Friends Meeting Place.

 

Thursday evening I found it hard to sleep due to a temperature I had, then Friday came a scratchy throat which got worse as the day went on. It’s typical that, that would happen before training at the weekend. Saturday came around and I felt terrible, like I had full blown flu. Annoying, as it was looking a great day weather wise for training after months long of rain. Why did this have to happen, why couldn’t this have happened after the weekend!? Due to this,  I didn’t have any plans to go out training. Not that many seemed to be out anyway, that or they hadn’t been bothered to click the attend button on the event for others who checked it to know who was and wasn’t out for the day.

I really did feel terribly ill and the short trip to the post office to collect a parcel, didn’t have me feeling any better about a possible trip into town, should I choose to do that. It seemed that the other regulars were out after all and asked if I was going to be too. I said it was unlikely and if I did, it would be really late compared to the usual time. More like two, maybe even three if I did make the decision to go. Patryk said he might come to the Parkour park for a bit, if I wanted to join him for a few hours. It was tempting, with it being local to me and if I felt direly ill I could just go home. I decided that I would make the venture into town to join the others instead. Who knows maybe all the fresh air would do me good? Failing that, there were plenty of others to infect…

 

James – Running Precision.

 

I arrived within my estimated time of two, expecting them to be almost anywhere in town by now. And yet, I found them still at IBM. There wasn’t as many people as I had expected, but still a fair few out. Even the birthday boy Will… Why would you be out on your birthday?! Then again I can’t say anything as when mine has fallen on a Saturday I have done the exact same thing. The guys had set up a running upwards precision (seen above) propping up a slab so it was inclined. With the intention of landing on the wall that some did as a kong precision. It looked rather big and scary to myself, at least distance wise and I was rather impressed how everyone was doing it with such ease!

Sun, Climbs & Damo.

 

I woke up early, as I always did in recent weeks. I was awake at eight o’clock and ready to get out and train. It was a beauty of a day with the sun beaming down. The one o’clock meet up seemed so far away. It was nearly twelve, I was almost ready to head out, but then! It pelted it down with that heavy summer rain, which had hail and even snow in it… What the hell?! Just great, another wasted Saturday. I contemplated not going out, but I had already agreed to meet Adam now and couldn’t really back out, seeing as he was making a detour to pick me up and was already on his way over. The rain, there was so much rain. I packed a raincoat and a thick jumper for the day ahead, as it would no doubt get worse and be colder later on. On the way into town it seemed to be drying out oddly. Then it felt really humid as we made our way to Crowne Plaza, what a weather change and now I had a thick jumper and a raincoat on of all things.

On the way, Adam took a detour past the Orange Walls and Houses hotspot, while I walked past the Arkwright building and up past Rock City. It was a sort of race to see which route was the fastest to get to Plaza. I ended up arriving first, which was odd, as I expected Adam to get there long before I did as I didn’t even rush to get there to beat him. There wasn’t anyone at Plaza, no one at all which was very strange! I saw that James had text me, informing that they had already moved on to Auditorium. Bonus, as I wanted to go there anyway and not be stuck at Plaza all day. As we started to walk over there, it began to spit with rain again, ugh. I spotted Radford and others making their way to Audo as we arrived. No Phil or other regulars to be seen, they must have been at the shops. I was quite disappointed with training, as everything I looked at jump wise seemed really far and impossible. I felt like, it was going to be one of those days…

 

Empty Crowne Plaza.

 

James was talking to Adam about the banter which we bounced off each other, the trolling, as well as their own personal talks they had had. Somehow I felt like it was a little pay back I mean we all have our own private jokes, not that it bothered me. More intrigued than anything, but like everything, we all speak about each other. Though, I did keep my super hearing active in case I heard my name mentioned from afar. I didn’t feel warmed up and wasn’t sure what to practise. It seemed like Adam was hating the area, not too sure why? As it is a great spot to train and has so much to do, for all levels of ability. I think Adam felt that most of the movements there were either too small or too big for him? So with that in mind, it had an inconsistency for training unlike other places. It was unusual to see Ben struggling with jumps, he was still suffering the effects of too much leg work and cycling. It was just as well he was heading off soon, to go to Scarborough for the Yorkshire cycling event the next day.

