Portrait City.

The weather this weekend was unpredictable again. I wanted it to be good and yet it seemed like it wouldn’t be for the nearly second month in a row, this made me very sad. It had been so long since I had been out on a Saturday training and with it likely to be raining again, this weekend might be another washout, typically. I woke up at eight,  it was bright with the sun shining brightly, perfect weather for training! To my surprise it remained sunny as I got up and ready. I think the predicted rain had put many off as there didn’t seem to be too many out for the day and I would have been the same had I not woken up early. Adam was set on being out, James seemed to be iffy due to his adductor pull, which had been plaguing him on and off since the Jallenges [1] training session. Even Keaton was set to be out! As time went on, it seemed more people were coming out. I was waiting for Adam to pick me up, though seeing as he was running late I decided to get the bus instead as I was ready to go now.

I got to town just before one o’clock and found David at the Atrium jumping around on his lonesome, waiting for others to arrive. What was more crazy about today was when Jonathan arrived! He was actually out today, he said he might be, but I had heard that many times before without him actually making it out. He said he knew he was going to be out when speaking with me this morning, but wanted it to be a surprise. I can’t even remember the last time he was out to be honest, maybe back in January? Keaton arrived next, though he was wanting to do a spot of Urban exploration later on at the scaffolding field, for a new exploring video of his. What with the success of his most recent video [2] production, which even got featured on various sites and Notts TV too. It wasn’t that long now, until he was enrolled in the Army and wouldn’t be out at all, even though he had started to train more locally at the Parkour park and seemed to be enjoying it in recent months.

 

Jonathan – Portrait.

 

We trained at Crowne Plaza for a bit while waiting for others to arrive. My kong precisions were feeling utter rubbish again and my pulled shoulder and neck were affecting me. It was odd to see Keat scared of diving kongs now as he used to have them in the past. It was one of the movements he wanted to reclaim today if nothing else.  After some drills, he did get them back on all the walls, even the lowest one too. James arrived and started to warm up, along with Phil too. As time was getting on I was ready to move and anyone else who hadn’t made it, knew the drill and when they should have met! So any of those late comers would have to find us, time wasters! We moved into the Old Market Square, where Phil spent some time filming time-lapses of the council house while the rest of us watched and did a few movements as we waited, we had bumped and collected Jennings on the way too. I left Phil to it while a few of us headed off to the Lace Market.

I wanted to check out a church on the way which we had trained at long ago, only for it to be open and so it was a no go for today. We walked around to the side of it which had a small area to train on, but it had some junkies there, getting high. It seemed most places today were inaccessible annoyingly. We bumped into Zulu while making our way to the Adam’s Building, looking very dapper in his clothing and hopefully we shall see him again at the Parkour Park in the future, once Summer arrives.

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Park Shenanigans.

 

Today was the first day of the year training at the Parkour park. What with the weather being miserable since the start of the year. David and Keaton seemed more than up for the training session, with Adam being a maybe. Steve had liked the post about training but the question was, was he actually going to turn up? It was going to be good to get back out and move around the park again, I hoped it would feel fresh too. Maybe, I would feel scared of all the jumps now and it would feel tedious. I had pulled calf muscles, but was still going to head out and work the best I could with them, hopefully not doing too much leg based training. Adam was making excuses about why he couldn’t come out. Moaning about why he wasn’t going to be out, bottling it. It seemed to be a regular, depressive occurrence since his forearm operation. I do feel bad for him as we do troll and bitch at him quite a bit.

I understand an injury sets you back, gives you the fear and gets you down. But, you can still train the limbs which are uninjured, his legs and keep fit, ready for his return. Otherwise it is wasted time, where you lose fitness and get more annoyed and depressed when you come back from injury. Will things ever be the same, will the injury flare up, happen again? Who knows, they are all things which go through your mind, but you cannot let those fears control you. Over time you will forget you even had an injury and not worry about such things, being as carefree as the days before it. Injuries are things which make or break people that regular train, it can set into a spiral of depression or it can do the opposite and give you extreme motivation foe the return.

 

Keaton – Portrait.

 

I arrived at the park to find Keaton already there, in a vest of all things too. I know the sun was out, but it wasn’t that warm yet! I was in layers upon layers and still feeling cold in comparison. David arrived, still feeling the effects of a lower back injury he had sustained and so he was limited on what he could do. It had been months since he first pulled his back, but it seems to be a reoccurring problem now. Back injuries are terrible and don’t seem to go away any time soon, many try to rest them, while other plough through the pain. After a few jumps my calves hurt like shin splints, having the pain directly in my calf and to the sides of them. I blame doing calf raises on weight plates, at various angles. It was nice to see no kids at the park while we trained the joys of a weekday. Today the running upwards precision seemed scary again, I blame Keat for that, as he always has a fear of it and now it had transferred to me.

David felt wary due to his back, but he did it, if a bit undershot. Then ran and got it too and kept practising it. Keat had a go at it, backing in the air as he usually did due to fear. He did one attempt managing to hit the wall, only to over think it and lose his courage with it altogether then. I so wanted him to nail the running precision as he would do other running precisions, which were just as far, if not further. When it came to that jump though he was blocked mentally. While we were at it, I practised it on my unnatural foot which seems to feel stronger and nicer than my natural footing, strange!

