“跑酷+非遗”，95后小伙不走寻常路！
Meet Tan Xiaofan, a 27-year-old from Dongguan, Guangdong. His life story reads like a real-life version of I Am What I Am (2021), the popular animated film about chasing dreams against all odds. Just like the film’s hero A Juan, Tan combines martial arts, parkour, and cultural heritage in surprising ways.
As a child, Tan loved climbing trees and scaling walls. By middle school, his natural agility (敏捷) led him to martial arts and parkour training. However, academic struggles meant he couldn’t go to college. Instead, he took jobs like teaching taekwondo and working at a trampoline (蹦床) center. But his passion for parkour never faded. He kept training, competing, and even started winning awards.
His family hoped he’d follow a stable path — maybe open a breakfast stand or become a barber. They didn’t understand his risky sport. “I wasn’t good at studying,” Tan admits. “But I felt alive when moving.” His big break came when he posted parkour videos online. Today, he’s a Douyin star with over 2.4 million followers.
Watching I Am What I Am made Tan cry. The film mirrored his own battles: financial struggles, family doubts, and the joy of flying through the air. “Every young athlete faces these challenges,” he says. “The film showed me I wasn’t alone.”
For Tan, parkour isn’t just exercise — it’s a way to feel free. “It’s like becoming an ancient hero leaping across rooftops,” he explains. He divides parkour into two styles: speed running (focusing on quick obstacle navigation) and free running (where creativity rules). Free running lets him invent new moves, blending martial arts flips with gravity-defying jumps. His signature style? “Powerful yet relaxed,” he says. “Others look nervous, but I make it look easy.”
In 2023, Tan began mixing parkour with Chinese cultural treasures. One viral video showed him dancing among sparks by attaching fireworks to his shoes during a datiehua (striking iron flowers) performance. Another project combined lion dancing with parkour leaps on high poles. “Traditional arts need new energy,” he believes. “By mixing them with parkour, people get curious — and curiosity spreads culture.”
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