As most of my friends will know (I think its only really my friends who ever read this, if anyone ever does anyway) I'm going to move to France on the 20th March, for more than 4 months, until July 31st. I'll be living and working on a campsite with a company called Canvas Holidays. I don't know where exactly yet, just that I'll be in a traning center at a place called Berny Riviere for 3 days before being sent to where ever I'm going.
The point of me doing this is mainly that I want to be fluent in French. At work I'll be dealing almost excusively with British people, but obviously outside of work I'll be able to speak and eal with the French, and hopefully it'll all come together. Another thing is that, I'll be working a 35-40 hour week with one day off a week, so obviously I won't have much time for the old Parkour. I'm going to try and get around this by dedicating the next 4 months while I'm there purely to exercise and conditioning. The good side of this is that my knees, which a few people know are starting to feel a bit weird, will have plenty of time to heal completely and definately (if there is anything wrong). Hopefully I'll come back from France fitter, stronger and completely fluent in French. This is my target :)
When I finish on the 31st July I'm planning on going to Lisses for a week or two. Sadly, I've come across a problem with this. This coincides with the date of the Trace gathering last year, which I missed because I was on holiday in Malta. I was adamant I was going to go this year, but it looks like there's a chance it won't happen now. The problem is, if its on the 31st again this year, that I won't be able to go because even if I rushed back to the UK I'll miss it, but also noone will be able to go meet me in Lisses because they'll all be at Trace. Guttered! If thats the case though, I'm just gonna have to stomach it and spend a week in Lisses by myself. There's guaranteed to be people there to train with.
Well, thats about it. Just posted this to tell me avid readers, all none of them, thats whats going on. Or if anyone comes across this when I'm gone they know where I am and why they haven't heard from me in the last 2 months or whatever it is at that time.
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
Saturday, 3 November 2007
Red Vs Blue Competition
The Red Vs Blue video today was awesome. Props to Phil for organising the whole event, and to everyone who took part on both teams. Basically the idea of the day was that two randomly selected teams, one dressed in red, the other in blue, visited 6 spots and filmed whatever they wanted. They were only allowed a maximum of half an hour at each spot, and so it was pretty intense, with everyone pushing themselves then rushing to the next place.
Watch the videos here, and please do post comments on both of them, either here, on the Notts Parkour Forums, or on youtube. Please comment on the strengths of each video, the editting or any particular move you liked.
Blue Team
editted by Blue team captain, Jak
Red Team
Editted by Red team captain, Phil
It was a sick day and a really good idea on Phil's part. I can't talk for the Blue team, but Red team really pushed themselves to their limits to try and get the best video they could. Our only fear was that we didn't get enough footage, but we still got a good length video. It was also one of the best days training I've had in ages, with good vibes that come from good company and training as a group with a motive.
Again, well done everyone who took part in the competition :D
Watch the videos here, and please do post comments on both of them, either here, on the Notts Parkour Forums, or on youtube. Please comment on the strengths of each video, the editting or any particular move you liked.
Blue Team
editted by Blue team captain, Jak
Red Team
Editted by Red team captain, Phil
It was a sick day and a really good idea on Phil's part. I can't talk for the Blue team, but Red team really pushed themselves to their limits to try and get the best video they could. Our only fear was that we didn't get enough footage, but we still got a good length video. It was also one of the best days training I've had in ages, with good vibes that come from good company and training as a group with a motive.
Again, well done everyone who took part in the competition :D
Monday, 29 October 2007
La Revolution Des Crabes
This isn't a real proper blog. I came across this cool french cartoon a while ago and something just reminded me of it. It really shows my mindset that when it reached the twist at the end I was like "zOMG this is exactly what parkour is like to our society!". Not entirely true, but you can definately see the parallels, or if not, just enjoy the cartoon and the general message of it.
Or if not, just laugh at the funny french crabs.
Enjoy.
Or if not, just laugh at the funny french crabs.
Enjoy.
Friday, 5 October 2007
First Trip To Lisses
Meeting the Leicester People and Hell Nights
Some time in November/December of 2006 I went to train in Leicester for the first time, and met the Leicester traceurs, of whom the most well known is probably Blane. A few weeks later I started to go to their Hell Nights, a couple of hours of intense parkour related conditioning as many of you will know.
