Easter Emptiness.

 

Ben’s Trainers.

 

For the second week in a row I was out training with the Npk community at the weekend training session. The weather Friday night was terrible, cold and heavy rain with a strong wind too and I did wonder if that would transpire into Saturday. I was surprised to even be out though, after sleeping in Friday until half past two in the afternoon. The day before that I was up at seven in the morning and so my sleeping pattern is pretty messed up currently. I didn’t go to bed until two or three and was still laying awake well into the four and five o’clock hours. I guess being excited to train again had me too restless to sleep, the thought of new photo opportunities and a good training vibe didn’t help matters. I did wake up around ten, but then lolled around in bed until nearly twelve, making everything a rush. Adam was out this weekend and wanted everyone to train even if weather was bad, though it didn’t seem like many were going out now due to last nights weather putting them off, God dammit!

I was running late anyway and so was Kezza and a few others who said on the event not to move from Plaza until they got there. I didn’t expect many to be out, or the ones who did to be very few. I arrived at Plaza at around quarter to two, to find that no one was out?! All bar a mysterious guy lurking near one set of the walls, pacing back and forth checking his phone. Then there was Adam sat with Aiden on the other kong precision walls. I said to Adam that I instantly felt demotivated for training and might just go home as I hate sparse turn outs… The lurker looked familiar, a possible practitioner? After a while the same vape monster came over to us and asked me if I remembered him… Holy shit! It was Rob, Mr Bozik! I hadn’t seen or trained with him since 2009 [1] back when he had come to Nottingham with his friend Michal and Pike. Rob really hadn’t changed that much, he said he was waiting for the SM guys to arrive, who should have already been here by now…

 

Kezza – Portrait.

 

Others started to arrive slowly but surely, Mat, Kezza, Ben, Luke, CJay and Holbrook and a good amount of the community started to form. Everyone was warming up, kong precisions, diving kongs, general flow and even flips. There was quite a diversity of movement skills between us all today. CJay was on top form with his own training and it didn’t seem like anything was too much hassle for him to do with his good jumping power. He was doing some crazy double kong, then was trying to double kong handspring out of the move… Holbrook was practising a small run involving the railings. While I was trying to get out of my unmotivated mood I was in. Some newer movements I hadn’t seen anyone do, was a diagonal kong precision from the small blue railing to a wall. It might be small, but very awkward and thought it would be a good movement for people to consider. Much like the running precision from the first wall, up and over to land on the same blue railing. Some terrible looking and feeling movements but the guys were getting them done. I took a few photos, but at the same time I wanted to move and train rather than be stuck behind the lense.

We moved up to the now lesser trained area of Houses, the buildings are always open at the weekend now and so that means there are constantly cars parked in the way of where we train. Instead the guys trained near the kong precision and foliage part of the area, Kezza drilled the kong precision while Rob ran behind filming him. I quite enjoyed the shots I got of him doing the k2p. Once the cars had moved, even though it was wet and slippery due to the rain we practised a few tic tac cats. I trolled Kezza who wasn’t sure he could even do the tic tac cat now, I walked over to the wall slowly, saying I would do it no problem and then pushed off the wall and did it with no real speed or run up. He didn’t expect me to do that and was laughing, slightly amazed I had. I then did the 180 cat from hanging onto the wall with my finger tips, which was another old school movement which many still can’t do today. Each time people try, they expect some magical deeper groove in the wall which makes it easier to hang on, or some sort of trickery. It’s all to do with finger strength and forearm strength though, nothing more, nothing less.

 

Kezza – Running Precision.

 

CJay and Ben were looking at an ugly running downwards precision, it was diagonal and over the foliage. It was plain terrible, but it looked fantastic as a photo and so I set up my camera up while the guys kept preparing for the jump. You had to run blind and could only guess where the wall was, seeing the landing once you were in the air, no wonder it took them ages before they nailed it. I captured CJay and kezza doing the jump, but then it seemed like our time was up as a security guard had come around to move us on. He was friendly enough, asking what we were doing and watched us do a few movements before leaving us.

Solar Rays.

 

David – Portrait.

