Highfields Park.

 

I was looking forward to today, it was going to be a training session of epic proportions. The plan was to travel over to Highfields Park to train for the afternoon. It was all very spur of the moment, due to Adam wanting to go. Some of the Derby guys were over and wanted to tag along too. We amended the plan to include them into the adventure and be picked up on the way. On the day I was running late, as was Adam and I got picked up at 1pm when we should have already been in town. We were even later when we went in circle detours trying to get to Plaza, damn the city centre and their one way system and various blocked off roads. We stopped at IBM, where there were masses of people out training. Nottingham and Derbarians, jumping and flipping around. I said hello to a few people, collected Jeeves, Paul and Ben. Others enquired where we were going and said they would join us there later. With that we drove over to Highfields, stopping off at Sainsbury’s first for supplies.

The floor was still very wet and damp. As we walked around the lake of Highfields, the trees I wanted to train on were a no go due to how wet it was and so we walked further around. Some of the guys doing a precision jump between an island and then over a small stream. We were all quite tentative on the jumps due to it being slippery. The masses of kids arrived guided by Mat, they all gave the same jump a go running and standing. With a few of them looking like they might slip and fall into the small stream. It was funny to watch, film and photo. With many of them being in the same friend circle they all had that competitive edge and bullied each other to be doing the same movements and to be at the same level. I wished the photos had come out better, but I felt in a rush getting a decent angle. It wasn’t the best day for lighting and as much as I wanted to train I was also feeling most demotivated.

 

Running – Precision.

 

We moved slowly around the lake to the tall walled area which many people used as a climbing wall and it was usually covered with chalk near the hand placements. The wet really had put a dampener on the day for being able to train at all the usual spots [1] we had in the past. The training did get better, at least for myself. I liked the area and it offered some pretty good things to do, even if many of the younger ones just used the walls to flip off, rather than Parkour. I guess that is something they are more into though, when you are younger it’s all about impressing and doing things others cannot. At the same time, why spend all that time to travel just to flip off walls as it seemed a bit pointless. I captured some images while Adam, Paul and Jack were doing precision jumps on the stairwell.

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.

Embankment Adventure.

 

 

The plan for this weekend was to move around the city, training different areas. After people had made it clear they wanted to see different locations and have an adventure that wasn’t the usual Plaza, IBM and Audo route which has been done week in, week out. Last weekend Phil had mentioned there were new walls built on the embankment next to the River Trent and they might be worth an trek to see. It had fallen on deaf ears on the day, with no one hearing or seeming that interested on leaving the confines of Plaza. With many of the people who stayed at Plaza during training not out this week, it was the perfect time for this epic scouting trip! To say there were lots of people confirmed to be out, there were very few out when I arrived at Plaza. The guys from Derby were already out and they said a few others were heading over later. They also had a guest with them, Jonathan a guy visiting the UK currently on a Parkour tour and so James had brought him along with them to sample Nottingham. He had already trained in Derby training with Mr. Wong and was head back to London within in the next day or two.

David, Kezza, Max and myself moved over to the blue skip area to train on, away from the crowded Plaza. I wanted to film a few clips to add to my library of ever growing clips and took a couple of photos too. The problem with this area today was the skip had been moved too close to the wall to precision down. It was fun to try and link some movements together, such as a turn vault over the yellow railing like a palm spin movement and then go straight into a kong precision right out of it. A run from running from behind the skip, cross vaulting over the yellow railing and striding along the wall before trying an underbar or kong precision was another choice and run we practised. More people arrived at Plaza and many were asking when it was we would be moving on? The Derby guys eagerly wanted to train spots around Nottingham too like Auditorium and by pass the IBM chained area. Tom joked he hadn’t travelled all this way to train one spot they always seemed to be at when they came over. I explained it was going to be a rather long walk today, due to the embankment adventure and circuit of the city I wanted to do.

 

Max – Portrait.

 

Everyone seemed cool with that and we moved over to Audo. Jack was late arriving into Nottingham and had to hurry up if he and the others were to catch up with us. We were only moving to Audo and so it wasn’t too much of a stretch for them to find us. I had thought of training each area for a certain amount of time, so we didn’t spend all day in one place, maybe thirty minutes per spot, give or take was the rough estimate. I captured a few shots of Max hanging off the edge of one of the high walls (seen above) which he then dropped down to the bin. It was a height drop close to what Pyro had done back in the day, only he did it to the floor I believe. Everyone was doing their own movements and enjoying the area. Some silly, low kong precisions were being done by Kezza and myself. They felt terrible, but oddly doable, though Kezza and Holbrook took it to extremes being able to do them up to the higher big steps. Floating to them like it was nothing, while I had to really push and force to land the simple ones to the steps. It was good to do them as they felt new and challenging.

We had been training at Audo for a good fifty minutes and people were curious if we were going to move. We did, since we had gone over my initial time limit of a spot and on to another location, passing through Castle College and making our way to the canal area. We had broke up into smaller groups with some separating to Tesco before rejoining with us. Well that was if they could find where we had now moved to now. The area we visited first was the top end of the canal, it was a small area with not a lot to do, but people practised the precision and kong precisions there. We were also joined by Street Media too, who then upped the anti by doing sweet diving kongs upwards, and then side flipping the gap between the walls. On one attempt, Noah had managed to some how fall short, slamming down on the wall with one leg over it while the other hit the floor as well as hitting his head somehow, ouch! Parrish got a shin scrap on a kong precision too, it seemed most were bailing here and the area was now getting a little crowded…

Loving the D’s.

 

David – Running Precision.

 

As you may, or may not have guessed by the title of this post unless you have a very seedy, perverted mind, it meant the Derby guys were once again back over at the Nottingham Parkour Park. It was just as unexpected as the last time they came over, but at least this time around Rob asked me in the early hours of the morning before I had logged off Facebook that him and some others would be heading over and if I or any other local guys would be out too. I replied saying some had already planned to be out and that I would see him tomorrow afternoon. I had a good feeling about the jam and couldn’t wait to get out there for photography and some light training. The 1pm meet was earlier than I am used to but I made the trip over for them to see another faction practitioners who had come with Rob and Tom too, I recognised a few of them from the Beaster Jam. No Jonathan this week though, they had tried to contact him but he wasn’t replying and so was assumed to be sleeping or just not interested in being out. It sure was a warm, summers day, the  sweltering heat made training unbearable at times and I think the other Derby lot were feeling it the most, being lethargic for most of the session, before training in short bursts with more rest needed.

I think we were all suffering in some way or another, David had pulled shoulders from all the swinging on the poles and muscle up practising. I had surprisingly pulled my forearms from training the day before, a muscle pull which puts you out of training quite easily if you are unable to grip anything due to them. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, you sure know about it and feel rubbish. I decided I would take this opportunity to take lots of photos from the day to let the forearms recover. I got plenty of shots of Rob doing running precisions, standing ones and even got a few shots for myself too seeing as my ankle felt good today. Like all sessions with the Derby guys, there was plenty of gay-innuendos, spanking of asses and manly groping, it seems to go hand in hand with Parkour training, no matter where you are. There was one stage where I don’t recall how it came about but we all ended up pulling on Rob’s stretchy skin and then trying to pick him up by the skin as he laid on the floor…

 

Matt – Gainer.

 

There was some interesting running precisions being done today, as well as a few standing ones of substantial distance too. It’s always impressive to see new things being executed, giving others new challenges to aim for within the park. It seems to be no matter how long we train at the park for, there is always something new to do. The Derby boys always do speed runs wherever they train, it seems to be their thing. It’s always fun to see people do a speed run, as no matter how fast and easy you think the set course will be,