The Long Traipse.

 

Ben – Precision.

 

This weekend we went on a different route around Nottingham than the usual training of Plaza, IBM and Auditorium hotspots. Many had voiced their opinion in recent weeks about wanted an adventure, training different places and it would be a great change of pace and scenery too. The plan, to make people aware before hand I posted on the event. We would meet up at the usual Plaza hotspot but then go straight to Castle College followed by the NCP car park, the Broadmarsh area in front of the garage, the Nottingham Courts, Contemporary Art, Adams Building and then finally to Snienton or alternatively somewhere closer. It was a big list, depending on the time spent in each area, we might not get to train at them all. There were plenty of side street spots to session in between the main spots listed. Everyone seemed happy with the choices and there seemed to be  fair few people confirmed out for the day too. This was looking to be a very promising day indeed, both weather and turn out.

I was ready early for once and arrived bang on time, making sure I was there for this day trip then arriving late and then finding people were too deep rooted to Plaza. We moved right away to Castle College to warm up, without too much of an argument. There wasn’t as many out as expected but we still a nice number of people, which increased as the day went on. We had Andy from Shift out and some of the Derby folk too. It seemed that James was scared of the running cat he had previously conquered [1] and now felt like he may have lost it, forever even. Thankfully not though, after warming up more he got it on his third attempt, much to his relief. The rest of us were doing precision jumps on the skip next to the running cat. Jumping on, over and from it to the nearby walls. The skip wobbled when landing on it, making it difficult to stick and it launched you off it as you jumped from it. Some of the guys were doing bar work and other movements and it already felt like a great day of training.

 

James – Running Catleap.

 

While many of us were getting into the swing of training and feeling much warmer. The funniest thing happened when Mat and Holbrook had found some small scaffolding, the kind you seen painters using, a small section from that holds the ledge. Holbrook had the idea to use it for underbar movements, flipping it around in the air before he he went through it. Then he ran towards the wall doing a tic tac, then trying to do another movements over it once he landed, looking like a skateboarder. It was all very mental watching, but very funny too and would have made a great little video had I had filmed. Phil was filming a few bits on his glide cam rig he had with him, which instantly had the attention from Paul and James. I wanted to take photos and film too, but there weren’t many angles I could get at Castle College to make things look nice and it was rather crowded so I didn’t bother with shooting anything. We saw some guys from Leeds eyeing up the bigger running cat and running precision jumps before they vanished elsewhere.

Muscle ups were being done and this made Tom tell us he could no longer muscle up, at least cleanly and yet when he tried one, he did it perfectly as we all watched in anticipation for a failure. Just as we were about to move, there was a crazy Phil challenge going off. It involved standing not on the top of a blue railing, but the rung below it as show in the [2] image and then trying to cat to a blue fence in front of the railing. Now this catleap was quite far even from the top of the railing, but to go from the rung it felt near impossible. You couldn’t bend your legs properly (all part of the challenge) and the calves remained tensed with the rail pressed firmly against the back of the legs. Phil was close to it or did he do it in the end, I forget as it was so ridiculous.

Bank Holiday Bliss.

Zade (Me) – 180 Precision.

 

It was Bank Holiday Monday and with that, it was time for training! The day(s) before were pouring it down with rain, but today was glorious sunshine and that is weather we need to take advantage of for training! Seeing as James didn’t train Saturday due to being away on a cinema trip, I had been trying to tempt him to come out to the park today for his weekly dose of Parkour. He didn’t seem up for it at first, but soon changed his mind when it was good weather and was game for it, amazingly! I really didn’t expect that, as usually he only does Saturdays for training with no exceptions. I arrived at the park at the earlier time of one o’clock, to find that David and Adam had just arrived too. Sadly there were masses of kids at the park, that along with parents and kids sat on the walls and rails like it was seating furniture! It seemed like it was going to be one of those days… So much for me feeling excited to jump, the motivation was fading away due to not having full access to the area and the kidfest.

