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.

Stefano’s Return.

Seeing as I had a late night yesterday, I woke up very drained and tired and turned my alarm off, only for me to fall back to sleep again for a extra two hours. Due to this I decided to head into town an hour later than normal. I arrived at around one o’clock and met everyone who were already at Plaza training. I was greeted by man hugs and then watched the others train, still being rather annoyed I couldn’t train due to my ankle. I got my camera out to take photos of people only for me to realise I had left my batteries until they de-charged and when I went to take a photo it said my batteries were dead. I checked them in the morning before going out by turning the camera on and I had no notification stating they were low and so thought I must have charged them beforehand, as I had been thinking about doing it a few days before.

I got a few photos of Yaz doing the pole swing around to precision before swapping my batteries with my fully charged ones which were in my bag. Yaz had made the pole swing to precision quite easily compared to how he used to do it all those months ago when he first got it. He was also talking about trying a squirrel to precision on the same lamppost which I got photos of. I saw Vincent do a diving kong over the second wall, props to him for doing that as most don’t like it as a diving kong and I know it feels like a great achievement when you do get it done. Next he will have to look at the third and final wall for a diving kong as that will give him a whole new challenge.

People had split into smaller groups already and we further split into groups when each group having different areas and movements they wanted to train. So we said where we were going and then trained in our set groups. Myself and Yaz joined the others who were over at IBM filming with the GoPro. Shortly afterwards, Denis said they were going to the scaffolding and then left me, Yaz and Zain together to train even though he was reluctant to leave Zain with us. I pointed out a few new things for Yaz to try like the one eighty cat to cats then began to take photos of it and laughing at the fact when he kept failing due to the walls being slippery or the fact he was too scared to commit.

 

Yaz - Pole swing precision.

 

Yaz was moaning that he was hungry and also needed a drink so we all walked into the centre of town to the nearest Tesco’s where he and Zain both brought some Easter eggs and some water. Zain started to drink his water while walking around the shop then when he came to the self service machine it wouldn’t recognize the water, more than likely due to him drinking from it. The woman at the till sorted it out but by that time Zain decided to go and pay at the till to a human and left Yaz to canal his items and pay for his own items. We began to devour the eggs as we made the walk to High Pavement which Yaz said the gate was now unlocked again so we decided to check if he was right and also train at that area.

It was cool to see the gate once again unlocked, whether it was locked due to people always using the area for training and climbing on the roofs or due to someone locking it for another reason. It posed no real inconvenience for us as we only had to do a climb up to get over the wall. Still we didn’t want to be in there if it had been locked for a reason, even though it was unlikely someone would know we were in there or had a problem with us being there in a small group. Zain practised the running catleap, which he didn’t hesitate with this time and then he and Yaz had the idea of trying it together at the same time. Myself and Yaz had a go at some pull-ups and muscle-ups seeing as we hadn’t had a bar to do them on for ages. It felt so odd to do them on a square bar again. Zain asked if anyone had done the tic tac from the tree to cat or precision to which I told him they had and he wanted to give the tic tac to cat a go but it looked so scary as Yaz agreed.

Although Yaz suggested trying to do a tic tac to lache, instead he gave it a go and the first few attempts he fell down and off the tree, or would end up hugging the tree for fear of slipping off it all together. He then got the hang of the motion and did get the lache in the end but it was a dead movement and hard to link into anything else. He hung and looked at the lache precision back which he didn’t like the look of and then hung upside down on the tree only being hooked by his legs – it looks like some form of hanging torture device.

 

Zain - Running catleap.

 

I saw Yaz and Zain doing some tic-tac precisions from the concrete slabs and off the wall. Zain was trying the tic-tac 270 precision and both attempted doing additions to the movement, while I crouched in the bramble bushes to try and get a different perspective with the foliage in shot. I think some worked really well even though there is no perception of what is being done or how far it is. The angle is nice, as is the body posture of them both. We had spent enough time in this area and decided to walk up to the scaffolding area and see if they were still there.

Denis said ‘You finally came then, we are bored of this area now and where going to leave soon’. I explained we had been at High Pavement for ages and knew they would still be there and that we have only just decided to join them and that we still want to train there even if they are leaving. The first thing I saw was Diogo doing a tic tac from a window ledge then onto an underbar through the scaffolding which looked sweet. Denis was also swinging around the scaffolding onto the smaller walls, like a gibbon. Yaz had a go at a reverse upwards dyno which proved harder than he first thought not to mention scary and had to be spotted. We both did some upward dyno’s which were about an arm length upwards. We found it quite easy but I was surprised others had no explosive power to get to the second bar. Denis was quick to say ‘stop showing off with your henchness and silly upperbody challenges’.

