Carlton Suburbs.

 

It seemed like no one was out this weekend, at least from the regulars I trained with. Jallen was at the cinema, watching Dr Strange this weekend. No one else had confirmed they were out, even as maybes. It’s usually the way it goes when the core regulars aren’t out, no one else bothers to train, which is odd. Perhaps James is the influence of the community sessions now and that is why no one was out, because he wasn’t?! I had to laugh as closer to the time Kezza was the only one set to be going out (yeah, right. That will be the day!), though it would be about right if he did, typical even. Adam was a maybe now, I was tempted to go instead to the JUMP session happening in Derby Sunday instead. Though, I didn’t have a lift there and back and the weather was set to be bad, and Saturday good oddly enough.

I decided to go out training in the end with David, agreeing to meet at the Parkour Park for eleven then we would meet Ben at half past in town, before venturing over to Carlton as that was our plan for the day. Anyone else that wanted to join us could, not that I was expecting anyone else though. An adventure day seeing as it was set to be a sunny day. It seemed once a plan was motion it seemed to draw more interest for the event. Adam who was a maybe, was now game for joining us as it would be a new area. Femi wanted in on the fun, god knows when he would be arrive though… Chris was even a maybe for the day too. When the day arrived, I was up at eight, dropped a message to remind people and see if all was good, without any replies (obviously) for that time in the morning.

 

Zade – Stride.

 

Adam was up late, then wanted to meet at the park for half past eleven, getting annoyed when I said no as the plan was to meet Ben at half past in town. Trying to say I had said half past before now as a meet up time (which I hadn’t) so he was asking why I had changed it earlier now?! I said I wouldn’t be waiting, for him, even though it would have meant we would have had a lift. David and myself got the bus and met with Ben, who in the end was very late due to roadworks. Femi said he would be out later, around one or maybe two, what a lazy feck! When Ben did arrive, we made our way to Carlton via bus and over to our first spot which was Brickyard. It was cold today, so cold and there was no sign of Sonny either, who said he would pop out seeing as we would be in his neck of the woods. I hadn’t seen him out for years and so it would be great to see him out again. I dropped him a text to let him know we had arrived. I didn’t hold much hope on him being out though…

At times the area felt somewhat dodgy, with the local ‘badmans’ roaming around. It was a rather cold day, even though the sun was out! It was hard to keep warm, even after many jumps and it was a slow process to remain warm. There were some railings which looked perfect for a dash vault precision, which I can be seen doing in my RAW video [1] and I was rather proud of that movement, even if it was hard to then do a same level kong out of it afterwards. The next step was doing a kong precision on those walls which eluded me last time around [2] which David and myself had tried doing endless times. Thankfully David and myself nailed them this time around and maybe that was down to being warmer, even fresher than last time we tried. I guess with it being the start of the jam, it wasn’t as hard to think about or do either. Ben was doing some big running precisions, which looked horrible to try, props to springy Ben!

 

David – Portrait.

 

David’s kong precisions using the railing were looking nice, even though he said he found that one harder to do than the wall one! I quite liked the lower rail to wall kong precision, finally I had progression with them. Excuse the lack of images in this entry, I spent most of my time jumping around. It always makes me chuckle when we visit suburbs and places we rarely visit, as you will always find some locals who watch what you are doing. Fascinated by it all, as obviously it’s less seen than if we were in town jumping around. It’s nice to see the interest and at times get questions from people too. The raised, wooden flower beds were cool for doing precisions between, adding different levels of difficulty and distances. Adam seemed to find the area a bit ‘meh‘ or maybe he just wasn’t in the zone like last time.

The Mansfield Adventure.

 

Group Photo.

 

Today was to be a training session of epic proportions… To rewind a bit, people had spoke about training Mansfield, without anything really materializing from the slight echoes. Adam and Steve talked about it again on Saturday evening. The plan was to go some time in the week, seeing as it was the Easter holidays. Steve suggested a Thursday would be good for him and Adam was game for then too. Even though I wasn’t feeling travelling to other places (cities) and didn’t want to commit to the training session. I did make a very quick event about it and thought it might fall through anyway, then I wouldn’t need to worry. It’s not that I don’t like travelling, I’m just lazy when it comes to that sort of thing, the organisation, time it takes to travel and so forth. I wasn’t sure if there would be much interest with it being quite short notice, or if it would even happen in respects to the weather. We had limited (first come, first serve) seats in Adam and Steve’s cars for the journey over and with that, the requests came thick and fast for reserving a place. Even though the cars were near full, other people were still interested about coming to the session, some were going via train, bus or hitching a lift and connecting with us once in Mansfield.

It was looking quite a promising training session, the hype was getting more intense as the days went on. Even though it was on a weekday, which wasn’t (usually) good for everyone, soon didn’t matter and people made time for it. What had started off as a hand full of us going, had soon escalated to a twenty plus person jam with more people still wanting to attend too. Whether all the people turned up, including the locals from Mansfield was another matter though. It reminded me of the Beaster Jam [1] we had last year in Leicester, as a community trip going else where to train. I can’t remember the last time I had travelled to Mansfield, I know back in 2006 I used to be back and forth there with Phil, Jak and Sark. What surprised me even more was that James was up for coming along now too, so that was another car full of people if needed. I was finally feeling excited about the training session, I needed to make sure I got an early night so I would wake up on time and feel fresh for the day of training ahead. Needless to say, I doubt I would get that as excitement always kept me awake, the photo opportunities, possible movements to practise and how the day might turn out.