It was well worth the journey from Nottingham to Leicester for Hell Night on Thursday, as at the time I was 15 (really 18) so the train price was only about £4 return. The overall journey took about an hour to get their too, but it was more than worth it for the benefits. I felt incredibly privileged to be training with such an awesome group of people and benefiting from their experience. I remember the first Hell Night I went to, a week or two before Christmas '06, jogging around a soaking wet field, shimmying along goalposts, crawling, climbing, hanging, in complete darkenss and freezing cold, with my arms throbbing and thinking "I only met these people a couple of weeks ago and now I'm in a wet field in Leicester". Then catching the train back at about 10.30 at night, my arms heavy and the endomorphins filling me with a great sense of satisfaction. This is how I met the Leicester people.
Some time in November/December of 2006 I went to train in Leicester for the first time, and met the Leicester traceurs, of whom the most well known is probably Blane. A few weeks later I started to go to their Hell Nights, a couple of hours of intense parkour related conditioning as many of you will know.
It was well worth the journey from Nottingham to Leicester for Hell Night on Thursday, as at the time I was 15 (really 18) so the train price was only about £4 return. The overall journey took about an hour to get their too, but it was more than worth it for the benefits. I felt incredibly privileged to be training with such an awesome group of people and benefiting from their experience. I remember the first Hell Night I went to, a week or two before Christmas '06, jogging around a soaking wet field, shimmying along goalposts, crawling, climbing, hanging, in complete darkenss and freezing cold, with my arms throbbing and thinking "I only met these people a couple of weeks ago and now I'm in a wet field in Leicester". Then catching the train back at about 10.30 at night, my arms heavy and the endomorphins filling me with a great sense of satisfaction. This is how I met the Leicester people.
Going To Lisses
Some time in early Janinjuary they all started talking about going to Lisses for a week, and I asked if I could come too, and they said yes, so I was happy :) It was pretty cheap too, even factoring in that the Eurostar cost £50 more than it could have if we'd booked earlier. I also had a bit of trouble with college too, because for some reason Nottinghams half term was a week later than everywhere else in the country that term, so I'd have to miss a week at college. This was ok though, I just had to meet up with a happy Secretary of Something and talk about how the trip had been booked about 6 months in advance and there was no way we could've known Nottingham would be out of sync with everywhere else in the country. She said the trip was fine and I wouldn't lose my EMA £100 bonus if I promised I'd visit the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triumph. I grinned and promised I would.
3 weeks later I was stood in Leicester train station with a bag of clothes and marvelling about how I was about to go to France for a week with people I'd met only a few months ago. I'll admit, my crazy unjustified paranoia played up a little bit that this was all a trick and they were going to take me to some random french equivelent of Hostel and eat me, but luckily this crazy visions proved unfounded. Everyone turned up on time and we caught the train to London St Pancras without incident.
Thats a lie, there was one small incident on the train. Midland Mainline provide free tea and coffee on their trains to London, and this particular journey it tasted exactly like feet. I was not best pleased, but we were all to excited to really care much about foot-tea.
From St Pancreas we subway'd it to the Eurostar place, and from the Eurostar place we Eurostar'd to Paris. The train to Paris is long and the food is expensive, but we made it there. From there under the lead of Blane we caught the right train to Evry, after almost getting on the wrong one. We were all knackered by this point but Lisses was getting near and we all knew it. We got off in Evry and were all really excited again. Blane showed us the Manpower roofgap and we all went "ooh" and "aah". But when we went to the bus stop we hit our first major snag. It was stangely deserted, and after interviewing two french chavettes (female chavs, but as we were in france this is pronounced "sharvettes") who found my accent in french "mignon et hilarant" I found out we'd missed the last bus to Lisses. And so we had to trek it down the motorway with all our luggage to the Formule1 hotel next to Lisses.
One good thing came out of this though. Walking down the motorway and seeing the Dame Du Lac emerge from behind a hill, silhouetted against the sky and slightly lit by the full moon, was an entirely unforgettable picture. It was awesome.
Once we got to the hotel we booked in, dumped our stuff in the room and practically ran to Lisses. We got to the Dame and started climbing all over it, despite it being about 4am and soaking wet. I almost jizzed with the excitement of actually being there, and I suspect Callum actually did.
One good thing came out of this though. Walking down the motorway and seeing the Dame Du Lac emerge from behind a hill, silhouetted against the sky and slightly lit by the full moon, was an entirely unforgettable picture. It was awesome.
Once we got to the hotel we booked in, dumped our stuff in the room and practically ran to Lisses. We got to the Dame and started climbing all over it, despite it being about 4am and soaking wet. I almost jizzed with the excitement of actually being there, and I suspect Callum actually did.