Stefano appeared out of nowhere to come and see all of us as well as train. It was great to see Stefano out again, it had been so long since I had last seen him – even his dreadlocks were really long now too! Everyone was as surprised to see him as I was and multiple man hugs were in order. Denis was doing a downwards precision from some vent thing to a wall and after a few times of doing it, he had the idea of what if on landing fell into the bush then have someone pull him back up into the precision across the wall. Myself and Yaz pulled Denis out for the precision which he liked and we joked about throwing him up to the vent. Denis said he was scared that we would pull him too much and he would not be able to land on the vent, so he did the usual precision. Then me and Yaz pulled him out as hard as we could and launched him up to the white vent with him falling into the bush and calling us both dicks and that he knew we would do something like that.

 

Denis - Downwards precision.

 

Denis had called the others to see where they were and decided he would now head over to the castle area to meet up with them as he was bored of this area and asked if we wanted to join those who were going. We declined and stayed in that area as we had not long got there. Zain carried on doing the downwards precision. Then on one of the precisions he landed and one foot/toe slipped before the wall and he flew over the wall and then was on the floor in pain as it had really stubbed his toe and bend it upwards, ripping his trainers in the process. The bail looked really scary and at first I thought it had injured his ankle and though he would end up like me if that was the case. Luckily, it wasn’t that injury though. With his toe being hurt, it put him out of training for today at least.

We spoke to Stefano about what he had missed through not being on Facebook and kept him up to date. We also started throwing these little red berries at a light and seeing who could hit it first. I got it, as did Stefano and then Yaz. We also tried to throw them with the opposite arm to which Stef could hit it loads of times in a row. We also starting throwing the berries at Zain who was balancing on a ladder due to his injury with much amusement.

Myself, Stefano and Yaz went around the corner talking about possible new movements. I pointed out a possible lache precision and a downwards precision, which Yaz wanted to try. On the lache precision, the first time due to him being scared, he didn’t keep his form in the air and ended up craning and hitting his knee into the wall. I decided to hobble back and get my camera to get some photos. On the way back, I was doing a hobbled run, as I came around the corner towards Yaz and he was in tears of laughter on the floor saying it was the funniest thing he had ever seen! Zain had joined us and we did some posing photos with Zain and Stefano. The next challenge of the day was from Stefano trying to jump from the ground and touch the rail above used for the lache precision. It was so high and yet Stef could touch it as opposed to Yaz and Zain who couldn’t get close to it.

 

Zain showing that he is shocked Stef is out!

 

We decided to do some muscle ups on the scaffolding. It felt so much easier on a rounded scaffolding bar than the square one at high pavement and I did eight in a row before stopping to see what Stefano and Yaz was talking about and doing behind me. We looked across to the roofs and walls and I suggested that Yaz should do the upwards precision from below, which he was scared to do. We then spoke about what if he bailed and landed down below and other possible out comes of moves and what else could be done if you had the bottle.

We moved across to the roof and I pointed out a possible precision from the rail to a chimney pot. Yaz gave it a go and stuck it perfectly, not that he had much space to misjudge it anyway – the photo looks great from below. We had grown tired of this area and so we made our way back to Palza where Zain was telling me he did the running precision across and Denis too earlier in the day. Stefano did it a few times and then Yaz looked at it and didn’t like it in the slightest. We ended up speaking rather than training and we were talking about how thin Yaz is and how he has a really small waist and hour glass figure. Yaz then said he would look better in a dress than a girl and it would be cool for him to say that to other women and put them to shame. To which we all burst out laughing as why would you even think about something like that let alone want to wear a dress, very worrying!

It was getting late and with most of us injured and aching we just chilled out and did some light training. Yaz cut his hand open on some glass and it wouldn’t stop bleeding no matter how much he wiped the blood away. He then started to squeeze the blood out and drew a smiley face on the wall with it. Later he left it bleeding and left the puddle on his hand and then after a while, it had all coagulated and it was solid and looked horrible as he moved it around like a piece of solder. I spent most my time conditioning, doing handstands and press up variations to keep warm as I couldn’t do anything else. The evening ended rather gaily with us all checking out each others physiques and Stefano telling us how unfit he has became and he isn’t toned in the slightest compared to how he used to be.

