Thanks for letting us teach you Parkour! You'll definitely get away next time ✌🏻😁

I think the biggest takeaway is that just like every martial art, you have to actually train running away for it to be effective.

"GIVE ME YOUR VENMO" should be the new thing enemies yell when they see you in video games. That shit had me dead 💀💀💀

The situational awareness jab really made me laugh, this was great stuff. too often people get asked for self defense and are just told: "just run away!" Its great to see someone finally testing out scenarios like that to see how practical "just running away" is.

As a slightly bigger than average adult man doing martial arts, I sincerely draw inspiration from your adventurous spirit and genuineness. Thanks for being here doing fun stuff

I've always been big into self defense and I got into parkour for this exact reason. The couple of times I've actually had to defend myself (rough town) I've only been able to run once but all it took was clearing a railing and sprinting off into the night for them to give up. I think it definitely has its place in a fully realized self defense system.

Brings up my favorite Icy Mike lesson of "between getting bitched out in the moment, and dying, the option is pretty clear". Learning to walk away before you have to run will always be the prime way of getting past a potential situation.

This is one of the most useful videos you've ever made. Of course, people argue on fighting methods, and other say "run away, instead". Well, turns out running away: 1) is a skill in itself, and 2) isn't so easy to do after all. It is only logical that criminals would target people who would be less likely to escape, in the first place. But a true journey through fighting methods and self defence would never be complete without this

7:50 The dropping from the roof, actually reminds me of this really cool thing a few of my friends did. So, they were out training, and no joke, there was some purse snatcher that grabbed a ladies purse. So they weren't close enough to see and give chase, but they decided to use their training at height as a vantage point to look for the dude, and they found him and just dropped from the sky on either side of this dude. Now imagine your a petty criminal, and some dudes straight up batman drop and surround you. Guy didn't want no smoke, didn't even ask what they wanted, just immediately surrendered and gave the purse back to them to return it to the lady.

"I wouldn't be a very good criminal." Aw, Seth. You'd be a great criminal. You've already stolen our hearts.

It's precisely the ability to clear an obstacle in half a second (4:44) that takes an untrained person (4:49) about 5 seconds to clear. Do that a few times, especially with something like jumping a decently sized gap, and you've gained SO much distance. Thank you so much for trying this and being respectful when trying our sport! It's too often painted in a light making us out to be crazy daredevils, or hoodlums, or adrenaline junkies, when it requires SO much repetition and working from the ground up.

I've always talked about "the only thing that works is what you can practice in competitions" and you literally found a competition that practices running away and asked their advice. Brilliant!

Finally!! One who understands the basic of running away. I added Parkour to my martial arts training a year or so ago. A new man. I did gymnastic as a kid before Karate so it got me back to those roots of positioning my body in space. 3D space not just front back side to side but up and down as well. And traverse distances faster or that would be unthinkable before. You see a wall, I see a path upwards. A new man seeing the world in a new way. Makes the whole world a playground/training area

*Story;* Security guy I know casually (Big John)… used to be head bouncer at this nightclub. One night he threw out a gang member who was being really pushy - and the drug dealing gang didn't like that. So the gang wait for him to get to his home after work, with iron bars and so on, and once he has parked in the street nearby and exited his car (so that he can't just drive off) they try to ambush him. But he sees them and starts running. They give chase but what they didn't know was that he was also a semi professional soccer player and had fantastic cardio. He easily outpaces them, sees that and then slows down a bit, so that the fastest runners in the gang can get closer, _basically kiting them._ When the lead runner is totally exhausted, vulnerable and separated from the group, John takes him out with a quick strike (soccer playing martial artist security expert who has the prefix "Big") and then runs off again. And rinse and repeat. The gang gives up and they go back to where he'd parked _his car_ in the street and completely trash "it" with iron bars, bats, bricks, chains, a nearby signpost… Only issue was … … _They got the wrong car._ They trashed a similar looking car that was parked nearby. So some poor sod came out next morning to see their car was practically written off. As for John … a few phone calls and the Security firms and Nightclub owners (some of whom "allegedly" had organised crime ties), decided that this wouldn't be tolerated as it set a bad precedent. So they formed a united front and warned the gang that _all their members_ would be blackballed from every nightclub/pub/bar whatever, and also seriously hassled outside (and rival gangs notified) and so would be unable to do any dealing. The gang apologized to Big John. They didn't apologize to the owner of the wrong car.

