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.

25th January 2015.

 

David – Precision.

 

I was, as always on a Sunday, late waking up for the afternoon training session. Unsure whether to be out due to the weather predictions of rain. I asked Chris via PM if he would be out today, after having an interest in coming out yesterday. His reply was somewhat comical – ‘FML (fuck my life). I think, that any exercise today would be asking for injury. I’ll come to the park one weekend when I’m slightly more adapted to this Parkour stuff…’ Needless to say this had me rolling in laughter, and feeling bad for him at the same time, since he was out yesterday at the community training session. I left him with his muscular pains and with that I got ready and headed over to the park to see who was out this afternoon. It was quite a cold day too, with a chilling wind, not even my scarf was saving me from the gale. I arrived to find Mat, Luisa and David already there, jumping around and keeping warm. At least the park wasn’t loitered by kids due to the weather today!

I wasn’t feeling like training in all honesty, I had a pulled right latissimus (lat) God knows how that had happened. My legs were still feeling sore and tired from training earlier in the week, it was cold, windy and my current mood wasn’t helping motivate me. Though, on warming up with some skipping and general Parkour movement I began to feel a bit better in myself and wanting to train. My muscle ups felt stronger today oddly enough, but I didn’t want to temp fate with the pulled lat by doing lots of upper body work. Best to rest and recover, rather than antagonize. I filmed a couple of video clips to see how movements looked, as well as taking a few photos. Though I didn’t get as many as I would normally like and you can tell by the quality of them, at just how rushed they were. Mat and Luisa were only out for a bit this afternoon and so once they had left it was just David and myself left training at the park. The park felt deserted, I doubted I would be out much longer due to how cold it was.

 

David – Cat 180 Precision.

 

I drilled the main precision jump a few times, managing to do a precision box down to the wall, which was feeling easier the more I did it. David wanted to practise the running stride down to the wall, which felt and looked horrible and so I didn’t dare try that as of yet. He also did some box jumps (seen below) to kong over the wall at the end. I had a look at the main upward precision too, it always seemed so far away and yet I said I would give it a go, not really thinking too much about it as my jumping ability is rubbish currently. To my surprise I ended up getting to it, craning it with one foot on top of the wall and one just below it, bouncing off. David was quite shocked and then contemplated trying it too.