 

Yaz - Pole swing precision.

 

Kieran & Yaz.

 

Yaz - 180 cat to cat.

 

Yaz - 180 cat to cat.

 

Yaz - 180 cat to cat.

 

Yaz - Downwards Precision.

 

Yaz - Downwards Precision.

 

Yaz - Stoner Pose.

 

Yaz and the tree.

 

Yaz hanging.

 

Yaz - Tic Tac Precision.

 

Yaz - Precision.

 

Stefano & Zade (Me).

 

Zade (Me) - Walking towards the camera.

 

Stefano - Precision

 

Yaz - Precision.

 

Zain Trollface.

 

Stefano & Zain. Zain was obviously overwhelmed to see Stefano out, it almost brought a tear to his eye!

 

Yaz - Lache Precision

 

Torn Jogging Bottoms.

 

Destroyed Trainer.

 

Yaz & Stefano laughing at something.

 

Stefano & Yaz.

 

Yaz - Chimney precision.

 

Stefano - Running Precision.

 

Yaz & Zain.

 

Stefano can see you!

 

Yaz - Close up.

 

Yaz's injury to his palm when a piece of glass cut it.

 

Yaz's injury to his palm when a piece of glass cut it.

 

Yaz's injury to his palm when a piece of glass cut it.

 

Yaz - Squirrel 180 Precision.

 

Yaz - Squirrel 180 Precision.

 

Sam Petz.

 

Yaz - Tree Hugging.

 

Yaz - Tic tac lache.

 

Yaz - Upside down.

 

Yaz - Upside down.

 

Zain getting ready for a precision.

 

Yaz - Tic Tac Precision.

 

Zain - Brick Touching.

 

Denis - Downwards Precision.

 

Yaz - Lache Precision.

 

Yaz - Precision.

 

Stefano.

 

Zain looking at touching the rail, while Yaz hovers.

 

Yaz - Upwards Precision.

 

Stefano balancing along the rail and Yaz sat around.

 

Yaz - Chimney precision.

 

A Day of Scaffolding.

 

Zain – Having a much needed Drink!

 

I wasn’t planning on training today, as it had been raining all night and most of the morning. So when I woke up and saw that it was still raining, I decided to have a lie in and not bother going out. I awoke again just before twelve and saw that it had started to be sunny. Although it was still wet on the pavement, people had asked if I would still come out to which I replied with a stern no. Another hour had passed and I saw that it had mostly dried up now and with that I decided to head to town. I arrived just after two o’clock and rang Zain to see where everyone was, they were across the road from Plaza and so I headed over there. I was greeted by everyone, who had accepted that I wouldn’t be out today. I watched people as they trained, I had taken out my cycling water bottle which I had put some fizzy pop in, big mistake! It had expanded due to the gas and exploded and leaked all inside my bag, most annoying. I was more annoyed as I should have known those bottles are not meant to hold fizzy drinks and only water and yet I had still chose to put soda in it!

I practised holding some handstands and was feeling sad to see everyone so injury free and able to practice as I was still injured with my ankle. Week five and I still can’t use my ankle for training and it was feeling much of the same. I decided to use Zain’s skipping rope which was a dry leather one with wooden handles with bearings in them. It felt strange to use, so light and hard to gain momentum unlike the speed ropes and my own heavyweight leather one. I wanted to see if I was able to skip, the previous week I was skipping double footed but keeping most of my weight baring on my good leg. I began to skip and I felt good, then tried to skip one leg at a time and alternate them, I was still feeling good. I increased the pace and to my joy, it didn’t hurt my ankle and I was able to keep a fast pace going for a long period of time. This is one improvement which has made me think perhaps the ankle is healing, if just very slowly I hardly notice at all. I decided to skip quite a bit today to help strengthen the ankle Although, I did pay the price for it the next day when it hurt and swelled a little too.

 

James – Taking Photos.

 

The other had moved on to another area while Zain and Will were doing movements on the railings and linking a turn vault with a 180 dismount, which I got some photos of. I suggested doing a tic tac off the wall first before going into the turn vault and then the dismount. They had trouble doing it and said jokingly if I was to do it then they’ll do it, but it looked too fun not to try it. I gave it a go even though it was my unnatural side, I did the turn vault fine landing on my good leg and then did the 180 dismount and as soon as I landed my ankle gave way and I fell to the floor. I had hurt the ankle again, Zain was sympathetic and knows all too well how frustrating it is to be injured and wanting to train. When he had a injured ankle he would try things and think it’s better, only for it to then hurt and then he would wish he hadn’t done anything with it, but it’s so hard not to do anything as everything is tempting, injury or not!