I suppose one thing that wasn't mentioned was the importance of cardio. Whether you've got to run or you've got to fight, being able to do it harder and for longer is only ever likely to swing the odds in your favour.

I appreciate Seth trying all these martial arts and miscellaneous skills.

There is also the question on how committed are the attackers. Running after you is also a risk (exposure, help might arrive, witnesses). Most crimes are crimes of opportunity, if you manage to run, the opportunity is often gone past.

As a French national and European Sanda champion, kick boxing and mma practitioner, I challenge you to a fight for the joke you made at 0:21 . I have to show you Americans how French people can destroy you in a ring

Running away saved my ass so many times.... Tho parkour is freaking awesome and sensei seth will do LITERALLY ANYTHING BUT SAVATE

Hey guys! Love this campus! This video goes to show that relying on a single trick to avoid violence rarely works. *Just* learning to fight or run or de-escalate or be situationally aware or will never cover all situations. There is a time to run, and it's saved me a few times. There's a time to fight, and that's...only sort of ever helped me. Being aware (of people's attitudes, more than spotting assassins in the shadows) and being pro-actively pleasant/disarming/conciliatory/appeasing have kept me from having to fight or run more times than I can count.

I was once in a situation like this. Essentially I was playing basketball alone in a pretty rough neighbourhood, I was a young martial artist and my ego got better of me, what can I say. Then two older kids approached me, first, they acted friendly, but then one of them asked me to give him a slicer necklace I had, which I refused. He then pulled out a screwdriver from his trousers and now again, required that I have it to him. I pushed him into his friend, picked up my ball, and started running. I had a headstart but they were bigger so they started catching up to me after 20-25 meters. Luckily, right around a corner, there was a policeman so they stopped chasing after me and yelled something along the lines of "haha we were just joking around.". Obviously, I'm not an idiot, I know what was going on, but I was shitting my pants so much that I never told the police officer. I just waited there for them to leave, and then I ran back home.

With the amount of things Seth has learnt and put himself through simply for content, I'm giving it 3 years until we see him become an undefeated UFC double champ "just to see if he could" for a video

Great little forray into parkour. "Combat skills are still important because you may have others with you" (paraphrasing here): I'd say i'ts even more general than that. Even if your moves are on point and you're alone, it doesn't end at "the tag". Ok, so the bad guy tagged you. Does that mean he just touched you, grab you, stab you, ...? Also, shoving/striking a bad guy early on to open a parkour line is a valid move if your goal is running away. 'Grapple-tag' (sadly i don't think that exists... yet) is what you need for that family of scenarios (get out by running away). I say that as a guy who trains PK more seriously than combat.

I like the fact this video showed that in some situations running away is easier said than done.

In the tunnel when you were hopping over the railing would be an excellent point to stop running, and attack. As they hop over you could tackle them to give yourself a great opportunity to run or fight. I don't know how you could safely test that though.

It would be interesting to train a mix of parkour and fighting martial arts, so that you have both fight and flight options.

The best defencive marital art is "No be there"

this was really eye opening for me, as I like to think I would generally try to escape conflict. I am a big fan of your channel and this is my favorite video of yours I have seen mate, thanks very much for uploading it. I would definitely be interested in more content of a similar variety.

