In 2005 I was introduced to parkour and one of the first events, the nascent parkour community of Seattle, got together for was a viewing of Tony Jaa’s Ong Bak,which featured some of the most amazing chase scenes I had ever seen and Mauy Thai based fights scenes, featuring lot of authentic hard hitting basics to go with the high flying tricks, all done without the help of wires or CGI.
The star Tony Jaa as it turned out had grown up playing with elephants then went to a martial arts university to study Wu Shu and traditional Thai martial arts, as well as competing in track, giving him an incredible movement base.
This weekend I came across this clip of him mixing in Capoeira and Michael Jackson Dance moves into his stunt fighting practice in preparation for Fast and Furious 7.
Its an amazing clip showing the versatility of his movement and the fact he is still after 15 years in the industry and in his later 30’s adding new movements into his practice and finding the play in his practice.
Take some inspiration and mix some dance, locomotive and acrobatic flow into combative play today.