CeeJay arrived on his own, usually he is with Luke but today he was on his own, though only out for a little while before he had a call and had to leave as quickly as he had arrived. Before he went he was doing some crazy running precisions and a diving diagonal kong from the stumps. He was even doing some strange diving kong into a kong precision! What was he on, for such a small guy he has some crazy power in his legs. Kezza rode into the park, what the hell?! I thought he was ‘too busy’ to be out training today! He said he had blew off his plans now due to how many people were expected to be out training today and instead wanted to join us guys. Fair enough, though I bet the real reason is he couldn’t be bothered. Later Mat arrived via car along with Megan who had come out to try Parkour too and was very shy around the rest of us. It was quite cool to have a girl training this afternoon, and she wasn’t just attempting small movements either.

 

Zulu – Portrait.

 

Jallen had arrived, I was still a bit doubtful he would be out, even though he had said he would be. I don’t know why, I just expected him not to, but it was good to see him arrive. The Adam and James friendly competition was set to start again and I must say it was quite fun to watch. Adam eager to show James what he can do and then get James to try it, if not than banter would ensue about how he was better than him. Intentional or not with the banter it seemed to help Adam progress and also sparked some conversations about their training methods and how they are different in that respect and go about training and goals. Glory hunter verses the in it for the long haul, but if you wanted to know more it would be best to let them explain in person. Phil had arrived and was determined to help James progress with moves, so he was coaching him to do things which were out of his comfort zone while the rest of us jumped around.

It was nice to have Zulu out at the park today too, a regular fitness guy who used the park for his workouts. I met him when I was injured and regularly working out at the park, along with David and Steve. It’s amazing how many people use the park for fitness, and all at different times, so you meet new and interesting people no matter the time you visit. I even got a few new workout ideas from Zulu, from his own routines such as the one handed press up to rolling on the elbow then back into press up position. Steve arrived, late as ever and it was good to finally introduce him to more of the Parkour guys.

Festive Coldness.

 

Sark – Running Precision.

 

Today was cold and frosty, I was already feeling pretty tired and didn’t want to really be out training. I was running late as usual and I knew the coldness would only make me feel worse, along with my mood after being out for many hours in the bitter cold. I made a concious effort to wrap up before heading out, the preparing for an arctic blizzard kind of wrap up with layers upon layers, scarves, gloves and being prepared for the minus digits. I arrived at Plaza to find that no one had arrived yet, even though I was running late I had still managed to arrive before half past twelve. There were two bikers in the area, riding, jumping and whatever else it is that those urban, freestyle, trail bikers do… I sat and watched them, while I waited for other to arrive, while they seemed alerted to my presence. Perhaps they thought I was trying to steal their possessions, which is far from the truth. It looked like they were destroying the walls from the force of their bike frames, clanking as they landed. I don’t have anything against skateboarders or bikers, but lets be honest here, they have far more chance of destroying their environment than we do. I mean the odd brick which may come loose from ourselves, and we have far more chance of breaking our own bodies than a sturdy concreted rail or wall. Plus when they are in the same areas we practise at, there would be nothing worse than seeing them damage something we used too. As we are very respectful of our environment and want to keep the longevity of everything we use.

It wasn’t long before they rode off to another area and I remained sat, waiting for people to arrive. I didn’t want to warm up on my own, only to cool down again once people arrived as I would be chatting to them. I was feeling the cold already, it was blowing through my clothing or I was that cold that I felt it more after being sat on an overheated bus on my way to town. Thankfully Ben and his friend Josh arrived and then I was able to try and warm up. Sark was next to arrive on his festive feeling tinsel wrapped bicycle. Pete, Aidan and Matt were next to arrive along with others and finally James, who had decided to bust out his pack lunch to eat before training. Shouldn’t people have already ate before coming out training, so they are fuelled and ready for the day? Denis had text Pete asking if people were out training today, I told him to reply and say people are always out and that he should know this by now… That and there is a massive swarm of people out too. He quickly text back saying he wouldn’t be out because of the masses of people! I had to laugh because Denis has become such a lazy yak, even more so than myself. I hadn’t seen him in a very long time, since he last visited to the Parkour park in 2014. I hope he comes out training again soon. I had grown bored of being at Plaza already, it’s fast become the Urine Nation (UN) of 2005 for myself what with people always training here. The more I seem to train it, the more I hate it.

 

Sark – 360° Wallhop.