We made our way to the others, climbing over a metal fencing which had enclosed the area and into the scaffolding area around the back where we met up with the others who had already headed off and been training on the scaffolding. People were doing laches and swinging through and weaving in and out of the scaffolding, over and under inspiring each other and playing off what each other did. While others ventured, climbing up the scaffolding to the the rooftops. There was a bench in the middle of the area which was used for diving kongs, palm spins and precisions jumps too and from.

#134 – The Scaffolding Field.

 

I met Flip at twelve o’clock and then we went to pick up some clothing I had previously had printed. While over that side of town Phil suggested checking out an area he knew of, where there was an endless amount of scaffolding in between a long abandoned (ruined) building, that might be worth scoping out for training on. That and it would be cool to have different, fresh set of images from a new location. The t-shirt design I had printed was a barcode one, I had decided to create it after seeing one of Urbanfreeflow’s first generation t-shirts. It followed the same vein as theirs, expect mine was green. I also had some jogging bottoms printed with Parkour down the leg too. As if it wasn’t already obvious what it was we practised, we now had clothing to confirm it. I hadn’t trained the Ice Arena side of town, not since we trained at the BBC building [1] earlier in the year. It was a side of town, that we traipsed too very rarely, that and there wasn’t many places to train at either.

We scouted the outskirts of the abandoned building, seeing if there was any easy way to enter. There wasn’t any way to get in from the Virgin Active side without attracting unwanted attention and it felt far too busy there to try and scale walls for fear of being seen. The logical way to get in would be a different side and so we made the long walk past the Walk Inn Centre. I doubted there would be any better way there, and why waste precious time? Flip suggested we just scaled the fence we were walking past as it would take  few seconds and then walk over to the building. I took a look, it seemed perfect to climb or pop up over as it even had a slight bevel in the fence to stand on to hoist over. There were a few homeless people in the area, sleeping in tents hidden in the foliage. We waited for people walking paste to slow before pop vaulted up and over the fencing. This was the easiest part, even if we were and felt exposed while walking across the open flatland.

 

Flip – Portrait.

 

Afterwards, we came to another fence, this time it was the sort which was a concrete post with barbedwire going through them. Luckily for us the posts were facing away from us and so we could climb up and along them avoiding the barbs before jumping off to the other side, landing on the loose gravel below. We threw out bags over first and then once below we had a giant pipeline of multiple pipes, with a giant wall and the top had slanted bricks. It looked like we had just wasted our time and wasn’t a way to get over or under the pipes or the wall crap! We did find a way further down where the pipes had a metal frame around them to climb up onto, then we ran across the the pipe trying to find a way up and over the wall. It was too high to scale and the slanted, mossy bricks made it impossible to pop. We had to in the end use a rough, rusty metal bracket hanging out of the wall near the top and with that then we had to try and hoist up to the wall, easier said than done! Flip got a leg up on top of the wall Jackie Chan style and was then on top and had to help myself get up due to my weak upper body and I couldn’t pull myself up.

All this trouble to get to a new location, I really should get stronger and then it would have been easier to scale such things. next time there had to be an easier way. It had been quite the adventure to get to the scaffolding field, was it going to be worth all the hassle we had endeavoured so far? The ruined building was massive and the scaffolding was endless, it was nuts! It was by far the most insane thing I had even seen scaffolding wise. How or why was there so much of it, when the building hadn’t been demolished in all the decades it had been there?! There seemed to be no set plan to do such a thing either and so the scaffolding had just acted as a support and rusted in the process. There were lots of sandbags too, on closer inspection it wasn’t as great as we had envisioned, the scaffolding was too condensed and close there wasn’t room for any movements and the only thing it was good for was scaling up and around and of course taking photos of.

 

Scaffolding Field.

 

Flip had heard stories of the area and how it was dangerous inside due to asbestos and that some prostitutes had been murdered there and it was a haunt for drug deals and the homeless too. I can understand why, with how quiet and eerie it was, though we hadn’t seen anyone currently, likely it would be a different story at night. Seeing as it was the day time, there were no people around the area and I’m sure people like ourselves, weren’t the only ones to explore the area.<!–more–> There was tonnes of graffiti on the walls and so much glass broken everywhere. In parts it was hard to see the floor due to growing shrubbery. We made a game of traversing along the scaffolding in the area, it didn’t half burn the arms and shoulders and wearing our bags didn’t help. I would have to drop something while going around, or slip even. Some of the longer pieces of scaff which weren’t as supported wobbled when moving along them to the next section, having to walk along a single pole, while holding onto one above you.

