He wanted to be like his favourite superhero so badly when he was younger that he even fantasised about being bitten by a spider!

Luckily, he steered clear of radioactive insects and honed his athletic skills instead.

On Tuesday, The Weekend Sun received reports of a man donning a Spiderman costume, flipping and leaping around Tauranga City.

Going to investigate, The Sun found the man behind the mask to be 27-year-old parkour athlete Arran Ligo.

Hard-core parkour 

For those unfamiliar, parkour is an athletic sport where one must get from point A to B in the fastest, most efficient way – often involving scaling buildings, jumping from walls and incorporating flips.

It’s also popularly used in an online adventure game called ‘Assassins Creed’.

Seeing a video of a man practising parkour in an Assassins Creed outfit 10 years ago, Arran’s parkour journey began.

“I was like: ‘Wait you can do that in real life?’ And the guy had a whole Youtube channel with tutorials, so I watched all his videos and learnt how to do parkour from him and I was just hooked ever since.”

Spider love 

Then, three years ago, Arran started a Youtube channel of his own dedicated to feats in parkour, which has more than 50,000 subscribers.

Now, he’s introduced his Spiderman alter ego to his worldwide audience.

“I’ve always loved Spiderman since I was a kid.

“I actually always wanted to get bit by a spider in the hopes that I’d become Spiderman.”

The Sun asked if he ever risked being bitten by a spider.

“No – I thought about it. I’m glad I didn’t. It probably wouldn’t have turned out very good!”

Moving from Tennessee, US, to New Zealand five years ago with wife Hannah, Arran now lives in Tauranga South.

So what does Hannah think of her husband’s masked antics?

“She loves it. She supports it 100 per cent and will sometimes help me film my videos too.”

Aspiring Youtuber, Arran Ligo, 27, practising parkour in his Spiderman costume. Photo: John Borren.

Risk and reward 

But being Spiderman doesn’t come without its risks.

“I was climbing on the Bayfair building and I went to run up a wall.

"I stepped on the curb and over-extended my ankle, and snapped my Achilles tendon.”

Ouch!

“I’ve been told to get off buildings a lot. It’s just something you have to get used to and just be respectful of people if they do tell you to get down.”

None of that’s put a hitch in this spider’s web though, where the Tennessean posts content for his online channels daily.

Arran says his most viewed parkour video has 13 million views on TikTok.

“It’s crazy. I didn’t think anybody cared, but then people started watching and it’s like the biggest compliment to be honest.

"I’m just trying to grow my YouTube channel because I’m trying to do that full-time.”

Arran says parkour is a great sport for anyone interested.

“You don’t have to be doing crazy flips or anything to have fun with it. You can just learn some vaults and learn to climb up some walls.

"It doesn’t matter what level you’re at – just enjoy it!”

Check out Arran’s parkour at: https://www.youtube.com/@air_run