Windmills & Commitments.

There was to be a big crowd training today with the weather set to be so warm, even some of the Trent University guys were meant to be joining us today, if they didn’t overlay. I had planted the notion in everyone’s mind for it to be an adventure day, the places of choice I had suggested were on the outskirts of Nottingham like Sneinton, Carlton, Lenton and Radford. With those in mind, we would make our decision on the day to which area we would venture upon. I ended up being in town before 1pm for a change. I felt like today was going to be a good day of training, it had to be and another reason I was out so early due to the excitement. Though it was proving not to be shared by others, who were arriving late and it felt like we wouldn’t be moving until later in the day at this rate. Some who were running late were worried about missing the day trip and asked for people to wait at Plaza for them. They knew the times though… If people cannot make it on time it’s not my fault. Much like Steve, who arrived later that evening at Plaza, even though we were at the time in the middle of Sneinton and had no way of letting him know where and how to get there… Not that there would have been much point by then either.

Plaza was soon filled with people arriving. Chris, Luke, Mat and a few others, slowly followed by Ant, John and Jason! Now there were some blasts from the past, to say the least. It’s mental to think how long it had been since either of them had been to a Npk training session. It was good to have David out attending again this weekend as he hasn’t seen many of the new areas we have discovered over the years. Phil arrived, along with Brandon and a few others, it didn’t seem like we were waiting for many more to arrive but we warmed up at Plaza nevertheless. No Femi today though, he had only just got up, knowing full well it was an adventure day and told everyone to hold up and he would be there soon… More like half past two or even three! That wasn’t going to happen, we could be waiting forever if he was running on black time. With people ready to move and restless, we made our slow walk over to Sneinton, stopping off at the Adams building first, in the lace market. An area where many usually end up chilling or become very unproductive when we gather there, at least from past experiences and I have no idea what causes that to happen.

 

Femi – Diving Kong

 

To say it was the start of the session, it felt more like the end of one. We had only just arrived and people had decided to go food shopping… I mean seriously?! I thought you were meant to have eaten before training, not arrive and then grab breakfast which adds to time wasting. I could understand if it was to grab some supplies before we ventured into Sneinton where there wasn’t shops nearby. The funniest part of the day had to be when Brandon was getting increasingly angry with Femi while on the phone, trying to explain where we were and how to get to us. Each direction and landmark Brandon used as a guide had Femi confused and no idea where he was on about. The frustration on his face was enough to tell how infuriated he was by the whole situation, laid on the floor, head in hands, groaning, unable to explain any simpler to Femi. After some back and forth speaking with Femi he eventually managed to find us and proclaimed as he arrived in the area why didn’t anyone tell me it was this spot in the first place?! As he only lived around the corner from it, and had ended up taking a long way around to get to it, face palm!

When everyone had finally finished their weekly shop, training was able to commence and people warmed up with their chosen movements. I captured some images of Femi and Holbrook doing strides to a diving kong. While capturing the said images, I got an interesting shot of Femi from underneath as he strode onto a wall. It made his leg look super long and stretched, like a cartoon character, the perspective was very strange and yet very awesome at the same time. Just as we were trying to make our way to Sneinton it seemed that people were more interested in training Adams, finding new things they wanted to try. So it was hard to get people to move and so the group slowly fazed out, one by one. Once on our way, we passed a side street which had things to do, only now it seemed everything was overgrown, that or people were in the way like the local drunkards. It was onwards to Byron Court, an old but gold spot for training, at first people seemed to be a bit uneasy, unsure what could be done, while others sprung into action.

Lenses, Portraits & Handstands.

 

Parrish – Portrait.

 

Another weekend and another week I went out training, I arrived to the jam a bit later than normal to find Plaza desolate apart from Pete and Adrian of all people, who had mentioned he may venture out due to his new camera he had. It was strange to see the area so quite and even stranger still to see Adrian out, his hair was so long now almost as much as my own. He was busy snapping away and I had to make sure to dodge the ambush of burst shots he was taking while walking around. It wasn’t too long before Yaz arrived with Abdur and was equally shocked about Adrian’s presence and asked who are you? I thought you had died?! It was good to see Abdur out again too as it has been years since I had last seen him so it was good to catch up and see how he has improved since last we trained. Phil, James and Zain arrived one after the other to the quieter session and with seeing as there wasn’t many of us out we were deciding where we should go next. Phil said he was feeling forest as was I, seeing as some of the community was talking about visiting that spot again since it has been revamped and its a vast area to spend most the day at.