This same part gave Flip an idea that he wanted to film, a drop down from each section to the next grabbing each bar as he fell down! That looked super high and crazy, I wasn’t sure if he would do it and yet he filmed it and it is featured within a future video [1] which looks amazing, more so in person if you ever visit it. I was astounded by it, I wouldn’t dare try it myself. For fear of my shoulders ripping out of socket with each re-grab *shudder* I just can’t imagine it. We filmed a few things, mainly vaulting the outer scaffolding like the image below, as that was the only place you could use for Parkour. That and there were a few rocks to land on and use too. Other than that, the area was dead for training and it wasn’t long before we decided to climb back up on top of the wall and then jump down near the Virgin Active and made our way to UN for some proper training again after the scaffolding escapades.

 

Zade – Lazy Vault.

 

We arrived back at Urine Nation (UN) and did a few vaults and jumps in the main area to warm up before we scaled up and over the wall to the catleap to the building. I wanted to take a look at the 180 cat there. It looked possible but has always felt scary. After seeing Johnny (Sticky) do it in a recent video, it made me want to do it too. I had recently been getting better at 180s and learnt how to do the two step push off, Prince of Persia style, that was doing the rounds in Parkour due to Daniel Ilabaca. It had unlocked and made 180 cats so much easier, than doing the push off both feet, which limited the distance you could get. I needed some classic Jedi Mind Tricks music to get pumped for this movement. Some of the college students across the road were watching and interested in what we were doing. No doubt they were seeing us jumping to and from the wall, bobbing up and down, not quite sure what it was we were doing.

Man, the 180 cat was scary as well as it being slightly downwards didn’t help. Hanging there, looking behind me I could see the landing where I wanted to be, but it was so difficult to push off. For that split second you wouldn’t see anything, what if I push too hard, even too little. So much could go wrong, I gave it a test and landed close to the wall and it felt easily then, like I had to just push as hard as possible and I’d have it. The impact wasn’t nice, but there was no more testing, it was a do or don’t situation. Phil was the camera man for me getting some artistic shots. He said think of the Parkour clothing, do it to represent for the Notts scene and think of the footage for a new video too! I counted down and then went for it, it was a surprisingly easier than I thought to do and it felt amazing! The buzz from cat was electrifying. I drilled it some more, and I felt at a different level of training, it was scary and I had done it.

 

Zade – 180 Cat.

 

Phil was filming a few scenes for a video later on in the year [2] one of which was a tic tac cat in the same place. Seen in the above image off the wall on the right then catting on the building on the left. I too wanted to do it once I had seen how easily Phil had done it. But it was scary as you had to run towards the wall, but as you did the tic tac you also had a drop of the steps too that you had to jump from before hitting the wall. That was a big off put for myself and I didn’t fancy pushing off the wall and not making the distance or taking the impact over and over again. The strange angle of it also  cricked my knee. If you have been following the blogs, you may recognize some of the spots in Flip’s video from the jams we have had when he had filmed. Phil was now on about maybe he could tic tac 270 it or run more along the wall with more steps!

It had been a great day of training and exploring, even if I hadn’t overly documented the day with images. For anyone that fancies exploring the scaffolding field, I’d go in a group just in case anyone is around. As you can never be sure who might be around there. I’m unsure if it will be a regular spot to visit for training, but I guess we will have to see over time. I’m sure there will be a few more visits once people have seen the images. Speaking of which, once I had uploaded some of them, people instantly wanted to know where it was, how it is for training and that we should visit it the next time the whole community is out. Like anything, new spots get people excited to train, and seeing as it was new and very few knew about it, it made it even more exciting and secretive too.

 

Scaffolding Field.

 

Scaffolding Field.

 

Flip – Portrait.

 

Flip – Portrait.

 

Scaffolding Field.

 

Flip – Portrait.

 

Zade – Portrait.

 

Zade – Lazy Vault.

 

Flip – Splits Vault

 

Flip – Splits Vault.

 

Zade – Lazy Vault.

 

Flip – Portrait.

 

Zade – Portrait.

 

Zade – 180 Cat.