 

This entry is that of three training sessions, as I didn’t have that much to say or images to share for individual entries to make it worth while. So merging them all together in one post soon beefed up the content. Lets talk about the first day of training (17th March) I had planned to be out with Ben, Adam and David even though it was predicted to rain. With how bad the weather was the evening before, I had decided to not set an alarm for the morning as I already knew the weather would likely be just as terrible. Low and behold when I woke up, the weather was just that, wet and rainy. I was feeling unmotivated for training and not wanting to brave the dull, rubbish weather and thought that others might have the same idea… I received a message from Adam asking where I was as he was already out at the park with his sister Rebecca. I then got messages from Ben too saying I should come out, as it’s no longer wet and David and Luke are out with them too. After many photos and messages from them, taunting me to come out, I think they got the message that I wasn’t going to attend and then I was left in peace.

Around three o’clock I was still in a foul mood, but thought maybe going out for an hour or two would be the best and lighten my mood. So, I was surprised when I got there and no one was training! It seemed they had all trained themselves out or were bored and ready to call it a day? My sullen mood didn’t go unnoticed as I arrived and got asked what was wrong, and why had I bothered to come out if I was going to be a miserable git. Oh and I got stick for wearing my Pure Parkour t-shirt [1] which Ben said looked more like an Asda t-shirt than a Parkour one. It was quite funny to see the sibling banter and quarrels between Adam and Rebecca, both abusing and putting each other down… It seemed like my arrival had given a little boost to the day and we trained, even if it seemed Ben was working more on Muscle ups. After Adam mentioned when I ran and did the strides my upper body was perfectly straight like a robot I decided to over exaggerate it even more with a long stride. I got a few photos of use doing a similar exaggerated stride, as you’ll see by Ben’s example in the photos below. With that, it was time for Ben to set off to work and Luke had plans and left too.

 

Adam – Speed Vault.

 

Adam wanted to train still, at least until after peak time traffic had passed. Adam’s sister was cold and sat in his car while the rest of us jumped. I got some photos of Adam doing Parkour, something I had neglected for a while now. In true Jennings fashion he stripped down to his Myprotein vest for added vanity gains. He wanted some shots of him actually training than just portraits [2]of him pulling silly faces. He was preparing to enter the Ninja Warrior UK auditions and so wanted to train, get better at Parkour and have some good footage for his application. The sun had begun to come out, giving a golden tint to all the images I took. Even though I was tired myself, and strangely drained due to lack of food and thinking I would only be out an hour max. Nevertheless it was great to be out and that the weather had now picked up. Adam looked like a tank in his vest while doing movements, more so the running towards the camera shots. Even with general vaulting images, you could see his muscles tensed and bulging…

David was off to work shortly, Adam would head home if I wasn’t staying out. I said I’d stay for a bit longer until peak time had passed. I got some muscle up images of Adam and we practised them together, doing a few sets. His muscle ups had improved loads since the first time he had come out to the park all those months ago! He was always strong on pull ups, now he has double armed muscle ups, even if he was smashing the bar into his chest at times. He could see and feel them, but they weren’t as consistent as he wanted them to be for multiple reps but it was great progress.

Strides, Vaults & Facial Expressions.

 

Adam – Striding.

 

I was feeling pretty tired today. It was to be the second weekday of training, after Tuesdays Upward Motions training session. Which I might add felt more like yesterday than today as my body had still not recovered.  I just know it will be hard to feel loose and fresh after more jumping and vaulting, depending on what I practise. I may want to lay off the leg work though, I don’t think my legs could handle another beating. Adam, David, Sonny, Phil and myself were planning to be out. Just like the other day, I had arrived at the park to find Sonny was already there waiting in his car, he said he had only been there for five minutes, but had decided to wait for others to arrive due to him being on his own this time and it being cold. It didn’t feel as cold as it was the last time we were out, but that freezing wind which was blowing away didn’t help matters.

It was feeling more and more like a bad choice to be out training today. I was finding it hard to move around without pain and everything felt more effort and difficult to do than previously fresh. My ankle was hurting as well, which it hadn’t done for a while now and thought it might have completely healed from surgery. It seemed like it didn’t appreciate being aggravated more with the jogging, skipping and Parkour which was proving hard to do without worry of it getting worse. Typical really, as I don’t have physiotherapy any more and the slight twinges I keep doing feel like it’s making it become worse. Sonny too was feeling the brunt of training earlier in the week, as his abs felt torn and had struggled to get out of bed. Now he was moving around at the park his quads were feeling very sore, like he couldn’t jump and had zero power within them.

 

Adam – Portrait.