LMAO!!🤣🤣 I laugh but, it really is high risk and more difficult than it looks. Mental blockage, and distraction(s) (in my opinion) are the most dangerous aspects of this type of high-speed obstacle usage. Good training👍

I like how casually he plugs his merch. That's what advertisements should be; not a minute of "this is the best thing ever and you'll never regret it" but "if you like it, you can find it in the description". But beyond that, great channel and I'm thinking of getting into some of this stuff. This channel has definitely helped me build the confidence to start doing that.

I love it. Keep up this empirical approach!

Damn you picked that up really fast. It usually takes a lot longer for my students to learn kongs and shoulder rolls. You're a natural lol

I've done parkour for like a decade and it's kinda like BJJ in that regard. It's definitely gonna help you, but high-level stuff goes out the window once you're stressed - no matter if it's a flying berimboloplata or a triple kong 360

Hey! Long time fan and 4 years of parkour coaching here! FINALLY a serious running away episode! Thank you!!! But here are the things I would've changed in this video! First of all, I wouldn't pit you against freerunners to test you. That's just not fair. We want to test our chances of running away in real life scenarios, right?? There's practically 0% chance a freerunner will want to seriously hurt you. Violent ppl don't last in your discipline! Second of all, I wouldn't count the number of touches. Who cares about touches?? If a criminal touches me that means nothing. I would count three things: possible punches or kicks against you (some sparring experience would be needed to test this safely), times you were actually caught (as in immobilised), and times you were tripped successfully (would need to be tested on safe surface like gym or grass for safety). Great job Seth!

Icy Mike will like to see this video he have been talking about the idea of how hard it really is to run away for a very long time now he will also probably tell you to mix wrestling with that parkour to make more self defense (which makes a lot of sense) but a lot of people don't like hearing that.

Seeing a “bigger” guy doing this shit makes me optimistic about it. When I was younger and well super skinny I would go out a practice daily. Bigger I got the more I strayed away.

Hey seth can you create another Comparing video about different types of kickboxing like Muay Thai and American kickboxing and dutch kickboxing and sanda like what's the difference with their stances and kicks and techniques in the near future

I love seeing this "self defense" advice put to the test. So many people smugly say "just run away" as if it's the ultimate way to protect yourself

I think there’s another side of this not being addressed is cardio in relation to actual running speed I’m a sprinter assuming I have any kinda distance between myself and another person I can legitimately be gone.

I’m so glad that Seth has gotten the recognition and attention that he deserves. Feels like just yesterday he was doing a live Q&A on his phone answering questions about if he will pursue mma lol

Even in the Marine Corps I could not run fast, so running away would not be an option for me. But after ten years of full contact matches, I think I'd be comfortable with letting the bad guy come to me.

dude your channel is evolving so hard. this is great content, the entire exploration of various styles series has been great.

Thank you Sensei Seth for doing this episode! As a dude who has done both parkour(18 yrs and counting) and martial arts this was hella entertaining!

That was sick! Also kudos for the cameraman being able to run and not have the camera get all shaky

This type of training is really fascinating, but I can't help but want to see it with martial arts mixed in. For instance, when you were both vaulting that rail back and forth in the last test, the correct answer would be to roundhouse him as he tries to follow you over it, then run past. It would also be interesting to see if they actually could trip and beat you down from a chase instead of just tagging you. Also, the cameraman should either be perched on a high location getting a bird's eye view of the entire chase, or being a chase cam themselves.

This was really fun to watch. Thank you for sharing ☺️.

Great stuff and really like what your vids I like the fact your open minded and try new things and are not negative on different styles ,just try them out and have fun ,oh if I was younger would love to have done parkour ,those guys kicked ass!

Parkour is the most Zen martial art I've ever done. It's like the whole world is on your side but your limitations are the opponent. Except it doesn't dwell on the stoic stillness aspect of peace and focuses on movement and continuous real time adaptation

Depends if you get a head start. I have run from fights many times. Once against a guy that would easily flatten me and once against a guy that I would have easily flattened. Why did I run away from the last guy, strangely enough he terrified me. This guy was like 1/3 my size but he had zero fear. Something about a guy that picks on someone 3 times his size didn't sit right with me, I am not proud of it, but I didn't want to find out.