Just as we were leaving, Holbrook arrived and seemed rather deflated that people were wanting to go there as if he had known he would have just got off the bus while on his way into town as SM were already there and had text for him to join them. Yaz was the most reluctant about the journey and James didn’t seem to want to travel too far either. We made our slow walk to Forest to meet the others there, little did we know some of the Trent Parkour people had arrived in town to train hours after the meet up time. They couldn’t find any practitioners even after looking at the areas we know we usually train at (this is one of the reasons we have a set meet up time, so you know where people are if you have no form of contact and so we remain in a group, together) I guess some people never think of that and accept we will always be in the city centre and the usual spots week in week out. It was the second week in a row we had visited the Forest Recreational Ground, I guess after hearing good things about it the previous week it made others want to check it out this weekend too.

 

James – Portrait.

 

Parrish and the SM guys were doing some crazy movements as they always do, crazy strides, diving kongs and precisions. Joe let me borrow his zoom lens to see what I thought to it, it was frigging awesome compared to bog standard 18-55mm lens I was used too. I so need to get myself some new glass for my camera in the future so I can create some different looking shots and expand my portfolio. Eddie was sizing up a downwards, diagonal double kong over the walls people usually did a kong precision.

#148 – Handstanding.

 

It was a Monday training, getting some jumps in on days when Phil wasn’t working, me not at college and we were both free. I was still feeling quite tired from the full weekend of training and this would be the third day of jumping I was doing. So as you can imagine muscle DOMs were at a high and very little was going to be pushed for, in a bigger movement sense. It was just the two of us out today and once again, I didn’t take many images, but more than I have taken in previous weeks, even if we didn’t do much training per say…

The images I did capture were of what we were drilling, handstands, loads of them, on the floor, walls of various heights and even bollards too. You can put that all down to Mr Tim Shieff’s influence, whether it be our own practice, people within the community or other cities as well. Since he is well known for his great upper body strength and handstanding ability. I would say he his influenced much of the Parkour scene to be stronger and making people include more handstanding ability and callisthenics into their own training, where as before it was very lower body orientated.

 

Flip – Handstand.

 

Flip did a rather awkward handstand on a tree stump and a bollard at the back of the university. I saw this as I cannot raise up into handstand for shit, preferring a stable object like the floor so if I moved I would be fine. That is my problem with trying them on walls as well, I move too much as mentioned in previous blog entries. So it amazed me when Phil was able to run, jump and push up into the handstand there! I absolutely hate kicking up into one, I just can’t get the motion or dares get it fully up ‘whey hay’ there’s a joke and half.

Flip was like, just keep trying until you can. But I felt like my arms would collapse or snap with my body weight if I did fully extend, face planting below. Later on we moved over to the flats area, where I finally got that standing wall precision (seen below) after many months of doing it off the smaller walls which made it less distance wise. I mentioned in a previous blog how I wanted to try and get that before Summer this year and I have done just that, all while feeling tired as well. No doubt why I was landing a bit scrappy and/or bouncing it at times too. I would get my legs to the wall, but not enough power to stay on it

#144 – Precisions, Catleaps & Baby Freezes.

 

Once again Max and Roger were out early (from 10am) as they always were when in Nottingham, long before the rest of us met up at midday to train. Being early birds helped with that aspect, though the real reason why they were in so early was due to intermittent bus times. Because of where they lived, the buses were so many hours apart and the next one wouldn’t get them into town until long after the meeting time. For this blog entry, I have used the images which Max had captured from the day, as I didn’t take any myself this weekend. Which seems to be a reoccurring theme of late, what with winter being here.

We started off as we usually did at Bilbie Walk, where Roger was back to dive rolling up the steps, while Joe captured some images of his own of the community training. Jak was being filmed for a video project one of his friends was doing of him, so he was being filmed throughout the day doing movements. Speaking of which, he was rather confident with his flips now, I guess all those gymnastic classes and having to do competitions is really helping him refine his acrobatic abilities. Such as the height wallspin he did off the corner of a wall seen below.

 

Jak – Wallspin.

 

It was funny to see Jak’s mane of hair fly around while he was doing some underbar’s through the railings, he really should tie that hair up. Imagine it getting caught while vaulting! I should know, as in the past when having long hair, I’ve done just that with movements and is why I always had it tied up. I think handstands on the raised curb have become a thing for many to practise now, it seems to be something we always do when at Bilbie Walk. It seems to work better than if you try them on the floor. We had a new guy called Andy out with us, who was also into break dancing and so he was baby freezing on all and everything.

Today I was wearing my new Nike Dart trainers, they were bright white and not the choice of colour I would usually wear. All the other pairs of darts I have had in the past have been darker colours, but these only came in white. Not the best for training as you will know, but a man has to train. I will admit, I hate having a new pair of trainers. For the sole reason (pun intended) I get scared of slipping when doing movements. That and they are a bit tight and chaff and you don’t want them to get wrecked, ripped etc within the first few training sessions. A reason you have to lay off catleaps until they are fully worn in.