 

This seemed to be a torturous day of training for us all, and would only get worse as the day went on… Adam drove in and then David arrived not long afterwards. Once warmed up strides were the thing I wanted to practise first, Adam and Sonny once again competing to do the running precision and standing jump from the concrete to the blue stump too. Well done to both of them practising and getting them. The more you practise, the better you get with precision jumps, they seemed to vibe off each other really well. In the distance I could see Phil making his way over the field. More small runs we being done, linking movements without too much thought, like striding up to and off a green stump then kong vaulting the small wall, once landing on the floor then doing a vault or kong cat over the next walls. Once we got used to the motion and lots of practising it was smooth without hesitation and it felt great when you got all the footing perfect.

Amongst the training and chatting I took some photos, I captured some amazing portraits of Adam pulling facial expressions each time I pointed the camera at him. Which you’ll see by the images, he seems to have the knack for… With it being a dull day, I didn’t like the images I was producing overall, but at least it shows you the sort of time we had. Phil was getting David to have a look at the downwards precision to the wall from the top railing, something David thought was very scary to attempt.

Upward Motions.

 

David – Running Precision.

 

Today’s agenda was a Tuesday afternoon of training. Adam wanted to be out, seeing as he wasn’t at work until later in the week. Like most days he has off, he spends most of them out jumping or in the gym lifting. It seemed that David, Sonny and even Adam (yes, another one) was up for the session too. No Kezza today though, as he was far too busy playing (Dying Light) the zombie Parkour computer game… He also made the excuse that he couldn’t get a lift down to the park and that his bicycle was broke and needed repairing. Which he hadn’t been bothered to do yet, I guess his fingers would be getting a workout today… Even with his excuses on why he wouldn’t be out today, Adam could have picked him up on his way to the park! I was up early and had plenty of time to get ready on time. Even Adam wasn’t online yet and I suspected that maybe he wasn’t up for being out? Though, maybe he thought the exact same about me too, that would be unfortunate if so. I had an upset stomach in the night and felt like it might be making a return and hamper my training. I hope not as that would be just my luck when I wanted to be out training.

I posted that I would be out around one o’clock rather than twelve that we had all first agreed on. This gave others time to reply and get there too. As I made my way across the field a woman was walking not just one, a couple but a dozen Collie cross bred type dogs. It was crazy to see a person with so many dogs and must have been some sort of breeder with that amount. I had timed getting to the park perfectly, because as I arrived Sonny was just pulling in to the car park. There wasn’t many people using the work out park, and even though the sun was shining there was a wind making the day cold too. It was hard to warm up, I was doing a few laps, jogging around the tennis courts and then did some skipping too, while Sonny and Adam jogged around the park, chasing each other, vaulting the various walls and rails in an aid to warm up. Adam pulled into the car park not long after and then I rang David to see where he was as he was usually here before any of us. He said he was running late and would be out soon, or at least he was on his way now.

 

Zade (Me) – Running Precision.

 

I had so many ideas and ambitions to film today, but as always, in the end it didn’t materialize. I’m pretty sure most of my day was spent trying to stay warm, constantly cooling down when stood still inactive for too long. More annoying when you get a runny nose, streaming eyes due to the wind and coldness. I was practising strides today and general precision jumps and wanted to work on the more upward precision jumps both standing and running too. The main running upward precision still haunted me, after getting it only a few times the last time I tried it. I had now got the fear of it again and couldn’t even attempt, and commit to it again. Out of embarrassment and beyond annoyance I suggested to David that we do it off the other side. It interested him enough to give it a go and this side felt more natural and I preferred my right foot for take off, which felt nicer than the left. The battle was on, taking it in turns in trying to get this jump. I was getting close to it, but still feeling very scared hovering in the air landing just before the wall. David got it first, enraged for not getting it, I kept drilled it even if I couldn’t commit. Slowly getting more use to it and then finally, something clicked and I forced craning it, then afterwards landing it and bouncing off the wall before I was able to use full power and land it with ease there on after.

It felt easy as hell to do this way, maybe it was all in my mind but I loved how it felt to do and got a few photos of us doing it. Sonny took a look and didn’t have the guts to do it, saying it was too far and Adam hated it with the angle. When I went to the other side of the wall I found that I still couldn’t do it running off my left foot, major mind fuck. What the hell is wrong with me and that way for doing the running precision… David said just take off my right, but that felt more unnatural to me and like I would clip my foot.