Brisbane’s real-life Spider-Men: Meet the parkour Pawson twins
They scale walls, glide down buildings, jump across rooftops and spring through city streets. Meet Brisbane’s real-life Spider-Men.
QLD News
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If you could live out a childhood fantasy, what would that look like?
To be a superhero? Fly through the air with all the wonderment in the world? Be transported inside a video game?
Brisbane twins Dylan and Brodie Pawson, 26, have made all those boyhood dreams of theirs come true and, incredibly, they’ve turned it into a profession.
The brothers are among the world’s best parkour athletes and have fast become social media sensations by uploading videos of their ninja-like adventures.
The pair, known as the ‘Parkour Twins’, have amassed over 11 million combined followers on TikTok and YouTube and their videos have attracted millions of views.
Their ludicrous, dangerous yet wildly entertaining clips see them jump between rooftops, scale walls, glide down high-rise buildings and sprint through city streets.
They’ve filmed themselves dressed as Spider-Man running through Brisbane, mimicking tricks in video games like Mario and recreating the stunts of Hollywood stars Jackie Chan and Jet Lee.
Their most watched include jumping between rooftops in Santorini (31 million views), being ‘late for work’ and hurdling over obstacles, up trees and over gates at speed to get there on time (22 million views) and running through city streets dressed as Spider-Men (30 million views).
But that’s just some of what these men can do and Brodie tries to simplify just what that is.
“Parkour is pretty much getting from point A to point B just using your body to find the most efficient route,” he says.
“You aren’t just jumping from rooftop to rooftop … it’s a lot safer at ground level using just your body.
“It can involve vault precision, jumping between two different walls and sticking it shows control and then you have to land it as well.”
Dylan and Brodie have been described as ‘Australia’s fastest twins’.
Brodie is known for his speed and, as he says, ‘technical descents’ whereas Dylan specialises in free running and tricks.
In 2018 and 2019, Brodie won the AAPES (Australian Academy of Parkour Exercise and Self Defence) Jump Off which is Australasia’s largest parkour and free-running event while Dylan placed second in the North American Parkour Championships in 2018.
They rose to fame after they first appeared on Australian Ninja Warrior in 2017 and more recently, they’ve joined the cast of Channel 7’s new show, Ultimate Tag, which starts tonight.
The concept has players make their way through intense obstacle courses with the goal not to get caught by ‘pro taggers’, including Dylan and Brodie (or as they’re known on the show, Rapid and Razor).
Pre-pandemic, the twins would’ve been travelling the world training and competing parkour so this was a welcomed new challenge.
“It was an awesome experience,” says Brodie.
“The ‘survival’ course was the most difficult for us in terms of endurance, as parkour athletes, we’re pretty good in terms of power and that’s what we have most of but you’re not really running for any longer than 30 seconds so that was difficult.”
They’re arguably among the most underrated athletes in the country.
The brothers train up to eight hours a day three times a week alongside two strength sessions at the gym to reach peak mental and physical fitness.
What they do takes precision, skill, strength, science – with an awareness of physics – and, it must be said, hope. One small mishap could cause them a major injury or fall.
Miraculously, neither of the men have ever broken a bone only muscle tears or strains but it’s because, Brodie says, they’re far from daredevils but extremely prepared.
“There are some jumps I just won’t do,” says Brodie.
“I’ll look at it and think it’s silly and I’ll try it when I’m ready, there’s no point otherwise.
It can take Brodie up to a year of assessing an obstacle, trying it at ground level and going back again and again before he’ll take it on.
“There’s a nine-story descent on the side of a building in St Lucia, a staircase fire exit, and I used to drive passed it all the time and just look at it,” he says.
“I look at it and thought about it for a year without wanting to do it … I’d drive passed it every few weeks thinking ‘one day’.”
It all started with a video.
At the age of 13, Dylan showed his brother a video of parkour on YouTube and there was an instant urge to try it, much to their parent’s dismay.
“We started literally by jumping over tables, over bins in our backyard and the benches you would sit on at a park,” says Brodie.
They practised obsessively and despite working other jobs like labouring and studying for another career (becoming a police officer for Brodie), they couldn’t stop doing parkour.
They’ve travelled the world training in places in France, Greece, Italy and of course, right here in Brisbane on their doorstep.
In 2016, they started hosting workshops and teaching classes and after consistently posting their stunts to social media, they eventually caught the world’s attention.
“You would sometimes get things that would go viral and you’d think, ‘why?’ because they were the easiest things I’ve ever done but when people relate it to a video game or something out of a movie, then they have something to relate it to,” Brodie says.
“Like when we did 180s off a wall it went viral, it looked like something out of a video game or Mario.”
There’s a healthy competitiveness between the brothers, says Brodie, who admits they treat the world as their playground.
“You’re always scanning for new places,” he says.
“When you’re driving in the car, you’re obviously paying attention to where you’re going, but you can’t help look off and see what’s possible.
“That’s how we find all out spots, we’re constantly looking out the window to see what’s possible.”
And for these twins, nothing is off limits.
Ultimate Tag begins Sunday at 7pm on Channel 7
Originally published as Brisbane’s real-life Spider-Men: Meet the parkour Pawson twins
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