I'm amazed at this There are some really practical aspects to this- especially the health and agility parts. Looks fun too.

This series of you trying different martial arts is really great. Keep it up!

I laughed way too hard at the line "it was time to be truly French, and run away" lol

I love Parkour, took it only for a month. While I did feel like a complete amateur always training with people far better than me who are able to perform great feats, it is truly insane to know how much you can learn parkour in just a span of a month. after 10 years, I forgot almost all of it, and lost the confidence to do what I used to do. It is a great skillset to have, maybe one day I go back to it.

1:08 It's crazy how when you're a jump athlete (like me) you can IMMEDIATELY know if someone it's great at jumping or never does this, in your case it's visible that you're pretty athletic and that helped you to perform really well but it's clear that you don't jump much. In the words of Mcgregor "all i see is stiffness".

Good demo on parkour. Shows that a lot can go into it. Bet your sprint game gets a huge boost with the training.

Parkour is great for avoiding combat, or enhancing ones ability to fight in awkward environments. But you could also use your parkour training for running towards danger or a threat. To help others by getting to them. Its a great training tool to build confidence living life outside of the box.

I have never run away from a fight. Instinctively, it always felt like a bad idea. And now I understand why: I would get caught, 100%, and then I'd be exhausted and easier to beat up.

I had been waiting for this one !

This was a good idea & fun to watch, thanks

This raises a good point. Running away, can at times be unrealistic. I've watched a few of those parkour tag competitions though, and must say they truly have mastered the art of it. If anyone can teach you, it's likely them.

@Seth - this is a fantastic video - and I think this now sets a presidency for actually training running away in self defence classes!

Awesome video Seth! I really like the learning segment of the video and the tag segment! If you ever do a similar video again, I think it'd be cool if you also used some go pros too for the tag segment, so we can have different angles.

I called this art; "Duckanomics; The art of Dodging and Running away" when i was a kid. I was always getting into fights, most of them protecting family but when i was outnumbered, i realized i needed to practice dodging grappling and takedown attacks in order to get away or counter attack. Friend always though i was insane when they saw me rolling around everywhere as part of my training. i was trying to test how my body moved on different surfaces and improving my response times.

I don't tell my students to run away. I tell them to get to a position of dominance and/or safety. This would include but not limited running but sometimes running away isn't possible or prudent. So it would also include taking the back. Taking cover in a gunfight. Going to a safe room. And a myriad of other responses all dictated by the particular circumstances of that specific encounter. That said, many criminals are lazy and looking for an easy score and many times running away is enough to get a criminal to go looking for easier prey. YMMV.

You're ready for the big screen Sensei!😎 I'm sure it also helps if you're familiar with the area but if I'm a tourist in trouble, I guess it'll be Troom Troom self defense then!😂

Damn this was a really good idea, killin it!

Sensi seth - you effing rock! So much fun stuff - love your attitude and stuff. #longLiveTheHard2HurtVerse

The problem for me with "just running away" is that I have short legs, and no matter how much I practice running, even an untrained attacker could still be faster than me. However, I can see how Parkour could give me a head start in some situations/environments. If the attacker needs to take a longer route he might get too tired before he's able to catch up.

I used to live with two parkour coaches. They were small guys, this is really hard even for me @ 75-80kg (170-180ish). You did good as a bigger guy, jokes about looking awkward aside you are athletic af

loved the tip about keeping a distance from the one chasing you, genius

I love that you have such an open mind and you're trying this stuff before you judge it.

Nice to see you practicing parkour in case of a 28 days later style zombie apocalypse.

