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…

Loving the D’s.

 

David – Running Precision.

 

As you may, or may not have guessed by the title of this post unless you have a very seedy, perverted mind, it meant the Derby guys were once again back over at the Nottingham Parkour Park. It was just as unexpected as the last time they came over, but at least this time around Rob asked me in the early hours of the morning before I had logged off Facebook that him and some others would be heading over and if I or any other local guys would be out too. I replied saying some had already planned to be out and that I would see him tomorrow afternoon. I had a good feeling about the jam and couldn’t wait to get out there for photography and some light training. The 1pm meet was earlier than I am used to but I made the trip over for them to see another faction practitioners who had come with Rob and Tom too, I recognised a few of them from the Beaster Jam. No Jonathan this week though, they had tried to contact him but he wasn’t replying and so was assumed to be sleeping or just not interested in being out. It sure was a warm, summers day, the  sweltering heat made training unbearable at times and I think the other Derby lot were feeling it the most, being lethargic for most of the session, before training in short bursts with more rest needed.

I think we were all suffering in some way or another, David had pulled shoulders from all the swinging on the poles and muscle up practising. I had surprisingly pulled my forearms from training the day before, a muscle pull which puts you out of training quite easily if you are unable to grip anything due to them. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, you sure know about it and feel rubbish. I decided I would take this opportunity to take lots of photos from the day to let the forearms recover. I got plenty of shots of Rob doing running precisions, standing ones and even got a few shots for myself too seeing as my ankle felt good today. Like all sessions with the Derby guys, there was plenty of gay-innuendos, spanking of asses and manly groping, it seems to go hand in hand with Parkour training, no matter where you are. There was one stage where I don’t recall how it came about but we all ended up pulling on Rob’s stretchy skin and then trying to pick him up by the skin as he laid on the floor…

 

Matt – Gainer.

 

There was some interesting running precisions being done today, as well as a few standing ones of substantial distance too. It’s always impressive to see new things being executed, giving others new challenges to aim for within the park. It seems to be no matter how long we train at the park for, there is always something new to do. The Derby boys always do speed runs wherever they train, it seems to be their thing. It’s always fun to see people do a speed run, as no matter how fast and easy you think the set course will be,

Parkering Around.

 

David – Portrait.

 

It was Bank Holiday Monday and even though I had been out over the weekend and was pretty tired, I was contemplating going out again today. It didn’t seem like anyone else was interested in going out from looking on the group the night before and so when I woke up just after 1pm, I fought against my better judgement of not going out all together and decided I would take a slow walk over and train for a few hours and to see if David was already there training as he usually did Sundays. I wasn’t expecting anything special, it was my half hearted attempt at trying to go out and train with what energy I had left, better than staying in doing nothing all day right? I had been out each day since Friday and I was feeling worse for wear to say the least, I read a few mentioned they might be out closer to time I was ready to leave, the likes of Adam and Ben. When I arrived at the park I was stunned to find the Derby guys already there training and had been since before 12pm! There had been no posts confirming or even warning us of their presence, I felt a bit cheated. As if I had known, I would have come over earlier and I’m sure many of the other guys would have come out to train with them too. Rob said it was all very much a spontaneous thing and that they didn’t think many others would have been out training, not that they thought to post it up…

I’ve included some images from previous days training sessions as I didn’t take my camera out today and nor did I expect the Derby guys to be out, so sorry for the lack of images of them. Even with my ankle hurting, recently it has been behaving, maybe due to my operation date lingering it wants to give me a taste of the good life and how it should be in regards after surgery and when it’s full healed? I mean, yes it’s still a ticking time bomb when I go out and jump around as I have a time limit before it starts to hurt and give way, but in the mean time I am able to train on it with simple movements which is a great feeling. I’ve been trying to get fitter this year too and slowly but surely my fitness has been increasing, but not at a level I used to be all those years ago. Like any training session that involves the Derby guys, it always turns homoerotic and today was no different. While Jono was practising some handstands in his shorts Matt was quick to point out his ‘bulge’ while doing them and then the jokes came rolling, not fit to disclosed here though, I’m sure you can imagine the sort though…

Another highlight of the day was when Rob was being intimidated by a small child called Max, who was training around the park. We usually seen him most weekends, and on occasions he would take part, trying to do what we did and copying the workouts we did. He seemed to be more confident with people this weekend and spoke and took part in training, rather than watching from afar. Rob was the one being intimidated though, with a running catleap which he was having problems committing too while Max was doing it and he told Rob how easy it is to do, not helping the situation. Rob joked about being put to shame by a kid, it was funny watching him being bullied. Rob did get the running cat in the end and props to him, I was also surprised by his precision jumps, some which I didn’t expect him to do and he did them easily.

Clouds of Gray.

 

Parrish – Kong/Catpass Precision (k2p).

 

Today looked like a nice day in the beginning with the sun trying to break through the dark clouds. Although by the time I was on my way to town, the dark clouds had started to spit with rain and there was a bitterly cold wind blowing. I had spotted Max, George, Parrish and others walking up the meet up point from Vic Centre and decided to get off at that stop. I followed behind them all the way without them even noticing I was there until they checked the silver benches then double backed over the tram tracks to Plaza to which Max spotted me and came to give me a man hug and say hello.

We arriving at Plaza and there were so many people out today it was unreal. People from Lincoln, Derby, our own community and lots of beginners as well. The area really was rammed full of people it was hard to see what to be able to do without being in someone’s way. I spoke to Max about my new camera and Chimpy was telling me what it would be like for filming and photography and compared it to other brands out there and the technology of recent years with photography. I spotted Denis who was standing over the other side of Plaza looking depressive and as I looked at him he looked over and started laughing at me, saying he knew I would be out. When I went over to him we spoke about both having the same injured ankles and that he was copying me and how much it sucked being unable to train. We stood against the wall while talking and observing others training, until Zain arrived late for the training session with a box full of chicken for his so called breakfast!

Yaz was another person who was late, he text me and some others asking where they were and if they were out training. I replied to his text and said I was at home and to check Plaza as that is usually where people go at the start of the jam. He was surprised to see me when he arrived and annoyed at me for lying and the fact that I had deactivated my Facebook account without telling people and I had not used it for a week. With there being so many people in Plaza it was no surprise that some of the hotel staff came out to move people on from the area, most moved across the road to the Atrium area and IBM to train. Me and Yaz took a walk up to houses to train, Denis said he was coming only to then not come up and so we both ended up walking back down to the Atrium area which now had died down as people had all moved else where.

 

Zane, Max & Yaz observing.

 

I could only really practice handstands, which I had a go at a few times but didn’t have my balance today and couldn’t hold them as long as I usually could which annoyed me so the only other option was to practice climb ups. I spent a while with Denis, Elliot and Vince doing them on a wall and speaking about the techniques we use for them. When I felt really cold I put my coat back on and took photography of the others training, doing the standing and running precisions, cats and squirrels.

Chimpy decided to climb up a sign post and batman/ hang by his toes upside down, which looked funny but then he wondered how he would get off and when he got down the sign had cut into his toes leaving them all white and mark. George also scaled the sign post and did a hanging kong off it. Flip decided to try the running tic tac off the post to the wall and others also tried it along with the 180 cat off it.