Living For Parkour
That week in Lisses, I have to say, has been one of my happiest so far. If you are a traceur you know the kind of happiness training brings. You don't have to worry about anything, all that exists is yourself, the people you are with and the environment you are training in. Making a movement successfully brings adrenaline and happiness, seeing other people do things brings the same thing. All that matters is the next movement you want to do. It is life in simplicity, living for your sport, and no matter what your level is and what sport you do I think this comes from our time as cavemen and this is what lots of us secretly want to return to.
This week was that. We'd wake up in the morning, go to the supermarché and buy food for the day, eat breakfast and warm up, then train till about 6-7oclock, snacking as we went. Then we'd rest for a couple of hours and have dinner, then go out again untill about 11-12 at night. I won't bore you with a minute by minute account of everything that we did. Some things that stand out in my memory though, I will talk about.
One night we went out to train in a little industrial estate across the road from the hotel, there was a little balance and skill challenge that to every intent and purpose amounted to a real life platform game. There was even a little section with ballards that sunk down when you stood on them, so you had to jump from one to another before it got to the floor. As we were doing it it started to rain badly, and soon it was soaking wet. But we kept training and invented new and harder challenges and the rain just added everyone. Two things I remember, a precision about 7' in distance upwards, onto the edge of a slippy, wet and curved wall less than 3 inches wide. It took some of us ages to do, so many challenges to overcome in one jump, but we all did it, and it felt great. The other thing was slightly later, precisioning downwards onto tiny, slippy stone ballards, no more than a couple of inches squared. I remember thinking how earlier that day I wouldn't have considered doing it in the dry in daylight for fear of slipping and spraining my ankle, but now all 7 of us were drilling this small precision in the middle of the night and the cold and the wet.
The thing is, if I was to take you there now and show you these things, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't seem that challenging to do, or maybe not even that interesting to spend as long as we did in that place. But the reason it was so awesome was because of the mindset of our training and the company we were in. I don't think I've ever come across a training atmosphere as good as with the Leicester guys in that week. Since it was February and wet a lot of the time we trained pretty much only little things like this, technical challenges that required thought, confidence and commitment. But I doubt the week could've been much better if it was dry, and I probably wouldn't have learnt as much.
Nothing but parkour in the company of 6 other awesome people with the same goals and mindset as me for a whole week, It was awesome :)
Since I came back from Lisses people have told me so many times that since when I came back from Lisses for the first time I'd "gotten good" (grammar rules don't apply to quotes). In a way I agree, that week definately affected my training in ways I probably can't even see myself. I didn't feel any massive improvement in myself but I was definately seeing everything in a new way. But I don't think I can credit that to Lisses itself, more to the people. I really reccomend that every traceur takes a visit to Lisses at some point in their training. Doesn't matter whether in summer or winter, as you can see you'll take away just as much either way if you approach it the right way. And whats better, you can start write a blog about it and treat your trip to Lisses as though its a religious pilgramage, which in a sort of way, it is.
You can now enjoy the video Blane put together, mainly of the last two days of the trip as we barely filmed at all.
Much love and respect to Blane, Callum, Wing, Timmy, Alex and Joe for making that trip the best.
Monday, 24 September 2007
The 5am Missions
The First One
I've done two of these so far, with different people, and both in Nottingham city centre. The first one was with Jan, and was mainly uneventful because we did it in winter, some time last January I think. It was really fun though, just being out so early in town when it was dark, damp and completely deserted was exciting, and because we'd gotten up so early there was a real sense of accomplishment.
We woke up at 4.45, had a bowl of cereal and jogged to the bus stop to catch the first bus at 5.15am. By coincidence we were both kitted out in all grey, both with grey gloves and hats because it was so cold. We looked like genuine burglers. Our first stop in town was Broadmarsh car park. For people who don't know, there are two enclosed bridges joining Broadmarsh shopping centre to the car park, and it had long been our ambition to run along these. Sneaking onto them wasn't a problem, and we jumped out of the carpark over a 4 story drop onto the bridge and ran across, buzzing off the adrenaline.
On the other side, we explored the roofs we had never seen before, there were some small weak rails and air vents, but nothing exciting, and we got to experience them for about 2 minutes before Jan noticed a security guard watching us in a small hut about 30 meters away. We cheesed it, jumped off the roof to the entrace of the bridge and ran through, praying it wasn't locked on the other side. It wasn't and we ran down all the levels of the carpark, vaulting any rail we came across to "show we were doing parkour if we got caught". On the bottom floor a security guard came out on the other side of the carpark to us, and Jan did a backflip. ("Hey, I'll do a backflip to show we're harmless!") And once again we cheesed it.
