Chilled to the Bone.

 

Today was feeling  colder than a fridge freezer. I guess since it was set to snow, that was the reason for it being so damn cold currently. It was that bitter coldness too, the sort that cut through your layers. It had changed to possible rain as well on the day and yet it was sunny, with clear blue skies… What an odd old day! The weather had me feeling good about going out, I was up at nine. The same time Kezza later said he was awake at and it was ‘terrible’ weather! The reason excuse of why he wasn’t out training… It was damp in the shade (to be expected) this time of year, it was currently sunny and seemed like the cold temperature might rise further throughout the day.

I don’t know how, but I was now running late. Perhaps I was too relaxed about getting ready and out that I wasn’t paying attention to the time either. It seemed that quite a few weren’t out again today, due to the ‘rain’ predicted and no doubt felt how I usually did with training in such conditions. It was a good job the others who were out, were running late too. I got into town just after twelve to find people over at the Atrium, I wanted to move right away to Audo as there was more to do in the bigger area. A few others agreed to join and so those of us went, leaving James, Frankie and others to warm up and train at Atrium before heading over.

 

Petz – Stride.

 

It was good to see Diogo out for once today and Benjamin too. It was so, bitterly cold, the sun was making no difference to the temperature. We had been misled by it’s brightly shininess! It hurt to move and I felt total rubbish. I finally began to warm up, after doing lots of running upward precisions to the big steps. David struggled with it, but then got it shortly after Adam. I’ve always struggled with upward precisions, both standing and running. I have always hated that one in the past too, it always scared me to commit, that or I would crane and slide to the floor due to the smoothness of it. So when I used to see people blast it so easily, that were both the same and less skilled than myself it made me sad.

2017 – New Year, New Beginnings.

 

It’s another New Year and with it, a fresh start for many, in regards to training…

You will have already heard the classic New Year, new me line. The same false promise made by each person that says it at the start of year. That same false promise which 98% of people only last a a day or two, with the rare couple lasting a week or so at most, before things fall back to how they were before the start of the year. It’s hard not to fall off the bandwagon, with so many temptations and an engrained way of thinking and habits which are hard to break out of.

It was looking like it was going to be a great day of training, with lots of the community members out. I was feeling rather excited for it, so much so that I found it hard to sleep the night before! I woke up at seven, drifting back off until nine. The sun was bright and shining almost through my closed curtains, I could see a bight blue sky too. It all seemed very promising indeed. When I did finally lull out of bed at around ten and opened them, it was a different story all together! It was misty, wet, like it had rained heavily over night. I doubted it would dry up today. Quite a few people had their doubts too and decided not to train today due to the wet weather.

 

Patryk – Portrait.

 

The day was ruined and I wasn’t feeling like training now either, such frustration. Sark asked if I was out (since when does he come out?!) I said no. He didn’t want to waste petrol, only for no one to be out training and so thought he would check first and then decided against it. Michael was going to be out, even with this bad weather. His reason was that he wanted to get out of the house and jump. Perhaps I should go out regardless too? I do hate training when it’s raining or has been raining, as your trainers remain wet. Worse is getting to and from spots, feeling like you have been trampling through puddles due to the constant contact with moisture. It drains my motivation no end and when you slip you are reminded why rain training is a bane.

James seemed to be on a downer about the day too. Patryk was feeling the same but said lets just go anyway, forget about the rain! I was nearly ready anyway, so I might as well go and see how the day turns out, motivated or not. I will be honest with how it was currently I was fully expecting it to be rubbish day, so with that expectation anything other would be a win? While on my way into town on the bus, I could see all the paths and roads were still wet, wetter than I expected and it looked like more rain was to come if the horizon was anything to go by with all the dark clouds. It’s why I was so amazed to find Reece, Adam and even Luca out once I arrived at Plaza.

#97 – Strength & Accuracy.

 

Zade (Me) – Portrait.