Parkour is the same as every other martial art. 1. You can't learn it well enough in a day to be useful against the average person, let alone other practitioners. 2. You should supplement it with other martial arts the same way you'd supplement a striking art with a grappling art. 3. If you put the time in, you have an advantage over people who don't. Running should never be your only plan but it should always be your plan A.

I used to think parkour was just fancy running but this showed me it’s useful for actually escaping situations like this!

Legit a pretty cool video. The insight at the end about the advantages of fighting was good. Honestly even though I have a huge appreciation for parkour I was thinking aight if we are actually thinking what's best to do in situations like that tunnel it would be to just kick their legs out from under them while maneuvering. That's one of the things to be able to do as a fighter. Have to traverse a weird environment during said fight. If you can be the guy that can grab on to the railing, kick their legs out from under them, then run, that is the culmination. Unfortunately to be able to train this stuff effectively you need like exclusively wrestlers that can fall on anything and be fine.

See I think having skills like this in addition to martial arts and basic strength training should be baseline for just about anyone.

"just run" is confusing, because it can mean two things - leave, or escape. Totally different things, useful in totally different contexts. Leaving is easy, but it's not really a substitute for being able to fight. Escaping is something you can do instead of fighting, but it's hard.

Sadly, I have a crippled leg, so since school it has been mostly a battle royale with bullies (can't run for real); With time, you learn to recognize which dudes are willing to talk it out and who you should avoid. Really appreciated the good will of those willing to listen.

Loved the vid! A fun park our way to practice running and being chased is zombie tag. (Not helpful for the trying to defuse part) Starts with one person it and if u get tagged u also become it and stay it until the game ends with everyone being tagged. Especially fun with parkour~

Thank you for making this !!! I get so frustrated by martial artists that pay lip service to idea of running away, thinking its easy to outrun a street thug that's been running for years.

I like parkour a lot, but running seems more foundational to running away. And I feel the setup of novice vs ringers invites a lot of confirmation bias from the target audience.

When I was 26 I was running 22 miles before you got out of bed. Now I'm 58, a dozen heart attacks, a major stroke, ataxia and walk with a 5ft cane. Things change as you age. Stand and fight may become your only option. At that point, this old Sergeant of Marines is going to do what he does. BTW- Totally agree with the "don't be there" concept.

very cool how you are exploring so many avenues of what self defense means. that adaptability is crucial in true living.

Seriously tough challenge to get this working for a normal guy....personally i think standing and fighting would be less damaging than me falling flat on my face after trying to climb something. Never liked running away anyway! Amazing what these guys can do though.

That was awesome. You, sir, are my favorite dork on the internet. I mean that in a good way.

I always point and say “look a baby deer!”. I run away when they turn to look. Even the most hardened criminal will turn to look for a baby deer. Adorable.

I’ve been doing parkour since I was eight, I’m in high school right now. Now I’m in wrestling and in to martial arts so this is an entertaining video

This is why when I recommend running as an option of self defense it comes with the caveat that you have to run 3-4x a week as well to be able to run when the time comes

This was very entertaining. Makes me want to try parkour. When I was a teenager "freestyle walking" was a fad I tried with almost no success 😂

Looks so fun. I want to try that

Seeing the three of the them chase you down looks like 3 lionesses hunting down a wildebeest in the serengeti 😂 Great video by the way!

This looks like the kind of fun I wouldn’t mind!

Great video thank you! ☺♥

Hell yeah! I was the guy in the blue jersey in that world chase tag clip, good stuff in the video

Loved this video!

3:52 I want to have the motivation the guy with the pink shirt has

That was a fun video. I guess the takeaway is don't run unless you are confident you are better at it than your attackers. But, how about strategically retreating, making it dangerous to close with you while making your way away from them towards hopefully some public area or better defendable space where the attackers will give up trying to close and fight.

Sick! I am getting a coffee and coming back for this!

Seth. You are the best. You love your base but you embrace peripherals. Top guy!!

I never thought of parkour as a martial arts but after seeing this I see it's benefits