We explored two other roofs, but it was still too dark and wet for anything of value, or to do any actual training, so we went home at about 7am as it was getting light, and went back to sleep.
The Second One
I waited till this summer before arranging another 5am jam, after the cold, dark, wetness of the last one. This time it was much better. I posted an open invite to everyone in Nottingham, but only 2 other people could be bothered to drag their asses out of bed so early. Brownie, because he stopped over at my house so I made him, and Chez, who I was well impressed to see wide awake and grinning on the bus into town.
The first roofs we went on was those of the Masonic Hall in nottingham, which lead onto the roofs of Rescue Rooms, Stealth, and other nightclubs. We trained here for an hour and filmed some stuff, which you can see in the video below. Our technique in that video is terrible, but there's a limit to what your body can do with such little sleep. It was a fun morning, you really do feel happy with yourself when you're out jumping around on rooftops on a warm dry morning, with the rest of the city almost dead.
We moved on to the roofs across the road from rock city, which require climbing out of a carpark and over a quick 4 story drop, before running along a roof, in full view of a huge hotel complex. There was nothing on this roof except for a large cat leap, which I will do one day, but not so early in the morning.
We took a quick visit to the old Peoples College Roof a legendary spot in Nottingham as the first roof we visited as a group, but nowadays it tends to be left untouched. Jan gave the roof a bit of a stigma when he was spotted there and arrested by the police. He was chased by 4 cop cars, 2 swat vans and a helicopter up there. He managed to make it across the road before being tackled to the ground and thrown into a van, arrested for attempted burglury. We didn't have any such problems, and we got moved on after running and jumping a little.
Next stop, a petrol station which I had wanted to scale to the top of for ages, because it was curved like the Dame du Lac, except only about half the height. Getting up w
asn't a problem, but once I got to the top I had a quick look around and realised I was surrounded by a drop of 4 stories in every direction, except for where there was only a three story drop, and only my thin, slippy curved wall stopping me from falling. After experimenting a bit, I realised the only way not to die was to unelegantly wrap one leg over wall wall, hang over the other side and grab on as hard as I could, and carefully bearhug my way down. My hands are sweating now thinking about it.
Brownie complained he didn't get a chance to climb to the top of it because I took so long getting down, but I blame it on how he took about 10 mins to climb up the small lamp post and onto the roof, as I was more than halfway down by the time he actually got up. The rest of it was pretty uneventful. We went to look at a big running cat from roof to roof, but we couldn't climb up because and old man at a market stall was staring intently at us in a really scary way. That will also be left till next time :)
Lessons Learnt
- Getting up really early is incredibly hard, but once you are wide awake and out in town training, the sense of pride you have is well worth it.
- Don't do 5am Missions in the winter, it's cold and wet and not really good for anything other than exploring.
I've done two of these so far, with different people, and both in Nottingham city centre. The first one was with Jan, and was mainly uneventful because we did it in winter, some time last January I think. It was really fun though, just being out so early in town when it was dark, damp and completely deserted was exciting, and because we'd gotten up so early there was a real sense of accomplishment.
We woke up at 4.45, had a bowl of cereal and jogged to the bus stop to catch the first bus at 5.15am. By coincidence we were both kitted out in all grey, both with grey gloves and hats because it was so cold. We looked like genuine burglers. Our first stop in town was Broadmarsh car park. For people who don't know, there are two enclosed bridges joining Broadmarsh shopping centre to the car park, and it had long been our ambition to run along these. Sneaking onto them wasn't a problem, and we jumped out of the carpark over a 4 story drop onto the bridge and ran across, buzzing off the adrenaline.
On the other side, we explored the roofs we had never seen before, there were some small weak rails and air vents, but nothing exciting, and we got to experience them for about 2 minutes before Jan noticed a security guard watching us in a small hut about 30 meters away. We cheesed it, jumped off the roof to the entrace of the bridge and ran through, praying it wasn't locked on the other side. It wasn't and we ran down all the levels of the carpark, vaulting any rail we came across to "show we were doing parkour if we got caught". On the bottom floor a security guard came out on the other side of the carpark to us, and Jan did a backflip. ("Hey, I'll do a backflip to show we're harmless!") And once again we cheesed it.We explored two other roofs, but it was still too dark and wet for anything of value, or to do any actual training, so we went home at about 7am as it was getting light, and went back to sleep.
