told us that we are playing stupid a risk hurting ourselves, that was definition we used those days. But today its called differently. But who cares ? Founder should be someone who invented the style, not someone who named the style.

Wow, good video man, in the end everything connects and your mind explode

Yooo, can really see the extra time spent on these videos bro!

I'm never going to take up Pakour - but I am loving the intro to the sport your videos are providing. Nice work Jimmy.

Thanks so much for this video. I absolutely enjoyed every part of it. Great stuff man. Gonna subscribe.

This is a really good break down and piece of history comparison...really well researched and backed with some cool footage..tops

really enjoyed this more indepth documentary style video! top stuff, all the old guys did wonder for filmed movement and vigour

Thank you for work. This was a necessary video, only we didn't know until you made it!