Wet, Plaza Reunion.

 

Ben – Portrait.

 

For the past week I had made a concious decision that I would go out training at the weekend, that and a few others had suggested I should go along now my ankle was feeing better from the operation. I had been waiting ages for the weather to be kind, though my ankle felt like it would be able to withstand being in the hardness of town now, maybe I could even do a few jumps like I do at the park too? The forecast was set to be dry, I hoped that would remain the same in the coming days. There were set to be quite a few people out when I asked who was going, including the VTM guys too. There was no community event created like all those years ago, nothing mentioned on the Parkour Nottingham page. I knew James and Pete would be out and maybe Phil too who had been out the last few weeks in a row. I know from the photos that the sessions were smaller than years ago, that wouldn’t stop it from being a good day right? I got an early night for once in the aid of being able to wake up early and get ready for the session, though I was feeling restless and found it hard to get to sleep knowing I had to be up. In the middle of the night I woke up and heard the heavens had opened up and thought to myself that is just typical and it will no doubt carry on tomorrow.

I woke up, looked out the window to see it was raining, everywhere drenched which made me sad and not want to venture out to training at all. It seemed people were feeling much the same about the day too, concerned it would be a wasted journey. Kezza seemed to not be bothered about coming out, he didn’t even respond to the messages I sent, even though it said he had seen them. No doubt too busy bumming gaming, it seemed becoming a prestige on Advanced Warfare was far more important than training with friends and having a good day out… I slowly got ready with the hope it wouldn’t keep raining and sure enough it had started to brighten up, though I highly doubted it would dry up as it wasn’t a warm enough day to do that. I left my drenched like street and caught the bus to town, arriving to see masses of graduation students teeming the city centre with their black gowns. I thought that only happened during the summer months not December time?! I arrived at Plaza a little after twelve to find Matt, Aiden and a few other VTM people already there, Plaza was empty. I wanted to get there for 12pm to make the most of the day and daylight as when people meet at one I feel by the time you’ve waited for everyone to arrive it’s nearly two or later and then it’s dark at four and so seems a waste.

 

Ben – Portrait.

 

Plaza had changed since the last time I had visited, the flowerbeds now full of wood chippings, there was no plant life or thorn bushes in them and all the walls looked clean and fixed. The glass still littered the main pavement area, it felt great to be back in the city though, seeing the area, smelling the familiar smells and touching the cold, rough rails and walls. Everything movement wise to me looked impossible to do though, even a simplest lazy vault wasn’t as enticing as it once was and scared me. I was surprised not to see Ben or Adam here yet, as they had left early in the morning and said they would be in town before eleven, even before I arrived. They were running late and arrived a little after I thought of them – talk of the devil and he is sure to appear. James, Ben, Mat and Holbrook all arrived not long after and it seemed like the session was expanding. The session was much smaller than I had expected. I wanted a good old session where many people came out to train, the area flooded with people jumping around. We spent quite a bit of time at Plaza, I didn’t mind though it had been years since I had been here. I wanted to train but still had ankle fears, a few vaults here, and some jumps there to get my bearings. Finding out that it was much harder to jump these days, I felt so heavy and slow when I moved, my precision jump distance was halved too.

I could oddly enough still do diving kongs and didn’t have a fear of them on the smaller wall, but my kong precisions were terrible, even my technique. Struggling to tuck my legs, taking off for them felt such an odd thing to do too. I had the fear of clipping my feet once again, like in the beginning of training. My climb ups were sluggish and slow, it was all rather depressing. How and why was I so rubbish, I had felt like I was making decent progression at the park and yet here it hadn’t transitioned at all. I decided to get my camera out to take some shots rather than jump around getting more saddened. I took some photos of Ben doing a wallflip, it felt ages since I had taken some training photos and so I was feeling creative and fresh. The images of the wallflip came out brilliantly, better than I had thought.