The Second One
I waited till this summer before arranging another 5am jam, after the cold, dark, wetness of the last one. This time it was much better. I posted an open invite to everyone in Nottingham, but only 2 other people could be bothered to drag their asses out of bed so early. Brownie, because he stopped over at my house so I made him, and Chez, who I was well impressed to see wide awake and grinning on the bus into town.
The first roofs we went on was those of the Masonic Hall in nottingham, which lead onto the roofs of Rescue Rooms, Stealth, and other nightclubs. We trained here for an hour and filmed some stuff, which you can see in the video below. Our technique in that video is terrible, but there's a limit to what your body can do with such little sleep. It was a fun morning, you really do feel happy with yourself when you're out jumping around on rooftops on a warm dry morning, with the rest of the city almost dead.
We moved on to the roofs across the road from rock city, which require climbing out of a carpark and over a quick 4 story drop, before running along a roof, in full view of a huge hotel complex. There was nothing on this roof except for a large cat leap, which I will do one day, but not so early in the morning.
We took a quick visit to the old Peoples College Roof a legendary spot in Nottingham as the first roof we visited as a group, but nowadays it tends to be left untouched. Jan gave the roof a bit of a stigma when he was spotted there and arrested by the police. He was chased by 4 cop cars, 2 swat vans and a helicopter up there. He managed to make it across the road before being tackled to the ground and thrown into a van, arrested for attempted burglury. We didn't have any such problems, and we got moved on after running and jumping a little.
Next stop, a petrol station which I had wanted to scale to the top of for ages, because it was curved like the Dame du Lac, except only about half the height. Getting up w
asn't a problem, but once I got to the top I had a quick look around and realised I was surrounded by a drop of 4 stories in every direction, except for where there was only a three story drop, and only my thin, slippy curved wall stopping me from falling. After experimenting a bit, I realised the only way not to die was to unelegantly wrap one leg over wall wall, hang over the other side and grab on as hard as I could, and carefully bearhug my way down. My hands are sweating now thinking about it.Brownie complained he didn't get a chance to climb to the top of it because I took so long getting down, but I blame it on how he took about 10 mins to climb up the small lamp post and onto the roof, as I was more than halfway down by the time he actually got up. The rest of it was pretty uneventful. We went to look at a big running cat from roof to roof, but we couldn't climb up because and old man at a market stall was staring intently at us in a really scary way. That will also be left till next time :)
Lessons Learnt
- Getting up really early is incredibly hard, but once you are wide awake and out in town training, the sense of pride you have is well worth it.
- Don't do 5am Missions in the winter, it's cold and wet and not really good for anything other than exploring.
- Getting back into bed after a hard morning mission is awesome.
Enjoy the video
Sunday, 23 September 2007
The First Ninja Mission
Ninja missions are exactly what every traceur should do to improve stealth, skill, courage, with that buzz of adrenaline to make you do a cat leap you were too scared of before, but now you have to do it because you can't get caught. Ninja missions are basically dressing up as ninja's and doing parkour, with special objectives or games such as Stealth (getting from one place to another without being spotted by the public), Infiltration (one team tries to infiltrate a base, the other defends) Manhunt (all ninja's chasing one person) and many others.
I've done 3 proper ninja missions now, and so I'll have to catch up a bit in writing them up. Each one has been unbelievably awesome, and each in a different way too. The different targets we had set for each one, and accidental events which followed, really make the night, and it seems to be a trait of all ninja missions that they are unforgettable.
The First Ninja Mission
In the centre of Lincoln on the roof of a small church, 3 ninja's are silhouetted in the moonlight. The must traverse lincoln city centre, cross the river and pass through the outskirts to the Shaolin place without being detected, or all is lost...
So as you can guess, the first ninja mission had the very simple goal of getting from one place to another, undetected by the public. Taking part was Stuart and Jonny of Lincoln, the whole plan being their idea, and myself from Nottingham. Noone else was daring enough to undertake the deadly mission. The place we were heading to was a small nursery school in the suburbs, called The Shaolin by Lincspk because of the Shaolin Temple-like play ground it had.
At around 11pm we climbed onto the church roof via the ninjaresque route of dark alleys, enclosed courtyards and 3-story high guttering. On the roof we dumped our bags and changed into our ninja costumes. Black joggers, with black longsleeved tops or t-shirts, and a black t-shirt cunningly tied to make a ninja mask over the face. We were all set.