 

People seemed up for moving to another, different area and so myself and Sark decided we would take a walk over to the Adams Building. Only for Sark who was leading the party to completely change direction once he got to the bottom of the road, stating he was now leading us to Bilbie Walk to session instead. There were groans about going to Adams in the first place, but who would have thought Bilbie would have been such a good choice once we arrived. I hadn’t seen or been to that area for many years! On arriving I saw there were lots of new bike rails, the cut through giant steel gates were open today. It felt very different to how it used to be in past and at the same time oh so familiar too, plenty of new challenges to be had. Some of the guys were using the wide bin to do vaults and flips over while others were doing  box jumping over the railings, precision jumps and striding along the whole section of them. This area is forever changing, I remember at one time when there used to be giant plant pots here like the ones which used to be in IBM area. We even used to use the raised concrete platform as a take of for tricking too, before the bin was put there [1] and I can even remember a time before the blue rails at the entrance of the building had been constructed and the colour theme was different too.

Turn vaults and then pop vaulting back up and over the blue railing, like a kong was another movement being practised. While others were doing a catleap the other side of the building, while I captured a few photos of Sark doing a running precision jump to one of the bike railings. I also took a wider shot (seen at the top) and due to the spacing between each frame of Sark I knew it will be a good shot to merge together in PS once home. Some tried to shimmy across the long part of the wall which was next to impossible due to having nothing but the brickwork groves to hold on too.

Spring is upon us, once again.

 

Today I woke up early and with the weather looking so nice, I wondered whether I should venture into town or not for the Saturday training session. What with my ankle hurting all of the time it would be somewhat of a challenge, as I struggle to walk to the local shops never mind town where I would be standing and using it throughout the day. I was feeling dammed if I did and dammed if I didn’t, I would end up annihilating the ankle either way. If I didn’t go out, I would have missed a great day for photography which would have been equally annoying and maybe, just maybe the ankle would hold out for once too! I arrived in town just after two o’clock and rang Kinga to find where everyone was located, they were up training at Houses which wasn’t the best area for me, with it being uphill all the way there. I limped my way to the area and found not many to be out, the group had split already with half training at houses while the rest were across at High Pavement tricking on the pebbles.

I decided to try some climb ups while at Houses which I did try last time I was out [1] and felt rather disappointed, this time proved no better. I could just about get above the wall, but it was a slow and painful raise out of the motion to the hip cat position. I could feel it in all my arms, shoulders, back and forearms. At least this time I could do them even if it was a struggle and one arm at a time, maybe I could work on them more while being out, though that would be somewhat difficult as my ankle doesn’t last that long for training sessions. I want to do things and do in some respects miss all the training, but I know there is no need to push for it as I’ll only end up making things worse as sad as that is. It was cool to see people out training, nothing has changed, well except for a few new faces, the vibe was very much the same one I had left from being injured.

 

Stefano – Portrait.

 

I walked over to High Pavement area and peered around the corner wall and saw many of the guys tricking off the step up and having fun, unaware of me watching them. I then shouted ‘Surprise mofo’s!’ they all squinted and stared confused to who it was until they got closee, a smiling Zain was happy to see me and ran down to greet. I climbed up on to the wall and watched for a bit while others did tricks and chatted with people. It felt strange being out, the dynamics had changed and the session and style of training felt as if it had also shifted to when I had first come out. It wasn’t long until the group split and a few of the guys moved down to Bilbie Walk to train, an old area which doesn’t get much used these days. It was like we hadn’t even been at High pavement long before everyone was set to move, I felt almost invisible as I followed.

Bilbie walk where people were scaling walls and I spoke to Yaz for a bit before I left him to carry on training. He was practising holding some front leavers on the small rails, which looked awesome and is quite a strength feat at that! Some turn vaults on the blue rails were the next thing being done and pop vaults. Down in the main area, people were doing pop vaults, scaling the wall. Yaz was reminded of the worm to climb up from one of my videos, and he also drilled the drainpipe dyno up. Always a hard one for many, as it is quite big. I got many photos of the guys sat atop of the wall, portraits, all while Vince smoked away his life in the corner ‘resting’ which was a debate between the group.