Easter Emptiness.

 

Ben’s Trainers.

 

For the second week in a row I was out training with the Npk community at the weekend training session. The weather Friday night was terrible, cold and heavy rain with a strong wind too and I did wonder if that would transpire into Saturday. I was surprised to even be out though, after sleeping in Friday until half past two in the afternoon. The day before that I was up at seven in the morning and so my sleeping pattern is pretty messed up currently. I didn’t go to bed until two or three and was still laying awake well into the four and five o’clock hours. I guess being excited to train again had me too restless to sleep, the thought of new photo opportunities and a good training vibe didn’t help matters. I did wake up around ten, but then lolled around in bed until nearly twelve, making everything a rush. Adam was out this weekend and wanted everyone to train even if weather was bad, though it didn’t seem like many were going out now due to last nights weather putting them off, God dammit!

I was running late anyway and so was Kezza and a few others who said on the event not to move from Plaza until they got there. I didn’t expect many to be out, or the ones who did to be very few. I arrived at Plaza at around quarter to two, to find that no one was out?! All bar a mysterious guy lurking near one set of the walls, pacing back and forth checking his phone. Then there was Adam sat with Aiden on the other kong precision walls. I said to Adam that I instantly felt demotivated for training and might just go home as I hate sparse turn outs… The lurker looked familiar, a possible practitioner? After a while the same vape monster came over to us and asked me if I remembered him… Holy shit! It was Rob, Mr Bozik! I hadn’t seen or trained with him since 2009 [1] back when he had come to Nottingham with his friend Michal and Pike. Rob really hadn’t changed that much, he said he was waiting for the SM guys to arrive, who should have already been here by now…

 

Kezza – Portrait.

 

Others started to arrive slowly but surely, Mat, Kezza, Ben, Luke, CJay and Holbrook and a good amount of the community started to form. Everyone was warming up, kong precisions, diving kongs, general flow and even flips. There was quite a diversity of movement skills between us all today. CJay was on top form with his own training and it didn’t seem like anything was too much hassle for him to do with his good jumping power. He was doing some crazy double kong, then was trying to double kong handspring out of the move… Holbrook was practising a small run involving the railings. While I was trying to get out of my unmotivated mood I was in. Some newer movements I hadn’t seen anyone do, was a diagonal kong precision from the small blue railing to a wall. It might be small, but very awkward and thought it would be a good movement for people to consider. Much like the running precision from the first wall, up and over to land on the same blue railing. Some terrible looking and feeling movements but the guys were getting them done. I took a few photos, but at the same time I wanted to move and train rather than be stuck behind the lense.

We moved up to the now lesser trained area of Houses, the buildings are always open at the weekend now and so that means there are constantly cars parked in the way of where we train. Instead the guys trained near the kong precision and foliage part of the area, Kezza drilled the kong precision while Rob ran behind filming him. I quite enjoyed the shots I got of him doing the k2p. Once the cars had moved, even though it was wet and slippery due to the rain we practised a few tic tac cats. I trolled Kezza who wasn’t sure he could even do the tic tac cat now, I walked over to the wall slowly, saying I would do it no problem and then pushed off the wall and did it with no real speed or run up. He didn’t expect me to do that and was laughing, slightly amazed I had. I then did the 180 cat from hanging onto the wall with my finger tips, which was another old school movement which many still can’t do today. Each time people try, they expect some magical deeper groove in the wall which makes it easier to hang on, or some sort of trickery. It’s all to do with finger strength and forearm strength though, nothing more, nothing less.

 

Kezza – Running Precision.

 

CJay and Ben were looking at an ugly running downwards precision, it was diagonal and over the foliage. It was plain terrible, but it looked fantastic as a photo and so I set up my camera up while the guys kept preparing for the jump. You had to run blind and could only guess where the wall was, seeing the landing once you were in the air, no wonder it took them ages before they nailed it. I captured CJay and kezza doing the jump, but then it seemed like our time was up as a security guard had come around to move us on. He was friendly enough, asking what we were doing and watched us do a few movements before leaving us.

Leicester – Beaster Jam.

 

Beaster Group Photo.

 

I had seen that there was a big Parkour gathering planned for Leicester in a few weeks. I had been invited to the event when it was first published but didn’t really think anything more of it, what with having a bad ankle, not that I travel or train much these days, bar for the Parkour Park. Around a week before the event, I did wonder if it would be any good and who would likely to attend, as in the beginning there were many invites but not many people had confirmed except for locals. I wasn’t sure if any of the Nottingham guys were down for going until much later in the week when I heard a few of them were thinking about heading down. I personally wasn’t up for going, paying money to go for a day I might end up hating and not being able to get the most out of training would have enraged me. At the same time though, I felt if I didn’t go I would be jealous of the ones who went and no doubt it would be an awesome day well missed. On the other hand if I went and wasn’t able to train I would feel just as equally annoyed with myself and envious of others who could, any Traceur will know full well when visiting a new city or areas you have the urge to jump whether you are injured or not, and that is a very hard compulsion to fight!

As the invites and confirmed guests raised it got me increasingly contemplating whether to go or not myself, I was swaying more to go but at the same time I had to think realistically about it. It would be great to see some old Leicester faces though, get some nice photography from the day and just be out and about for once like the old days. I saw more and more people I knew from my Facebook confirming they would be going and had numerous people asking if I, myself would be attending too? I did put myself as a maybe after not answering the initial invite, I also replied to a few of the comments in the event too. It wasn’t until later on in the week, like the day before the event I saw that Steve had said he was a maybe too and I decided to ask if he was really considering about attending the training session, he said he would and asked if I was interesting in going too and how I would be going transport wise. I said I had thought about it but was unsure if I would go at all, Steve offered to give myself a lift and drive down and if someone else wanted to come they could too due to seating. With it being so close to the event, I asked Kezza if he wanted to come as we had all trained the day before and then with that, it was decided and we spoke about what time to meet and where for the morning.

 

Steve – Box Precision.

 

I woke up early for this weekend’s extravaganza, I went downstairs to feed the cats and while checking very briefly online I see a message already sent for Steve asking if I was awake and ready for the day ahead and if I’ve heard from Kezza yet, who had also messed me about being already up and ready. I liked a few posts and made a comment in the event to which James liked too and then messaged me about being up so early, I was shocked to see him active on Facebook at this time, after he always arrives at training sessions at around 1pm or later. I told him I had woke up to go to toilet and feed the cats and had a quick look online before hitting the hay again, not a lie as such only a slight embellishment of the truth and with that I logged off and left James to get ready for his day ahead.