 

So this weekend was a strange one, not only did we visit only but a couple of areas for training then venturing to many areas throughout the day. We began by warming up at Houses first before moving down the street to the brown wooden fenced area which we hadn’t as of yet named, no doubt sooner or later someone will come up with something for it. We did some vaults over the wooden fence onto the soft grass which was really getting destroyed now, you could see how much we had used it while the weather had been wet or damp, foot imprints all over, the moss like grass had been turfed up and was now becoming a dry muddy mess. While taking photos I noticed a small shoe sticker which had been stuck to the window in the area (seen above in my self portrait shot), this also gave Flip the idea of doing more drawings as stickers for Parkour and placing them around our local hotspots, so only Parkour people would see and find them while out training in the same areas.

There was a metal pole in the area just before the wooden fence which we contemplated using to swing around and back over the fence, or even with some sort of swing round to turn vault, maybe even a swing to kick off the wall. We had lots of ideas floating around but nothing we could put into action though… It was scary to swing using the pole, knowing there was a small drop below, even if it was grass. Strange how such, small things can effect your mind and make you reluctant to try different, yet awkward feeling movements. There really wasn’t much else to do in this area and seeing as we had warmed up it was time to choose another location to train at. It was a hot, humid day of training, even if the sun wasn’t gracing us with it’s presence and so we were feeling drained by the time we reached our second destination of the metal stairwell of Trent Uni.

We spent our time trying some different and unusual movements like a cross vault to underbar (seen below by Pyro) on the corner of the rails, while Adam stood in the background of the shots with his thumbs up pose, photo bombing. Another move was the turn vault underbar on the railings, a very frustrating move which proved more difficult to achieve than other movements. I spent ages trying to get it before very sketchily getting it down, not to mention smashing my back and ass a few times too. Another move myself and David practised was a kong to squirrel, which was another annoying movement to get, the railing was bad enough having to kong over with next to no run up.

#82- Walls, Falls and Marriotts.

 

Zade (Me) – Air Pose.

 

It was another freezing cold day, we arrived in our hoodies, beanies and multiple layers and yet still found it very hard to stay warm if we stood around for too long. I hate the winter and early spring time period as I am always so cold it is unreal and I usually have to wrap up in four or five layers and I can still feel the cold getting to my skin and bones. We began our day of training over at orange walls which after arriving proved to be too wet and muddy to train at so we then moved down to the nearby stairs at the Premier Travel Inn which we had trained at a few times, getting the guys to kong over the high wall roll after landing. Will decided he would do a kong over the wall but with how reckless and incredibly clumsy (not mentioning the time he fell from the tram stop stairwell) we all cringed among ourselves at the thought of another bail from him. So as you can imagine he was a tad reluctant to vault it at first, as he ran towards the wall all of our hearts were in our mouths hoping he wouldn’t clip his feet, thankfully he didn’t, even if the kong was rather sketchy.

Banham couldn’t face doing a kong with a drop and instead opted for a different approach and did a kash vault over the wall, I don’t know how he worked that out as being any easier or safer! I for one wouldn’t have been able to bring myself to do one of those or a dash vault for fear of missing the wall and crumpling below in a heap. Today felt more like a Sunday training session as very few people were out training, unusual for a weekend jam, even Adam and Chris weren’t out this week either. We walked up to houses area to train, I got some photos of the area for the hotspots page while others enjoying doing tic tac cats, climb ups, vaults and precision jumps. People seemed more into training now we had arrived at an area which catered for everyone and were finally getting warmed up after the mixed stop and starting at the earlier training spot. Adam was doing some same level kongs from the wall with a bush on, the diving kong wasn’t too bad to do but felt just out of reach for many though it proved to produce a nice image with him soaring through the air.

 

Parkour Hotspot – Houses.

 

We were making our way to the IBM area and stopped off at some new orange walled area which we had never really seen or used before. Martyn decided we should call it Marriotts due to the building being called that in front of them. I took more images of the guys vaulting the walls and little did I know at the time it had stopped focusing on objects again, it seems to be a constant and reoccurring problem I’m getting in the colder days of training,