Nottingham Parkour Park Video.

Today marks the release of my long overdue Nottingham Parkour park project. I had planned to make a video of myself training at the Parkour park, long ago, back in 2015 if I remember correctly. I couldn’t make one any earlier since I was out of commission due to injury in 2012 and then the park was built in 2013. I felt I didn’t have the time, plus I had quit training with being injured. Nor was I at full strength from surgery in 2014 either. So it was only in the later stage of 2015 that I could make a start to the project. I decided that once I was back to full strength I would make the video, not that I felt I was going to train again with how long I had been injured.

The Parkour park was completed and open to the public as of June 29th 2013 and since then has been used by many, for both training Parkour and callisthenics. Even though it has been around since then, very few videos of training there have cropped up. I’ve seen perhaps a few individual clips and ever so small features in some videos, but nothing of a day of training as such. Maybe I am just unaware of those videos or even the ones who have ventured to the park and or use it frequently. For anyone who is interested in training there and wants to be up to date, there is a dedicated page to the park [1] where you can discuss all things park related and is well worth joining.

 

 

I had mocked up a list of movements I wanted to film and then chose to go out on only the sunniest of days to keep a consistency with lighting. I wanted an array of movements, the list felt basic and small. Over time, more got added and then I had in hindsight too many clips. It really had been too long since I had last produced a video (2011) in fact! Long have the days pasted of training samplers, even yearly videos. Just like the training in itself has changed and evolved over the years. Many videos nowadays are raw type movements, no music just the sounds of the practitioner moving amongst their surroundings. Much like my own RAW series I started [2] on my other channel.

It’s amazing that people still don’t know about the park’s existence, even after all this time and that people are still actively training there. Not saying that it was going to NOT get used, but over time people dwindle. I wanted my video to give an idea of not only the park’s size and structure, but what there is to do there movement wise too, with the basic movements and then the more creative ones also. As when people first arrive at the park, very few know what to do and feel it is limited.

Raw #6

This is my sixth video of my RAW video series. I decided to film at the Parkour park this time round, as I hadn’t as of yet made a full video there. That and the Parkour park hasn’t been overly documented video wise, even though it was built in 2013. I’m sure plenty of people still don’t know of it’s existence either, so anything that is filmed there can only help with the exposure. Maybe at some point in the future I shall make a full length training video at the park, but until that day you’ll see clips of the park in numerous videos. I had filmed most of this video while out training with Keaton [1] a few weeks ago. It was quite a tiring and good session over all as explained within the blog and explained why I had a lack of photos too due to focusing on filming.

As you can see from the video, I was linking a few movements together with the side vault to lazy vault precision. That movement was quite annoying at times to get right without it looking to staggered in the way I moved, it was also a hard one to get an angle without the railing obscuring the view too much. I am wearing an old school green Npk t-shirt too. I never liked it at the time of being printed, even down to the faded, unusual green colour, though in retrospect I quite like it now and the simplicity of the design too. It’s grown on me, like most of the Npk clothing line [2] though the more popular ones have been the more complex designs.

 

 

The kong swing through on the small bollards was another movement I had recently been practising. It is something which looks so simple to do much like the green bollard swing through to cat. But when you give it a go, it takes a while to get used to the swing motion, in the same way lache precisions take a bit of getting used too. Once you get the motion it feels good and becomes much easier than the beginning. Even, if I had smashed my hand on one of the attempts of doing it, annoyingly.

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?!

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.