The Novocastrian is one of the pioneers of parkour in Australia, a sporting discipline that originated in France. Parkour practitioners traverse an environment - usually urban - by running, leaping, twisting and jumping in one "flowing" movement. The aim is to maintain this flow in the quickest and most efficient way possible.

His athleticism caught the attention of television talent scouts and now Wood, who is a mild-mannered marketing manager of the Newcastle Show by day, is an Ultimate Tag superhero by night.

His character is called Hollywood and he is one of 22 Pro Taggers on a new PRIME7 show that combines the childhood run and chase game, tag, with the basic principles of parkour.

Australians from all walks of life - Players - compete against the Pro Taggers who, in addition to parkour stars like Wood, also include sprinters, gymnasts and martial arts professionals. They will spin, dodge, tumble and dive their way around huge obstacle courses in the Ultimate Tag arena in a bid to take home $100,000 in prize money and the title of Australia's first Ultimate Tag champion.

It all sounds action-packed and exciting, much like Wood's life to date.

"I have done a lot in my 32 years, haven't I?," he laughs.

Wood is the eldest of five siblings: four boys and a girl. He grew up around Lake Macquarie and attended Swansea High and Lakes Grammar.

"We are a very competitive and extreme sports-driven family and us kids spent a lot of time in the bush, riding BMX bikes and doing jumps," he says.

Plot twist. Wood was also a child actor who played Christopher Fletcher on Home and Away for six years (Christopher was Pippa's son, and there are photographs of him cuddling up to co-stars Isla Fisher and Kate Ritchie online). When that role ended in 1998, Wood returned to normal school life. He was only 10 but he took it all in his stride. And then he discovered parkour.

"I was part of Australia's first generation of parkour athletes and I've been doing it for about 16 years now," he says.

"When I started there were no classes and there was no information we could use, so we had to learn from what we watched on videos from France."

His favourite parkour spots are Bar Beach ("There's a cement to sand area where it's really good for me to practice some of my acrobatic movements), Honeysuckle ("We call it the wave spot, and it's a little cement structure") and Newcastle University's campus ("It's awesome there).

With such a small parkour community in Australia at the time, Wood turned his attention overseas.

"Because the sport was so young I had to find other people online who were doing it," he explains.

"I made friends with some guys from Thailand, Germany and Latvia, and we started a parkour team together, Team Farang, and that took me to Thailand for six years. We also had a parkour clothing company going."

Wood was the first Australian to compete in the World Freerunning Championships in London and the first to compete in the Red Bull Art of Motion competitions. Then a motorbike accident changed his life, initially for the worse, but ultimately for the better.

"I was riding my bike home from the office one night and woke up 16 hours later in hospital with a subdural haematoma and two broken arms. I almost lost my eyesight," Wood says.

"I was 28 at the time and people were telling me it was the end of my career. I had atrophy of the right bicep and couldn't bend that arm for four months.

"My physio said I wouldn't be able to build it up to what it was before, that it would never be as strong, but there was just something inside of me, a part of me, that knew I could.

"I made it my mission to provide all the medical people wrong."

It took Wood two years to recover, but recover he did.

"At 30 years old, when people thought I should be retiring, I was the strongest I had ever been," he says.

"I think it's a testament to parkour itself and the way we train. It might look reckless to some people but we look after and respect our bodies. We are always safe and check our surfaces, especially cement pavers that could come loose.

"Even though there are some big jumps that we do, that's not what we do all day every day. A lot of it is repetitive movements that strengthen our bodies.

"Thanks to parkour, I was able to rebuild myself and now, at 32, I have been picked as one of the best athletes in the country to compete against kids a lot younger than myself."

Wood is like a kid in a candy shop on the Ultimate Tag set and can't wait for Sunday night's premiere.

"Channel 7 built a whole parkour playground for us to play on," he says, laughing.

"I feel great and I'm having a lot of fun. There will be a time when I will have to slow down a little bit but that time is not now."