Bread = Jam + 1

Firstly sorry for the long post but so much has happened over the past 9 days and until now I haven't had the chance to write up about them - so this is like 3 posts in one.

Saturday
Reet well as I said in my previous post I was looking forward to Saturday (the 27th), and it was no disappointment. My body was almost at a peek in terms of recent fitness (with only a slight tenderness in my hamstring tendons) and the weather held up nicely - both of which meant the jam was ACE. I got to the art gallery after work about 1:30 and did the best 2 hour session there I have ever done working mainly on the two red rails and the area around them. Not doing many vaults but concentrating on other movements, lots of jumping landing with some work on tic tacs, foot placement and power in there. Luke and Morris from Donny joined me there half way through and both looked quite amazed at the stuff I was doing - was a good feeling :)

We then went to a relatively untrained spot, 'the two red walls' where some awesome vaults took place, both on the walls and on a rail 30 yards away. I managed to do a cat pass to clear the other wall on my first attempt, with a split footed take off << only good because the walls are high and I would normally jump stop but I am getting better with the split foot. We also did loads of work on jumps, precisions and balancing in the area adjacent to the two walls, which was very cool and I managed to precision a rail with increasing distance from a wall that was about half a foot higher many times without fail. I got to around 9 foot before I didn't stick it... Did on my second attempt - repetition repetition repetition!

Sunday
We are trying to make Sunday jams a regular thing now and decided to check out my local town of Castleford. The day started well with some warming up and underbar combinations at Leeds bus station when I met Liam, Ed and Jamie. We got to an area just outside the town centre of Cas' - where I do the 11 foot arm jump in the picture to the right, and looked at it but with the achyness from Sat' turned it down without too much consideration. I did however do the gap back and landed as sweet as I possibly could from a backflip of the lower roof - just as a police car was pulling up to warn us off. They must have taken note off me because they never got out and drove off soon after :S

We moved onto a couple o small council estates where we did some very cool technique training - the likes of we never get to do in Leeds. Cas’ is a very different area which requires different movements – lots of ‘core’ parkour – jumps, arm jumps, tic tacs. This all gets done in Leeds but in Cas’ we did little else. In the second council estate we found a nasty looking cat pass to precision, it was across two walls 3-4 foot apart but the second one was higher than the first and they were too low for a comfortable cat pass. None the less I was confident with my ability and nailed it first time – Ed however went to crane it but subconsciously backed out by trying to put his hands on the wall he was trying to crane. This meant his feet hit the side of the wall and his thigh going into the top of it as, with a little aid from Jamie holding him, he went into a wonky gate vault to land on his feet on the ground 5 feet below the second wall, a pretty neat bail! I then did it again but only ‘just’ made it and wasn’t happy so I tried it again and clipped a foot on the first wall which meant I fell into the second wall hands first. I took most of the force on my hands (like I would going into a handstand) and as my legs bounced off the second wall I was pushing that hard with my shoulders and arms I went straight into a handstand on the second wall and dropped off the other side neatly. A better bail! The best part was my feet didn’t touch the floor the whole time so the strength work on my arms really paid off!

We then checked out a couple of roof tops and found a really cool gap between two parts of a roof that was about 11 – 12 foot with a drop of about 6 foot. My thought process was, WOW I haven’t done anything like this for close to a year and WOW I now have the experience and skill to do the jump with the confidence I would never injure myself doing it. Needless to say I did it without hesitation and landed very sweetly into a nice roll. I was left with a great feeling because of the realization of how good I am now compared to the last time I did any gap as big as that. Before I might have landed and slightly bruised my feet or something but I felt no shock or heavy pressure in any part of my lower body as I transferred my weight into the roll. Ed was also buzzing after making the jump look easybut Laim and Jamie didn't have the bals to attempt such a jump.

We headed into the centre and got some food but that was about it for the day. Once we had stopped we couldn’t get going again because we were all so fooked from training the last couple of days.