I looked again at the small upwards precision, near the steps at the side of the area. It looked once again horrible, and not possible. I really do hate that jump with a passion, it’s so inconsistent. Max did it easily and that made me sad, he said I could easily do it, so I should. On the floor I could jump from further back than the wall to a step which was a bigger jump and even upwards too. Yet, when I stood on the wall I couldn’t do that jump, why?! I couldn’t force it. Later I somehow managed to do it and then drilled it a few more times, not that I liked it any of those times. I felt more confident with the downwards, landing nearer the outer edge of the wall now. James felt similarly with the jumps and felt equally frustrated with the upwards one.

Wall Scalers.

 

© James Allen – Wall Shimmying.

 

Today had all the makings to be that of a great jam, people new and old to training were attending. Some older generation practitioners in the form of Ant, Ash and Nick, who hadn’t trained for many years had got the Parkour bug and decided to come to this weeks training session. It was going to be great to see them, with their old school ways of training being added to flavour the mix. I doubt they will know any of the newer generation of practitioner though, nor the current style of training. Well, at least that was how I envisioned training to be, until I woke up late! It was fine though, I still got ready as after all it was a beautiful, sunny day and nothing was going to stop me from training… Until a random stomach bug hit me soon after I had ate. What the hell?! How and why had this happened, why now of all times? I needed to go out training! Ain’t nobody got time for that… Stuck at home, on the toilet, unable to move as my bowels expelled my body constantly, spattering the bowl while others were out enjoying the day. Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed by this unfortunate event!

When I hadn’t appeared at the training session, some of the older generation guys were messaging me online, asking where I was. I explained it was looking unlikely that I was going to make it out today. I had to also  guide Nick to the others who were at Plaza as he thought everyone still met at the Concert Hall like all those years ago and wondered why no one was there yet. To say I was unable to get out, people were still baiting me to come out and join them, saying it was a lame excuse to say I felt unwell due to my stomach bug. Why would I make up an excuse not to come out when I had planned to be? Perhaps I should have sent a photo of what I had spawned in the toilet bowel to give them an idea of how bad it really was! After two hours, it would seem my stomach had fully evacuated it’s complete contents and my fever was ripe. I was now starving, so it must have meant I was on the mend, but I daren’t ingest any more food before going out in case of starting the cycle all over again. Still unsure and in two minds, I got ready and ventured out, making my way to town.

 

Nick – Climbing.

 

I arriving to find Plaza loitered with masses of people out. It was great to be reunited with Ant, the now muscle mountain. Nick was hardly recognisable with his massive beard. Abdur was out this weekend too, along with Brigitte, Liv and many others. Even David was here as well! It seems people were wanting to move and not to be stuck at Plaza all day, with such a huge number of people it was time to take a trip over to Auditorium. The group felt a bit fractioned as some chose to stay at Plaza and Atrium while the ones who wanted to move made their way over to Audo. It was a change to see Mr Drellington out this weekend with his friend Alex, as he was very rarely out, if ever. Spending many a days sleeping due to his messed up sleeping pattern, university, partying and so forth. He was busy filming a small video from the day [1] and so would randomly be pushing his camera in front of everyone from time to time. The old generation instantly went to do the Audo challenge, shimmying along the window ledges using just the underhand grip, burning the forearms in the process.

While some practised it above the ledge, reaching each window ledge and wall as they went. This got people interested and more gave it a go, with most struggling on the longer, further reach. You had to really do the splits, or learn as far over as possible before letting go and falling to the other wall and grabbing it. It was almost as horrendous as the plaque shimmying, which require immense finger strength to do and get past it. Drell was doing the main Audo precision but in reverse so it was upwards, with his giant hops, crazy to see!