The first step of our mission was fairly simple as far as stealth was concerned. The most efficient route off the roof was down a 3 story gutter pipe. However, out of us three, only Stuart had taken this route before, and from the top of the roof the pipe seemed to extend down forever into the darkness of a silent dark alley. Stuart went first, confidently climbing down the pipe into the darkness. Jonny followed second, and me last. Getting off the pipe at the bottom required grabbing onto some stairs and dropping, so Stu guided us through this as we went. We then climbed up and over a fireescape, dropped off a wall about 9ft high, rolled and ninjaran into some nearby bushes where we waited for the coast to be clear. The adjacent street seemed empty, so we each ran to cover behind a separate tree, then cross the road stealthily and headed down a dead end side road.
This is where we hit our first snag. A small, white-haired old lady was walking down this road with a shopping bag was making her way down the road when suddenly 3 ninja's came running at her from round the corner. I'd like to say she shat herself and dropped her bag, but other than a surprised "Oh!" she seemed pretty unphased by us. Ninja's in lincoln are obviously pretty common. We, on the otherhand, were more shook up and quickly dived into a nearby bush to regroup.
The next step was crossing the canal bridge. We had two choices, either shimmy along the underneith like the Ninja's of Yore, with no chance of being detected, or just cheese it across the bridge once the coast was clear. Bare in mind that we'd had a full days training and we were pretty tired, so if we'd shimmied under the bridge, we'd probably have fallen off and drowned. Also, when we got to the bridge we found the whole area deserted, so we cheesed it. After crossing the bridge we ran straight to Sainsburys, and up a gutter pipe onto the roof. Here was one of the coolest, ninjaryest moments of the night. Like a well oiled killing machine, we ninja-teamworked our way up a wall to difficult to wall run. I gave Stu and Jonny a leg up the wall, and they then pulled me up, before we all dissappeared into the shadows of the carpark we had infiltrated. I like to think someone had seen our awesome ninjafficiency, and hopefully called the cops.
We climbed down the carpark to our next challenge. Another small carpark was infested with Irish Pikeys in their cars, smoking herbal medicine and generally being roudy and Irish. We'd already encountered them earlier in the day, before we were deadly ninja's, and Stu had told us about their tendency to "stomp on peoples faces and smash their teeth on the curb". Since we'd all forgotten our ninja assassination gear, a confrontation was the last thing we wanted, as we all very much like our teeth. The only way by was to cat crawl behind a very low (1 1/2 foot high) wall for about 30 meters. We managed this without being spotted and, quads burning, we dived behind a car just as the cops drove by, obviously called out by the old woman we attacked earlier. We ran across the road and popped up a wall, ran across a railway bridge and disappeared into the night before any Pikeys or police knew we existed. So far, so good.
The next part went very smoothly. We hopped over a wall and climbed onto a low roof, caught our breath before running out along a different wall, dropping down and running across a carpark, over another wall into a garden, past a window where a doctor was apparently working late, and onto another wall. We cat crawled along this to be ninjar-y, but then a car drove by, and we all dropped into an alley at the side to avoid being spotted, incase it was the cops or that old woman.
However, in my haste, I had dropped down right in front of a window. I immediately ducked, but I didn't know if it was too late and I had been spotted. We all waited in silence, hoping we'd gotten away with it, but then my heart dropped as I heard a door open angrily (as far as doors can get angry), and footsteps march towards us. The gate at the end of the alleyway swing open, and the barkeeper was confronted by three wide eyed ninjas. For a second he looked like he was going to scream, but then he summoned up his courage and yelled "RIGHT! OUT! NOW!" We hung our heads in ninjashame and walked past him out the alley, then ran off and dissapeared into the shadows once more.
The rest of the journey was fairly uneventful. We ran down roads, ducking behind cars or walls or bushes every time a car drove by, for fear of the old woman, cops, or vengeful barkeepers. We took a shortcut through a building site, and found getting out unseen again was hard as a car seemed to drive down the road every ten seconds. Eventually we got through, me and jonny hidden in a dark alley, and stu disquising himself as the pavement by lying on the floor, which apparently worked as we didn't get killed. We eventually got to the Shaolin, too tired to do any more training or ninjaring.
We returned in a very un-ninja fashion to the church roof, hungry and tired, and slept there for the night. I say that, but then I'm the only one who really got some sleep, since the roof was relatively comfortable compared with my normal bed at home, which seems to have been made out of itchy, lumpy wood. After about an hours sleep it was very bright, and we climbed down and went to macdonalds.
Lessons Learnt From This Ninja Mission
-Ninja Missions work best when you have a set objective, and a definate way of completing it, to give yourselves rules to go by.
-Small groups of Ninja's, of 2 or 3 people work well as Ninja teamwork is easy to co-ordinate and is easily done.
