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.

#146 – Mansfield Outing.

 

It was decided that today was to be another Mansfield training session [1] [2] [3] [4] and as always with such an adventure, it was surely to be a great day of jumping and total body destruction! It always feels so fresh going there compared to Nottingham and the trip over on the train always get you excited and hyped for the session ahead. I always say it each time I travel over, but as a community we need to do it more often. I don’t think I’ve been there that much this year. I was meeting Ash, John, Ant and Dave as Sark wasn’t out this time round to be the tour guide.

We trained near the train station to warm up and then it was off to the top of Tesco car park. I hadn’t got my camera out for any photography until that point. We arrived at the top level after using a rather claustrophobic and scraping lift up to the top level. This was the latest and best training spot according to the Manfiddians. It looked like it might rain, if the clouds overhead were anything to go by. I hope not, as we had travelled over and it would suck to then have our day ruined and no where to train undercover unlike Nottingham, even if the likes of Urine Nation and the strong aroma of wee wee is NOT the greatest.

 

Flip – Kong Precision, Catleap.

 

I must admit, the car park looked as if there wasn’t much to do bar some big catleaps and precision jumps from first glance. I suppose it was better than training at the top level of Urine Nation, which had really sharp feeling walls. There was a small kong precision (as seen above) over a wall to a thick yellow railing. It wasn’t far distance wise, but it was a railing and blind as you ran towards the wall to kong. It felt great to nail the movement within a few tries and to me it felt like a proper kong precision with real danger, drop and distance if you failed unlike the ones at Crowne Plaza.

Flip was quick to point out that after landing the kong precision, you could then jump right into the catleap if you wanted too. It would mean putting in more power into the kong precision to almost overshoot it. I was finding it big enough from standing and struggling to jump upwards rather than towards the wall today. Phil got the combination in one, I thought he was trying to precision it with him jumping so high! Which you can see in the above image too. I know that was a movement he wanted to get for a future video and he did crane it a few times but bounced off each time or slid down into a catleap position.

 

Dave – Portrait.

 

#128 – Zade & Ant Weekday Adventure.

 

Like most training sessions, they are held at the weekends and very occasionally, in the week, but usually the evenings. However, this session was to be a Tuesday afternoon as I wanted to train and seeing as Ant was available he said he would be out. He was wanting to get more training done in Nottingham, as it had more areas to train. Ant is apart of the Kirkby Parkour group that comes to train with us. He has been to a few of the weekend training sessions and even though I have trained with him and the others of the group, I don’t properly know Ant all that well. He is in many ways, much like David in the respects of being quiet and gets on with training. He does talk, but usually when spoke to and he is also good at what he can do (movement wise) and is quite strong, like an Ox too. I hear he is meant to have a giant dong like one too, if you believe what the guys tell you…

It was an unusual pairing, no one else was free and so it was going to be an interesting training session. We met and then headed over to the NCP car park for the start of our training session, another not so usual route. I had already trained UN (Urine Nation) way too much, but as for the upper floor, not so much and there were a few things I wanted to practise. We had picked a fine day to train, while we were at the top of the car park it looked as if it may rain. The clouds in the distance were so dark as you can see in many of the images. Practising a dyno (double tap) as some of us called them back then, too and from the railing ledges. Increasing the distance with each lower rung, trying to get it from the furthest point. It felt near impossible not to kick the leg out behind you to readjust the momentum of the dyno, which I didn’t like the look of and wanted to stop it happening.

 

Ant – Kong.

 

I captured some images of Ant doing kong vaults (one seen above) over the nearby wall. Ant flew over the slightly higher than normal wall so easily. As well as being higher, it was thicker too. So you had to be able to kong well as it wasn’t like being able to vault a thin railing. I was quite envious, as he would skip step into the kong as well, which made it look even nicer. I tried to learn and mimic how he did the skip step, but it felt so unnatural and impossible to do myself. I instead would always double foot punch kong over those walls, as I knew that would give me the height I needed to clear them. I do try to skip step kong, but with how mentally challenging it is and plays on your mind about the run up, I gave up for now. We did some kong drops over the higher wall, though neither one of us rolled out of them. Something we should both be doing from that impact, but Ant couldn’t roll and hadn’t yet learnt how to…

I just didn’t like to roll, as like with many people it was something which hurt the shoulder or hip. I guess being skinny didn’t help this matter, so if I did roll I preferred to be wearing my hoodie. I really hoped it wouldn’t rain as then our day would be  limited to where we could go and not to mention it will have been a wasted trip for Ant. It did start to spit with rain and we hoped it would pass as we made our way over to the Auditorium hotspot. I was doing a fairly big precision jump (seen below) and I was quite pleased with such a jump.

#123 – Trees & Car Parks.

 

Today’s entry will be a short, but sweet one. Even though I had my camera with me, I seemed to have taken very few photos if any today, more so a few quick snaps. I instead spent much of my time enjoying training and teaching, as opposed to documenting everything via photography. I think the last blog [1] I had some what over documented with the photos. So I guess this weeks lack of photography, is a sort of counterbalance in the blogging universe… Matt was out this weekend, though no Jon or Chris who usually tagged along with him when out.  Both busy with other commitments like basketball for this weekend. The Kirkby boys were back out this week too. We spent a fair amount of our time at the usual training spot of Gray Walls and then made our way down to the Trent University, mainly the area behind with all the wooden benches. Using the benches for precision jumps, increasing the distances and just training in general, it was quite the relaxed day.

We did move up to a car park across from the area, where some of us did a downwards precision which had a story drop below the jump if you missed… A jump which scares the bejesus out of you when stood on edge being able to see the drop before you jump. It gets the heart pumping as you fly through the air before hitting the concrete and doing a Parkour roll, or taking the impact like a baws. I remember Brownie wanting to do it running instead, though that was even worse and not to mention a higher impact. When he ran along the wall, he looked off balance and when he jumped it looked like he wasn’t going make it, giving us all a fright. We slowly made our way back to Gray Walls, where I got a few images of David who was busy clambering the trees there and it wasn’t something I had documented before and so the images felt fresh and different to see. Though his dismount out of the tree wasn’t as graceful as his climbs, with a heavy impact and a awful looking roll on the hard ground.

 

Matt – Precision.

 

Turner – Precision.

 

Turner – Precision.