Monday
I got a text late on Sunday from Owen (‘thee’ owen) saying he was going to be in town and up for training today. I was like, “Sheet I’m gonna be fucked” but I couldn’t pass the opportunity to train with someone so good. I headed into town after college and met Owen along with Alex and three of his mates in Leeds at 12ish. We started off at the Gallery doing some steady work and just as I was easing off the serious aches in my glute’s and quad’s I managed to ‘half miss’ a take off on a running jump resulting on me over stretching to get my feet on the landing which meant I slipped and smashed the back of my legs into the edge of the concrete I was landing on. Some nice grazes and more achyness, just what I needed : – no bruising though – I don’t bruise that much now I am more muscle bound :)

Training was steady for me from then on but Owen did some really cool stuff and Alex did some good training as well. It was good to see Owen train and I was just standing back watching, thinking that I will be able to do the same thing in another couple of months. A couple of the things he did I have the ability to do now – a 12 foot arm jump and a cat – precision with a large drop… Just need to have the right mentality and a decent level of fitness when I’m next at the spots. However he attempted a huge running arm jump with an awkward run up that I look at and say “no, I can’t make that” (everything else was, “maybe” or “maybe in a few weeks”) so I now know I need to work on my running arm jumps and find my range.

Tuesday
I was so fucked over from the last 4 days training (inc. the session in the gym Friday) that I slept through 2 alarms that woke the rest of the house up, despite them being within a meter of my head : - naturally I didn’t do any training and rested.

Wednesday
I met up with Hollie in Leeds at 3 after college – as she had the day off and had been ice skating. Even with just the one days rest from the extreme amount of training I was feeling alright and well up for training. I drilled a bit at the art gallery and helped Hollie to learn to do a two step pop-vault/scale/passé muraille along with helping her improve other movements.
We headed straight for the uni after as we had heard of some new scaffolding there. After a little search we found it and did loads of laché work on it. Hollie managed to get them at least twice as big as she had done before with just a little bit of encouragement and advice. I however was capable of doing the biggest one there with ease so I was working on my technique of going higher into the landing like I had seen in a few videos. It worked well and I got a nice bit of stealth to them after a bit of practice.

We then drilled some arm jumps from standing and running at the spot where there are 3 foot high concrete walls with black rails around big holes that are protected by metal netting. Hollie again managed to nail some neat running ones over a few steps before she pointed out an awkward level 11 foot one for me to attempt. I had never even considered it as a possible arm jump before because of it’s size but with my new found ability with them I stuck it very nicely on my second attempt – it was hard because it was level and the walls were less than 3 foot high so if I slipped on landing I would hit the floor – like I did on my first attempt. After that, we did some jumping/landing practice down a set of wide stairs before heading off.


Thursday
My physics lesson finished early so I decided to jog to the gym (a little less than a mile) and have a good work out and jog back before the bus came at the end of college. I did it easily but didn’t manage that much in the gym – only 60 minutes or so. I got back to the common room only to have everyone there gawping and groping at my pumped up body :P

Friday
Another session in the gym – this time a lot better and I had a good work out with Olli – a mate of mine that gets forced to go to the gym by his lass!

Saturday
The weather was amazing and within seconds of arriving I was topless. It felt really good to be training topless again so early in the year. Again more training at the gallery before moving to Morrisons. I did all the usual stuff there with more ease than ever before and managed to make a precision I have been unable to do for over a year so it was progressing to be a great day. We headed to the uni and stopped at the red walls (near the white rails) which had some new shelters built next to them with ticker tape rapped around different rails providing interesting obstacles. We came up with loads of ways of moving through the tape and drilled loads of arm jump combinations on the walls before moving to the scaffolding. We spent ages on the scaffolding and only left when our hands could take no more. Hollie did an even larger laché than before and I taught Luke, Liam and Morris to laché properly. I also tried doing some body drops for the first time ever and got them so the second bar was at my shins when I was hanging, but watching it back in the video I don’t control my lower body well at all so I will have to work on them. We moved on to the playhouse laughing on the way as I was still topless whilst walking through town and it caused quite the stir.

We got to the playhouse for the sole reason of doing the arm jump there, something I managed 3/3. Ed Jamie Ali Luke and Liam also did it, which was quite amazing to say 3 months ago there were only a couple of us that had done it running – now there were 6 of us doing the 10.5 foot arm jump from standing!

Sunday
I went over to Ed and Jamie’s area (Roundhay way) today but didn’t do too much. We wanted to do lots of training on some trees but our hands were far too sore from yesterday’s session on the scaffolding! I was seriously in danger of ripping a callus off :S
We did talk about parkour a lot though… And jam sandwiches! And we had a bit of a session on Ed’s trampoline before watching some of the Parkour Journeys DVD and heading home.

So yeah to sum it all off I have trained on 9 out of the last 10 days, 6 of which have been spent at jams! Can’t be bad :D

Forever Peace