The Long Traipse.

 

Ben – Precision.

 

This weekend we went on a different route around Nottingham than the usual training of Plaza, IBM and Auditorium hotspots. Many had voiced their opinion in recent weeks about wanted an adventure, training different places and it would be a great change of pace and scenery too. The plan, to make people aware before hand I posted on the event. We would meet up at the usual Plaza hotspot but then go straight to Castle College followed by the NCP car park, the Broadmarsh area in front of the garage, the Nottingham Courts, Contemporary Art, Adams Building and then finally to Snienton or alternatively somewhere closer. It was a big list, depending on the time spent in each area, we might not get to train at them all. There were plenty of side street spots to session in between the main spots listed. Everyone seemed happy with the choices and there seemed to be  fair few people confirmed out for the day too. This was looking to be a very promising day indeed, both weather and turn out.

I was ready early for once and arrived bang on time, making sure I was there for this day trip then arriving late and then finding people were too deep rooted to Plaza. We moved right away to Castle College to warm up, without too much of an argument. There wasn’t as many out as expected but we still a nice number of people, which increased as the day went on. We had Andy from Shift out and some of the Derby folk too. It seemed that James was scared of the running cat he had previously conquered [1] and now felt like he may have lost it, forever even. Thankfully not though, after warming up more he got it on his third attempt, much to his relief. The rest of us were doing precision jumps on the skip next to the running cat. Jumping on, over and from it to the nearby walls. The skip wobbled when landing on it, making it difficult to stick and it launched you off it as you jumped from it. Some of the guys were doing bar work and other movements and it already felt like a great day of training.

 

James – Running Catleap.

 

While many of us were getting into the swing of training and feeling much warmer. The funniest thing happened when Mat and Holbrook had found some small scaffolding, the kind you seen painters using, a small section from that holds the ledge. Holbrook had the idea to use it for underbar movements, flipping it around in the air before he he went through it. Then he ran towards the wall doing a tic tac, then trying to do another movements over it once he landed, looking like a skateboarder. It was all very mental watching, but very funny too and would have made a great little video had I had filmed. Phil was filming a few bits on his glide cam rig he had with him, which instantly had the attention from Paul and James. I wanted to take photos and film too, but there weren’t many angles I could get at Castle College to make things look nice and it was rather crowded so I didn’t bother with shooting anything. We saw some guys from Leeds eyeing up the bigger running cat and running precision jumps before they vanished elsewhere.

Muscle ups were being done and this made Tom tell us he could no longer muscle up, at least cleanly and yet when he tried one, he did it perfectly as we all watched in anticipation for a failure. Just as we were about to move, there was a crazy Phil challenge going off. It involved standing not on the top of a blue railing, but the rung below it as show in the [2] image and then trying to cat to a blue fence in front of the railing. Now this catleap was quite far even from the top of the railing, but to go from the rung it felt near impossible. You couldn’t bend your legs properly (all part of the challenge) and the calves remained tensed with the rail pressed firmly against the back of the legs. Phil was close to it or did he do it in the end, I forget as it was so ridiculous.

Turmoil and Tribulation.

 

Holbrook – Running Precision.

 

After a somewhat stressful week of doom and gloom due to one of my cats being quite ill, it was good to get out and train to help lighten my mood. I was feeling unsure about going out at first, due to the weather being overcast and looking like it might rain. Not exactly the heatwave and clear skies they had predicted on the days leading up to the weekend. I thought about leaving it, as a dull day wasn’t the best for images or training in general. Jack called me from Adam’s phone, which confused the shit out of me at first. He asked when I would out, as they were to both already out early. I headed out for just before half one, only to miss the bus as I got to the bottom of my street. Annoying as no one was at the bus stop to get it to stop, the next bus would get me into town for 2pm. When I arrived, people were still training at Crowne Plaza, it seemed like it would be another day spent training there. It instantly dampened my mood, making me wonder why had I even bothered to come out training at all, if that would be the only location we trained at, while it was dry and looked like the sun may come out…

It didn’t help matters when people moved over to the Atrium and IBM spots either, lets just say I was hating those training choices. I mean, I was already feeling low, but this left me thinking no more, please. I just wanted to move to different places, anywhere but the regular spots, I guess the next area would be Audo. To my joy it wasn’t and it seemed like people were open to train somewhere different, like Bilbie Walk which was mentioned. Oh wow, this was a surprise and exciting, perhaps this would inspire me to train now we were going to fresh land. Even though it wasn’t a new area, it still felt fresh to be there. Dom was doing box jumps over the bike railings and then did precision jumps along the railings, skipping one out each time. It reminded me of a previous jam [1] when Holbrook and Jp were doing the same jumps and a precision from the black railing to the silver bike rail, which Dom was wanting to commit too. Holbrook was doing an insane running precision to the steps railing (seen above) into a running barrel vault over the next railing just out of shot of the sign.

 

James – Precision.

 

I captured a few images of this run he was doing, they came out perfectly and thankfully the sun which had come out now. The sun adding to the the shot, as well as me getting the warning sign in the edge of shot too. The jump has some crazy distance for a running rail precision, I can’t even imagine the mentality for that or committing to such a movement. On one of the landings, Holbrook had even uprooted the rail a bit from the impact and force of the jump, so it now wobbled a bit. While he set up his camera to film it, we had seen a security van in the background, about to pull up. It was now all or nothing for the last shot before we would no doubt be moved off, even if Holbrook still wasn’t happy with his run. The security bloke was nice enough and said they have to act when called, and is why we had to leave. But we are welcome to come back in an hour or two, once his shift is over. It seemed they were patrolling all over the university area, so best not to train those areas and we ended up moving down to Flats area instead.

Some of us stopped off at a diagonal upwards precision (seen above) to practise. Holbrook was busy doing some nice tic tac 180 precision flow with a flip off the wall and wanted to involve the tree somehow too. The upward precision is one I have never liked, nor have done as an actual precision jump. Always opting to do it downwards and wanting to crane it, but never got the bottle to do that either. I remember it from the days of being there with Yaz [2] who could do it easily and wondered why I wouldn’t do it. Pete could easily do it upwards, but preferred to do it downwards for some odd reason as it was less scary. He also did it as a running box jump too as did Will. It was the take off that baffled me, it was a corner of a wall, so you couldn’t put both feet on the edge and roll off it like usual. Standing fully on the wall before the edge make it feel slightly bigger of a jump.