-Bartenders aren't scared of ninja's lurking in their pubs.
-Climbing down guttering after sleeping for an hour on a cold roof makes gives your hands the most extreme, spikey kind of pins and needles you'll ever have.
-Dirt is not comfortable to sleep in (Quote Jonny "Hey, this dirt looks comfortable to sleep in")
I've done 3 proper ninja missions now, and so I'll have to catch up a bit in writing them up. Each one has been unbelievably awesome, and each in a different way too. The different targets we had set for each one, and accidental events which followed, really make the night, and it seems to be a trait of all ninja missions that they are unforgettable.
The First Ninja Mission
In the centre of Lincoln on the roof of a small church, 3 ninja's are silhouetted in the moonlight. The must traverse lincoln city centre, cross the river and pass through the outskirts to the Shaolin place without being detected, or all is lost...So as you can guess, the first ninja mission had the very simple goal of getting from one place to another, undetected by the public. Taking part was Stuart and Jonny of Lincoln, the whole plan being their idea, and myself from Nottingham. Noone else was daring enough to undertake the deadly mission. The place we were heading to was a small nursery school in the suburbs, called The Shaolin by Lincspk because of the Shaolin Temple-like play ground it had.
At around 11pm we climbed onto the church roof via the ninjaresque route of dark alleys, enclosed courtyards and 3-story high guttering. On the roof we dumped our bags and changed into our ninja costumes. Black joggers, with black longsleeved tops or t-shirts, and a black t-shirt cunningly tied to make a ninja mask over the face. We were all set.
The first step of our mission was fairly simple as far as stealth was concerned. The most efficient route off the roof was down a 3 story gutter pipe. However, out of us three, only Stuart had taken this route before, and from the top of the roof the pipe seemed to extend down forever into the darkness of a silent dark alley. Stuart went first, confidently climbing down the pipe into the darkness. Jonny followed second, and me last. Getting off the pipe at the bottom required grabbing onto some stairs and dropping, so Stu guided us through this as we went. We then climbed up and over a fireescape, dropped off a wall about 9ft high, rolled and ninjaran into some nearby bushes where we waited for the coast to be clear. The adjacent street seemed empty, so we each ran to cover behind a separate tree, then cross the road stealthily and headed down a dead end side road.
This is where we hit our first snag. A small, white-haired old lady was walking down this road with a shopping bag was making her way down the road when suddenly 3 ninja's came running at her from round the corner. I'd like to say she shat herself and dropped her bag, but other than a surprised "Oh!" she seemed pretty unphased by us. Ninja's in lincoln are obviously pretty common. We, on the otherhand, were more shook up and quickly dived into a nearby bush to regroup.
The next step was crossing the canal bridge. We had two choices, either shimmy along the underneith like the Ninja's of Yore, with no chance of being detected, or just cheese it across the bridge once the coast was clear. Bare in mind that we'd had a full days training and we were pretty tired, so if we'd shimmied under the bridge, we'd probably have fallen off and drowned. Also, when we got to the bridge we found the whole area deserted, so we cheesed it. After crossing the bridge we ran straight to Sainsburys, and up a gutter pipe onto the roof. Here was one of the coolest, ninjaryest moments of the night. Like a well oiled killing machine, we ninja-teamworked our way up a wall to difficult to wall run. I gave Stu and Jonny a leg up the wall, and they then pulled me up, before we all dissappeared into the shadows of the carpark we had infiltrated. I like to think someone had seen our awesome ninjafficiency, and hopefully called the cops.
We climbed down the carpark to our next challenge. Another small carpark was infested with Irish Pikeys in their cars, smoking herbal medicine and generally being roudy and Irish. We'd already encountered them earlier in the day, before we were deadly ninja's, and Stu had told us about their tendency to "stomp on peoples faces and smash their teeth on the curb". Since we'd all forgotten our ninja assassination gear, a confrontation was the last thing we wanted, as we all very much like our teeth. The only way by was to cat crawl behind a very low (1 1/2 foot high) wall for about 30 meters. We managed this without being spotted and, quads burning, we dived behind a car just as the cops drove by, obviously called out by the old woman we attacked earlier. We ran across the road and popped up a wall, ran across a railway bridge and disappeared into the night before any Pikeys or police knew we existed. So far, so good.
The next part went very smoothly. We hopped over a wall and climbed onto a low roof, caught our breath before running out along a different wall, dropping down and running across a carpark, over another wall into a garden, past a window where a doctor was apparently working late, and onto another wall. We cat crawled along this to be ninjar-y, but then a car drove by, and we all dropped into an alley at the side to avoid being spotted, incase it was the cops or that old woman.
