The Martial Art Of Tricking—Be Wowed By The Flips, Kicks, And Acrobatic Insanity Of This Combo Sport

Martial arts, when practiced by experts, are a beautiful thing to watch. It's the end result of years of hard training and study. Now, how impressive to watch would it be if you went further and combined the various skills, fighting styles, and movements of several disciplines? Let's say the fierce kicks of taekwondo, the elegance of wushu, capoeira's improvisation, along with the agility, flexibility, and endurance of gymnastics?

Well, no doubt you would have something pretty damn special, right? You would, and it's called "tricking." The art of tricking has been around since around the late 90s and early 00s and looks insane to see performed. Combining all those moves results in the practitioner looking like they've leapt straight from a choreographed fight scene from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The video above from Great Big Story features Korean tricker Ingun Yoo, aka "Kick Gun" who is one of the best trickers around and watching him perform is enough to make you feel dizzy. And totally jealous.

Yoo started his tricking days by learning taekwondo, the national martial art of South Korea, when he was 5 years old. After many years dedication he eventually graduated onto the advanced kicks of taekwondo, like spinning jump kick the 540, which involves a 540 degree rotation. These types of high level kicks form the basis of tricking.

With that foundation Yoo then began to branch out into different disciplines as he got older and now he's a professional, internationally competitive martial arts tricker—and all round badass, of course.

Watch him with awe in action above. And you can see more tricking below, this time from martial art collective Invincible Worldwide.