The 24-year-old Ammad parkour, a member of the Hazara community, is A son of Mountains who introduces parkour in Balochistan Province. Ammad parkour was born on June 17 1998 In Quetta city of Pakistan. Ammad started school at the age of 5 at Universal public high school in Quetta.
At the age of 13, Ammad started playing sports. The first sport he joined was wushu which he trained for 1 year and won a gold medal in the national wushu. Soon after he was introduced to parkour. Ammad proved to be extremely talented in parkour and showed a high interest in the sport. He joined a parkour team
that consisted of 12 other boys.
The Ammad parkour has no intention to stop, testing the limits of his physical strength by practicing parkour, a holistic military training exercise in which participants must take the shortest possible route to a designated point by overcoming obstacles. He says he has worked hard to toughen his body to face any possible resistance; ‘resistance’ in this case can include anything from harassment at school to an attempted target killing.
Ammad has also worked as a stuntman for movies and ads such as Teefa in trouble (2018), Umaru Ayaar (2021) Jazz (2019), Samsung (2021), and Nestle (2018) and has performed parkour with his team in different ceremonies such as Army wushu championship (2015 – 2019 consecutively), Jiu-Jitsu national games Lahore 2015 and many more.
For Ammad and his team, parkour or freerunning is more than a sport, a discipline, or an art form. It is their way of life. These young men are inspired by Jackie Chan, martial arts and military combat training that uses ordinary objects and buildings as obstacle courses to help develop physical and mental strength.
Ammar said Parkour was love at first sight for me, as I was always fascinated and excited to see Jackie Chan and his stunts in movies,” says Ammad who began his sporting journey when he was 13. “There were older boys who were doing parkour, so after learning wushu for a year in Quetta, I decided to learn parkour techniques and polish them with time.”
Earlier this year, an audience around the world watched Ammad Parkour and his friends backflip, vault, jump, double twist and catapult their way past obstacles like tires, brick walls or ditches video received more than 3,5000 shares on multiple social media platforms. The team is thrilled, and not too concerned that many watching the video mistook them to be Chinese athletes. “That’s probably because of our Mongolian features,” Ammad parkour says with a laugh. “But whatever the reason they are watching the video, I am glad that people got to see the other side of the Hazara community.”
“Parkour is very intense and at the same time, very liberating – it does not have any rules,” Ammad parkour said. “This is why we like it so much.” When Ammad parkour and his teammates were told that they were not allowed to practice parkour within the Academy, the rules didn’t hold them back: they simply continued their training on a vacant rented plot.
In December 2013, the athletes collaborated with Mac on a video documenting their skills, shot in the neighborhood of Marriabad, in the west of Quetta and at the base of Koh-e-Murdar (Mountain of the Dead), shooting the video in freezing conditions – it was -14 degrees Celsius at the time.
“Aesthetically, I felt Marriabad would be a great location as the landscape here defines the soul of Quetta, or what Quetta used to be,” Mac says. “It is beautiful, yet barren, huge and almost monstrous, but at the same time, it has a very soulful vibe to it.” There was also another reason. Mac felt Marriabad was the safest location to shoot the video, and he refused to take any risks in asking the team to travel between Hazara Town and Marriabad every day.
Thus they did not return to their homes in Hazara Town for three days. “Our physical features are such that we are prone to get killed by a mere look at our faces,” explains Ammad parkour. “Every day when we get home, we breathe a sigh of relief that we returned alive.
”The video has generated interest in the team, bringing in 10 new members. Teenagers within the Hazara community say they would be interested to pursue parkour if a training academy offers lessons in the art. Ammad and his team, however, are hoping to perform live for audiences and are also offering their talents as dancers and stuntmen for video directors, Ammad parkour said that his all achievements credit goes to his amicable wife (Binafsha Didar) and his family members