Rainy Days.

After yesterday and the dreadful weather, I awoke to a surprisingly dry and sunny day. I got ready to go out training and arrived in town at the meet up point with everyone else who wanted to join. The sky was now overcast, I really was hoping it wouldn’t rain, we started the jam off at Houses two (New houses) as some people call it. I decided on doing a repetition training day, with my movements today. Doing sets of 15 of a single movement to keep them precise and in good form. Later on I was drilling some old fashioned reverse vaults over a hip sized wall. I had not done any in a very long time and so was scared. In the end they were more like barrel vaults then reverse vaults. Vladimir’s arms and shoulders were looking big today (no homo) I’m envious, damn him, one day I will have the same sized arms! Mark my words Vlad! Yaz was late, arriving wearing his white Freemove t-shirt which was the second time I’ve ever seen Yaz wear white in recent years.

It went against his black jogging bottoms which looked good together. Though it was strange to not see him out in a bold coloured tee, very strange. Tom was doing some kong vaults over the wall, only to then clip both feet (knees) on one of the attempts, falling face first over the wall. Managing to save himself with his hands before hitting the ground. His hands took the impact followed by his knee which hit the ground full force. He got up right after and seemed fine only having a graze on his hand, it looked deep so he said he would go and clean it up before coming back to train. We started to wonder why Tom had not came back once we released he had been gone for some time and maybe he had headed home with Will. It began to not rain, but pour and so we all grabbed our bags and made a dash to Crowne Plaza!

 

Parrish – Cat 180 Precision.

 

We remained at Plaza for most of the day, what with the weather looking set to be rain all day. The rain really came down and flooded the area at one point when all the drains couldn’t cope with the incoming flow of water. People slowly one by one went home due to the day being a washout and I don’t blame them. Some of the guys had gone to the shop and on the return we were admiring Parrish’s long sleeve burgundy top he always wears. I asked if I could try it on followed by Yaz trying it on too, it felt nice and I asked where he had got it from. Parrish said it was from Topman. We all joked about we should all go to Topman and buy the exact same top he worn for the jokes. With this in mind and the weather not letting up, we decided to go on a little shopping spree, only to get there and find out they no longer stocked the top Parrish wore.

So we walked down to UN to train, before we got to the main area Parrish wanted to climb up onto the roofs and ledges that were up there and started to climb up. Once at the top he was telling us how dirty it was and how many feet and foot marks there were. I got some photos of Yaz and James up there before they came back down and Parrish going off to clean his hands which were black. In UN’s main area we were experimenting with doing dive rolls on the small wall, then some of the others had a go at the running upwards catleap. We then went over to the rail precision and started training the downwards ones from the wall to the rail. It was great today as there were so many cars park on the edge of the road beside the rail. If we were to overshoot the rail we would not be running out into the road and get hit by the on coming traffic.

 

Yaz – Hanging Around.

 

After much deliberating we decided to go and train the top of UN car park then go home. We arrived at the top floor only for the heavens to open once again and rain to pour down on us. Parrish wanted to do the big downwards precision so we set up the cameras while he dried his feet before doing it. Once we had a few angles and he was happy that he had done it we moved down a floor into the dry. Shortly afterwards we walked back down and towards Broadmarsh so Yaz could go to Poundland. We said everyone closes earlier to which Yaz didn’t believe, only to find out it was true once in the shopping centre. Stefano and Parrish did some tricks on the floor which acted like a springboard, we then walked up the road and stopped off at the stone circle near the church to train for a while. Parrish was busy doing the downwards precision to roll.

Yaz and Stefano grabbed some food from Sainsburys. Parrish was giving us many speeches about how we can and should do the downwards precision to roll and it’s really easy. No heavy impact or far even if you are tired.