Parkour This, Parkour That

I finally got around to doing some training again last week. The jams before then I had turned up and done very little in terms of movement or strength training, doing the odd 5 climb ups and the likes of. However Bens parents had gone away and it had already been arranged for me and daN to stay a couple of nights and train through Thu-Sat.

By pure coincidence Luke and Morris were making the trip into town last Thursday as well, so instead of training in Wakefield as planned we met up with them in Leeds. I got there at 10:15 to find Sonic had got his ass into town on the hope that someone else would show, as it was nice weather and all. We did our own thing for a while, occasionally chatting about ‘parkour this and parkour that’ but when it got to 11 o’clock and still no one else had showed we were starting to question why, as we planned to meet at 10:30. I got through to daN and he was his useless self in that he couldn’t remember me telling him 10:30 the night before and was only just setting off when I rang him.

Ben, Luke and Morris did finally turn up along with Ben’s mate Jamie and young Nicko who had been training with the Kaedo lot + Jim a few minutes later. Wayne also showed his face in the hope that someone else would be there and we got to training.

I was surprised at what I could actually do and I could do at least a third of what I normally would, feck loads more than previous sessions! The day was ace from then on, I had to rest my back for bits and was still stood awkwardly (I looked like I was pregnant :/ ) but there was nothing to worry about. We did some cool work at the town hall, traversing the walls and doing awkward jumps between them and pillars, and I got a nice sweat on for the first time in weeks.

The next thing I remember was Luke eyeing up a nice cat pass arm jump no body had yet attempted in Leeds. You know the one across the two walls where the graffiti is on the way into the Uni. He was dying to do it and was getting the distance he needed easily next to the gap but he couldn’t bring himself to attempt it.I joined in a little bit to basically see if my back could take me getting such distance out of a cat pass and to my surprise I could cat pass almost as far as I wanted and before I knew it I was lining up a cat pass on one wall to crane the other, never mind arm jump it. I just about landed on the second wall but bounced straight back off it, managing to bruise my foot a tad in the process. I will do it when my back is better though.

Things went on and we got to the spot at the side of the Parkinson building where Luke was once again wanting to try a cat pass arm jump – the one I did over the gap in a vid a while back. After a while he still hadn’t done it, so I made him a little deal that if I did it, he would have to as well. I blanked out the fear of the drop quite easily and did it without hesitation, Luke then tried to follow but was still unable to. He finally got it when he went for it as soon as he turned around, using the adrenaline to push himself into it. It can be a dangerous tactic sometimes but the only reason he couldn’t to the combination was the fear of the drop (which isn’t high enough to cause injury if you dropped down it) so in this circumstance it was the right way to go about things.

On the way out of the uni we passed back but the two walls we were at previously and Luke, with his new found confidence for cat pass – arm jumps, stuck the combination quite easily three times. He stuck it sweetly but couldn’t climb up nicely (as you will see in the vid) which was rather disappointing and I expected more from him. No doubt he will go away and train them though.


Me and daN kipped at Ben’s that night having a god laugh and daN left us early the next day to leave me and Ben to do some training. Ben had somehow pulled his groin the day before and struggled with a lot of things but did quite well considering and we got some decent work done. LOTS of traversing around buildings, I think the first one took us about half an hour to do, Ben fell off multiple times but I managed to stay on all the way. We then did a bit of barefoot training in an attempt to improve Ben’s landings, which ended up as being stealth work – good fun.

My back was still holding up fine and at midnight that night we went out for some more training. We were hampered by our injuries but we did what we could, we did loads of dips on a couple or bars within 50 paces of Ben’s front door, I did 110 and Ben did 100 in total. We also ran about a mile and a half to the cathedral in town did some strength training there and ran back to complete our dips. We only spent about 90 minutes training but is was good and beneficial.

Saturday came and my upper back and quads were hurting more from the previous two days training than my injured area of my back was. Mainly because I hadn’t trained so hard in so long. My hands also took the toll and were developing several blisters.

Most of the guys we normally train with had buggard off to Morton to train with Danny, so I spent most of the day getting the noobs into some serious training for a change. 2 or 3 of them actually said it was the hardest training they had ever done – which was mad because we were doing nothing too excessive and less than I/we would normally. It was mainly just more traversing (some were barefoot). Declan impressed me that day and joined me in doing loads of good movement training and conditioning.

The others returned from Liverpool having never got to Morton. Mr Ilabaca never showed and instead of still taking advantage of the amazing spots in Morton they let it get to them and it spoilt their day (well most of them anyway). This I found quite pathetic really.

The day went on and I pushed my back one step too far doing a cat pass to dive roll movement. The quick change in body position on my second attempt meant my back pulled again. I then spent most of the next 2 hours barely being able to walk. – Three days of training and one little misjudgement at the end cost me dearly. I spent all Sunday and Monday doing buggar all and my back had got considerably better. Luckily I can’t have injured it quite as bad as before.

I was going to rest Tuesday as well but when it came I finished college at 11 and had the whole beautiful day to do feck all. It didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion my back could take a little light training…. I hatched a plan.


I must explain for the likes of B Willy M that I started the 100m stretch again when I feel and not the whole thing.

Today I did 64 lengths in the baths, which if the lengths were 25m, which they are, then I swam a mile. Took me a bit over 50mins to do and was a little awkward on my back to start with but it soon eased off. It was a great workout on my lats and not too bad on my legs either, enjoyed it. I also did a bit of CV work up and down a small steep hill whilst walking the dog earlier.

Back’s on the mend but it’s still going to be a week or two before I can train.

You may or may not know (winks at those who do) that I am going to be doing a few days rural training in July/August and I intend to start training towards that pretty soon as I know from experience rural training takes it out of you in different ways and at the moment my body is not used to that sort of movement.


Peace