However, in my haste, I had dropped down right in front of a window. I immediately ducked, but I didn't know if it was too late and I had been spotted. We all waited in silence, hoping we'd gotten away with it, but then my heart dropped as I heard a door open angrily (as far as doors can get angry), and footsteps march towards us. The gate at the end of the alleyway swing open, and the barkeeper was confronted by three wide eyed ninjas. For a second he looked like he was going to scream, but then he summoned up his courage and yelled "RIGHT! OUT! NOW!" We hung our heads in ninjashame and walked past him out the alley, then ran off and dissapeared into the shadows once more.
The rest of the journey was fairly uneventful. We ran down roads, ducking behind cars or walls or bushes every time a car drove by, for fear of the old woman, cops, or vengeful barkeepers. We took a shortcut through a building site, and found getting out unseen again was hard as a car seemed to drive down the road every ten seconds. Eventually we got through, me and jonny hidden in a dark alley, and stu disquising himself as the pavement by lying on the floor, which apparently worked as we didn't get killed. We eventually got to the Shaolin, too tired to do any more training or ninjaring.
We returned in a very un-ninja fashion to the church roof, hungry and tired, and slept there for the night. I say that, but then I'm the only one who really got some sleep, since the roof was relatively comfortable compared with my normal bed at home, which seems to have been made out of itchy, lumpy wood. After about an hours sleep it was very bright, and we climbed down and went to macdonalds.
Lessons Learnt From This Ninja Mission
-Ninja Missions work best when you have a set objective, and a definate way of completing it, to give yourselves rules to go by.
-Small groups of Ninja's, of 2 or 3 people work well as Ninja teamwork is easy to co-ordinate and is easily done.
-Bartenders aren't scared of ninja's lurking in their pubs.
-Climbing down guttering after sleeping for an hour on a cold roof makes gives your hands the most extreme, spikey kind of pins and needles you'll ever have.
-Dirt is not comfortable to sleep in (Quote Jonny "Hey, this dirt looks comfortable to sleep in")
Travelling To Train
First off, I'll explain that I love travelling to different places to train Parkour. I love seeing new places, meeting new traceurs and seeing how they train. After you go to a couple of jams in different cities you'll notice loads of differences and similarities between the groups, the people, their techniques, everything. Every city has a different lay out and different challenges and as such, you'll see that the majority traceurs in a city will progress accordingly.
As well as this, every city has its own little preferences and tendencies because of the different people and architecture. Some cities might progress in some things like fluidity on rails or cat to cats whereas others don't even think about that kind of thing. These little things make different groups develop different techniques for certain movements, and one of these will be the best in general, or for you. The problem is in your home city you won't see all the different techniques because you will be limitted to one view on parkour, no matter how varied that view seems at first. I should also point out here that when I talk about groups of traceurs, I'm talking about the mature ones that have been training for at least a year and have settled into a little community.
Traceurs of Lincoln, Grimsby, Cleethorpes and me from Nottingham, in LincolnMy home town is Nottingham, and as cities go it is one of my favourites, probably because this is my hometown and I know the area and I have developed the most in parkour here, and that has shaped my training like I said. In Notts there are loads of big, wide walls. That may seem a stupid thing to say, but it meant we had loads of great precisions and cat leaps when we started, and that shaped our training from the word go, and now the general Nottingham frame of mind is to look for bigger things and bigger challenges in all movements. On the other hand, we have almost no rails here so in general we lack confidence and fluidity with rails, and have relatively poor balance.
This is just an example, you will be able to see for yourself the strengths and weaknesses of your own group. Anyone can find their weaknesses and work on them, but as you probably know pushing through your weaknesses yourself is hard. As a group of traceurs who train as friends and have fun, you'll find it even harder because it's tempting just to settle into the same routine of everyone else and just not work on your own targets. This is why I think its important to travel to other cities and meet other groups of traceurs. They will open your eyes to possibilities you hadn't seen before, and show you things that, at first, you will probably suck at. But likewise, you can do the same for them and show them your strengths.
Traceurs of Coventry, Nottingham and Birmingham in Coventry
At the end of the day, parkour is an art which requires lots of different skills, and an ability to adapt the skills you do have, because you will very rarely find two identical movements in two different places. The best way to progress is to keep pushing yourself in learning as wide a variety of skills as possible, and taking advice from as many people on everything. In doing this, you can use all the best advice to progress in the best possible way, and become the best traceur you can.
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