Bulwell Round Trip.

 

Today we were going to start at a slightly earlier time of 12pm. I didn’t train on Saturday due to it being Goose Fair [1] and because of that fair being in Nottingham for a few days, the traffic is always bad. At least for me getting to and from town as it passes where the fair is located. Then you have transport being busier than normal, more so in the evening and slow traffic due to blocked off roads as well. That and not many practitioners seemed to be out this weekend, judging from the event anyway. James was away, Pete was AWOL (as always) and Eddie must be a combination of banned, whipped or both as we are seeing less of him these days. Benj was unavailable as he was now working weekends and others didn’t seem that bothered about being out. I had hoped with Saturday’s lack of attendance, that more would be more open for a Sunday instead. It turned out that wasn’t the case, which was slightly demotivating.

I was up early as I always seem to be of late. I had a look on the event to see who was coming out and it was now down to only three, THREE people were game for the adventure!? Ugh, all motivation had been drained from me now. Adam had been up late and so would be out later in the day. I suppose, at least he was coming out and had Dom and Andy coming along with him, which would increase the numbers somewhat. David and Chris were out, but Femi was running on his usual black time and wanted to meet at the park for 12.30pm which meant he wouldn’t get there until at least half one at the earliest. He called me menstrual when I said we wouldn’t be waiting for him and he should adhere to the set time, which is there for a reason, so we don’t have to wait for people or have to direct them where to go, when they have no idea where they are going anyway!

 

Chris – Layout.

 

He said, cut him some slack as he had only just finished work at 3am! That and he had to do some shopping first before they closed at four and then he could think about training. He had been up since the same time I was (nine) and so had more than enough time to get his shopping in and still meet up at the set time, with plenty left over!? I got to the park to find Chris and his sister Jodie already jumping around and waiting. David arrived a short while after and then we headed off into Bulwell for some jumping. While warming up I felt so heavy while doing a small kong precision. Perhaps I just wasn’t warmed up fully enough yet or wasn’t feeling the day due to being demotivated. The starting image of the day for photos was of Chris doing a back layout (seen above) off a small wall.

It was a strange old day weather wise, the sun was shining with clear blue skies in parts, but then it was dark and gloomy in others, as if it would lash it down with rain any second. The running precision I was practising with David always looked big on images even though while doing the movement, it’s quite small. I was filming some movements for a new RAW video [2] from the day. There was an upward standing precision, which felt very similar to the upward park precision. It had some branches in the way, so had to be careful not to poke your eyes out and land crouched too. David didn’t like it and couldn’t see it, yet Chris did it which surprised me. Gio who had not long arrived decided to do it the other way (seen below) as a kong precision instead…

 

Gio – Kong Precision.

 

As if that wasn’t good enough, he was then looking at the k2p from the railing (road side) to the same wall on the left! Adam, Andrew and Dom had arrived, earlier than expected too. It was down to the other part of the subway we had previously visited when in Bulwell [3] doing the same movements from last time. There seemed to be more to do this time round, with lots of filming, photos and portraits. There were some nice runs being done by Gio and Femi, doing diving and double kong.

Leg death & High Flyers.

Andy – Sideflip.

 

It was day four of leg death for myself. Sunday was a hardcore training session, with Monday being a leg workout day of death. Followed by a Tuesday evening of training with Ben and Wednesday was another hardcore session. No rest for the wicked! Speaking of Tuesday’s training session, it was good to be out with Ben and seeing him able to move around again, excited to train. He was able to do small jumps, loving every moment of it. After his spinal surgery non the less. My legs were in absolute bits and the fact I wasn’t in bed until gone 4am didn’t help matters in the slightest. I woke up at 12pm, ready to train and oddly enough I wasn’t feeling that tired body wise as expected either. I arrived to find David and Andy already there jumping and flipping around the park. Andy was a last minute decision, wanting to train and due to that I thought I would go out.

After a few movements my abdominals and legs were already feeling tired, I guess I hadn’t recovered as much as I had thought I had. It was going to be a light session of movement in that case. I did many, many tic tac strides and stride based movement, not the best for tired legs. So much for a light session, my legs were getting more tired by the minute. One run we were practising (which I hated) I might add, was a running stride across the green stumps, straight into the running upward precision. Andy had it so easily, but I was too scared to commit to it and felt my run up was wrong, no matter how much I tired. It was really frustrating, as I could do it with little run up, without the striding first, but the angle and small amount of steps made it horrible. David got it though, craning it and then finally landing it much to my frustration. So it was bitter sweet when I got him to try the tic tac precision (seen below) off the wall to the brown stump which he found difficult and still couldn’t do.