 

Mansfield.

 

Even though I had gone to bed early, I had woke up at 2am, then again at 6am and found it hard to get a proper nights sleep for fear of not waking up, that and knowing I had to be up and ready for a set time. I hate that feeling, it’s not like I would overlaid with an alarm… I woke up at 9am, alarm blearing and felt completely shattered, it felt like it was going to be one of those days! I had various messages from people to double check if everything was still going ahead, the weather looked great too. Luke was already at the park an hour before the meet up time,nothing from Kezza when I messaged him though. Adam was running a tad late as he would be picking up Ben before going to the park. Kezza had only just got up after ten and said he wouldn’t be ready in time and is going to get there for 11am as that was the meeting time (it wasn’t) as the time clearly stated 10:30 and we would arrive in Mansfield for just after eleven. What a complete and utter n0b! I said he needs to hurry up or he will be left, and then he had a right strop about it… It’s not our fault he couldn’t get up in time and got confused about times. No one else seemed to have problems with it all.

I arrived at the park to find no sign of Aiden or Mat… I’m sure they were meant to be early from when I had spoke to them earlier, they had already left and should have beat me to the park! There was no sign of Kezza, we rang him numerous times and it seemed he was ignoring his phone and all of us, yet had commented on photos of us all waiting for him. Mat and Adien arrived and then we were waiting for Steve to arrive. We should have left Kezza behind, he knew the stated time we were leaving, it’s not our fault he can’t time keep. Even I had managed to get up, ready and over before midday! It seemed unfair on those who had made the effort to now be waiting for him due to being so lazy. Adam said we can’t do that and so we waited, waited and waited some more… He said he was ten minutes out, yet didn’t arrive until nearly half past eleven! Even the late Scotsman Steve had got here on time for once. Kezza had ruined the day and had the cheek to arrive with an attitude, saying we should have just left without him if we were that bothered…

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.

Solar Rays.

 

David – Portrait.

 

This entry is that of three training sessions, as I didn’t have that much to say or images to share for individual entries to make it worth while. So merging them all together in one post soon beefed up the content. Lets talk about the first day of training (17th March) I had planned to be out with Ben, Adam and David even though it was predicted to rain. With how bad the weather was the evening before, I had decided to not set an alarm for the morning as I already knew the weather would likely be just as terrible. Low and behold when I woke up, the weather was just that, wet and rainy. I was feeling unmotivated for training and not wanting to brave the dull, rubbish weather and thought that others might have the same idea… I received a message from Adam asking where I was as he was already out at the park with his sister Rebecca. I then got messages from Ben too saying I should come out, as it’s no longer wet and David and Luke are out with them too. After many photos and messages from them, taunting me to come out, I think they got the message that I wasn’t going to attend and then I was left in peace.

Around three o’clock I was still in a foul mood, but thought maybe going out for an hour or two would be the best and lighten my mood. So, I was surprised when I got there and no one was training! It seemed they had all trained themselves out or were bored and ready to call it a day? My sullen mood didn’t go unnoticed as I arrived and got asked what was wrong, and why had I bothered to come out if I was going to be a miserable git. Oh and I got stick for wearing my Pure Parkour t-shirt [1] which Ben said looked more like an Asda t-shirt than a Parkour one. It was quite funny to see the sibling banter and quarrels between Adam and Rebecca, both abusing and putting each other down… It seemed like my arrival had given a little boost to the day and we trained, even if it seemed Ben was working more on Muscle ups. After Adam mentioned when I ran and did the strides my upper body was perfectly straight like a robot I decided to over exaggerate it even more with a long stride. I got a few photos of use doing a similar exaggerated stride, as you’ll see by Ben’s example in the photos below. With that, it was time for Ben to set off to work and Luke had plans and left too.

 

Adam – Speed Vault.

 

Adam wanted to train still, at least until after peak time traffic had passed. Adam’s sister was cold and sat in his car while the rest of us jumped. I got some photos of Adam doing Parkour, something I had neglected for a while now. In true Jennings fashion he stripped down to his Myprotein vest for added vanity gains. He wanted some shots of him actually training than just portraits [2]of him pulling silly faces. He was preparing to enter the Ninja Warrior UK auditions and so wanted to train, get better at Parkour and have some good footage for his application. The sun had begun to come out, giving a golden tint to all the images I took. Even though I was tired myself, and strangely drained due to lack of food and thinking I would only be out an hour max. Nevertheless it was great to be out and that the weather had now picked up. Adam looked like a tank in his vest while doing movements, more so the running towards the camera shots. Even with general vaulting images, you could see his muscles tensed and bulging…

David was off to work shortly, Adam would head home if I wasn’t staying out. I said I’d stay for a bit longer until peak time had passed. I got some muscle up images of Adam and we practised them together, doing a few sets. His muscle ups had improved loads since the first time he had come out to the park all those months ago! He was always strong on pull ups, now he has double armed muscle ups, even if he was smashing the bar into his chest at times. He could see and feel them, but they weren’t as consistent as he wanted them to be for multiple reps but it was great progress.