Tic-Tac-Toe

I was planning to get out as it was my week off lifting. My ‘active rest’ as such, but you don’t even look like you lift? I know, right? But, that isn’t an accurate gauge of strength now is it… In this active rest week I try to do Parkour three times a week, to keep in check. I usually only train once at the weekend due to being too destroyed in the week for anything else. It seemed like this week was to be different, the people set to be out was David, Keaton and myself. A far cry from the previous months and even years when we had vast amounts of dedicated people. Sadly on the day of training they both bailed on me, David was working and too tired to be out and offered to be out the next day, Thursday instead. Keaton was meant to be out on a pre-arranged photography day with someone. It was quite annoying and deflating as I was all hyped to be out and yet no one seemed to be free. Luckily, later on before I was meant to meet them Keaton mentioned he wasn’t out after all and asked if I still wanted to be out, so we decided to meet…

I was pumped for training, and in a way I was glad I had someone to join me. Otherwise, I would have been jumping around on my lonesome and it may not have been as productive as when you have someone else to vibe off. The park was empty, as it always was during the week due to the kids being at school and college. Most of the parents were at work, bar for the few who took their toddlers to the play park next door to the Parkour park and the dog walkers who loitered the field. I awaited for Keaton’s arrival and was feeling a bit sore and tired from the weekend training session still, maybe I was getting ill as I felt weak in general. I had a previous illness like that before, where I wasn’t ‘ill’ as such with a blocked nose, sore throat or any sort of ailment. I just felt really fatigued all the time and weaker than normal, which made everything a real chore it was a very odd thing to have and lasted a few weeks from what I remember.

 

Keaton – Tic Tac.

 

I did a few smaller movements to warm up, when a random mum with her daughter said it all very Spiderman-esk as I bounded around the walls. She asked if it was as difficult as it looked and do I have to work it all out in my head before doing the moves. I can’t say I’ve had that question posed to me before, I didn’t quite know how to respond to it. It wasn’t long before Keat arrived, I was stunned to see he was in a vest while I was feeling pretty cold myself. It wasn’t summer any more and felt more like an autumn day of coldness. I set up the camera to film for a new RAW video edit, that soon got me warmed up and sweating after repeating the same movement numerous times. There were a few stumbles though, I had hit the back of my hand while doing a swing through precision on the stumps. How, I have no idea but on the footage you could hear the clunk and it’s a no wonder it bruised so fast and became a blood blister.

Then, later on my shoe had got caught in the groin area of my joggers as I was vaulting over a railing, nearly causing me to face plant as I went over. I mean seriously, of all the mishaps these were silly ones to be having and not one you want to have when doing a dash vault either. Keaton was killing it with his own movements, he even tried the running upwards wall precision. He didn’t think on the first few attempts and landed and scrapped down the wall due to backing out, but then he was thinking too much about it to get close after that and became afraid or even trying it. This had a detrimental effect on myself as I too became scared of doing it, what the hell?!

The Return of Keaton.

 

Adam – Running Precision.

 

Today, Kezza and Adam had planned to be out training, no matter what. Aidan and Mat had confirmed they were going to join them too. I didn’t think I would be out in all honesty, I said I would be out, but didn’t feel I would… I was late to bed the night before (3am) and then I was dead and didn’t wake up until gone 1pm. The exact time they were all meant to be meeting. I noticed that Adam was still online, running late as he thought that Kezza wasn’t ready and so had been waiting for him to confirm before leaving, as he didn’t want to be at the park alone. They were both going to be late now. Mat was already at the park with Aidan. I was hoping to aim to get over there for around half past two and had asked Keaton if he would join us after saying he might sometime, he said he might do, but would have to see after he had done a bike ride. There has been a lack of blogs this recent month, as I haven’t been taking that many photos to document training sessions. I have still been training though, so hopefully things will be back on track now. I got to the park to find David, Mat, Aidan, Adam and Kezza already there jumping. Quite a few were out to say originally it was only set to be Kezza and Adam training.

The park was packed with kids, not enough to stop you from training but still quite a few to make you more selective on where to train. I do hate when there are many kids around, as you always have the possibility of knocking one over, when they are not aware of their surroundings. I was unsure about my knee and ankle which both hurt as soon as I ran or vaulted. Not an injury as such, but they didn’t feel right and had been twinged on a previous training session. The the guys were timing a pop wall climb to see who got the quickest time. Kezza had the fastest time on the big wall, after multiple tries, fails and near death experiences in our haste. I nearly kong vaulted the smaller wall on my first time trail. There was only so much you could shave off your time, before they became very much the same. The air time from the first pop made you glide in the air and you had to stomp out of it to land on the wall to get a fraction of a quicker time. It was a fun time trail to do, though perhaps we should have done one as runs as well.

 

Pasted Stump.

 

We had found yet more new things to do. Just when you think everything has been done, something else crops up and keeps things feeling fresh. A diagonal kong from a green stump to a smaller blue one, was one of these. Why we had never seen or done it that way before, I have no idea but it was a great addition to drill. It was still stumping me, pardon the pun, as I practised the kong precision. I mean seriously… How did we never see this before and manage to miss such a blatant movement?! It was nice to do though, not too difficult, but you had to put a bit of effort in or you would land on the tip toes like I did on one attempt and flexed my ankle and likewise for Aiden. The main concern was the paste the stump had on it, and the possibility of hitting the pole underneath it. We then tried a catleap, straight from landing the kong precision, around the corner of the wall. It proved almost impossible due to all the angles and the force of landing. David was doing some muscle ups, he had them really nice and I tried some and also found that they felt easier again.

David was telling us about how he had (another) head injury the other week while training on his own in the week. He was attempting a kong cat from the smallest wall to the other higher wall in front, which is quite far if you have seen it in person. He was inspired after some of the Loughborough guys were doing it. A long story short, he ran to kong the first wall but had too much speed and had took off too close to the wall, flailing in the air where your upper body is leading first with legs trailing behind you with no way of getting them back to the front of you. He then went straight into the wall face first, splitting his forehead open in the process and getting a major headache. He had to go to hospital to have it glued back together and since then he is a bit wary with training now.