 

Zade (Me) – Tic Tac Precision.

 

He was struggling to grasp the touch tap off the wall for the tic tac. If you tried to do it like a normal tic tac, the foot due to the angle would slide down the wall. I did a few static muscle ups today, which felt better as I would usually swing when I did them but today it was pretty much from static. David had lost his though, what!? How was that possible, he was doing lots of them the previous times we were out. Today he struggled to get above the bar and they just didn’t happen. Adam arrived, late and didn’t seem that motivated to train.

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.

Embankment Adventure.

 

 

The plan for this weekend was to move around the city, training different areas. After people had made it clear they wanted to see different locations and have an adventure that wasn’t the usual Plaza, IBM and Audo route which has been done week in, week out. Last weekend Phil had mentioned there were new walls built on the embankment next to the River Trent and they might be worth an trek to see. It had fallen on deaf ears on the day, with no one hearing or seeming that interested on leaving the confines of Plaza. With many of the people who stayed at Plaza during training not out this week, it was the perfect time for this epic scouting trip! To say there were lots of people confirmed to be out, there were very few out when I arrived at Plaza. The guys from Derby were already out and they said a few others were heading over later. They also had a guest with them, Jonathan a guy visiting the UK currently on a Parkour tour and so James had brought him along with them to sample Nottingham. He had already trained in Derby training with Mr. Wong and was head back to London within in the next day or two.

David, Kezza, Max and myself moved over to the blue skip area to train on, away from the crowded Plaza. I wanted to film a few clips to add to my library of ever growing clips and took a couple of photos too. The problem with this area today was the skip had been moved too close to the wall to precision down. It was fun to try and link some movements together, such as a turn vault over the yellow railing like a palm spin movement and then go straight into a kong precision right out of it. A run from running from behind the skip, cross vaulting over the yellow railing and striding along the wall before trying an underbar or kong precision was another choice and run we practised. More people arrived at Plaza and many were asking when it was we would be moving on? The Derby guys eagerly wanted to train spots around Nottingham too like Auditorium and by pass the IBM chained area. Tom joked he hadn’t travelled all this way to train one spot they always seemed to be at when they came over. I explained it was going to be a rather long walk today, due to the embankment adventure and circuit of the city I wanted to do.

 

Max – Portrait.

 

Everyone seemed cool with that and we moved over to Audo. Jack was late arriving into Nottingham and had to hurry up if he and the others were to catch up with us. We were only moving to Audo and so it wasn’t too much of a stretch for them to find us. I had thought of training each area for a certain amount of time, so we didn’t spend all day in one place, maybe thirty minutes per spot, give or take was the rough estimate. I captured a few shots of Max hanging off the edge of one of the high walls (seen above) which he then dropped down to the bin. It was a height drop close to what Pyro had done back in the day, only he did it to the floor I believe. Everyone was doing their own movements and enjoying the area. Some silly, low kong precisions were being done by Kezza and myself. They felt terrible, but oddly doable, though Kezza and Holbrook took it to extremes being able to do them up to the higher big steps. Floating to them like it was nothing, while I had to really push and force to land the simple ones to the steps. It was good to do them as they felt new and challenging.

We had been training at Audo for a good fifty minutes and people were curious if we were going to move. We did, since we had gone over my initial time limit of a spot and on to another location, passing through Castle College and making our way to the canal area. We had broke up into smaller groups with some separating to Tesco before rejoining with us. Well that was if they could find where we had now moved to now. The area we visited first was the top end of the canal, it was a small area with not a lot to do, but people practised the precision and kong precisions there. We were also joined by Street Media too, who then upped the anti by doing sweet diving kongs upwards, and then side flipping the gap between the walls. On one attempt, Noah had managed to some how fall short, slamming down on the wall with one leg over it while the other hit the floor as well as hitting his head somehow, ouch! Parrish got a shin scrap on a kong precision too, it seemed most were bailing here and the area was now getting a little crowded…