NBTraining

Ross and Chris Training Vid

2007-03-24T14:26:00.000Z

Hi everyone!

This is a video we made on Wednesday last week, I have only just got round to finishing it because I was having trouble exporting.

We have been training at the area for a couple of months now so decided just to record a few things and post them. We just want advice really on what we are doing wrong, but if there are any good things let us know. I tried my best with the edit, it’s not great, but I am learning. It would be great to talk with some guys who are experienced with premier.

I’m in the black trousers and Chris is wearing camos.

Happy viewing and please post your opinions and any constructive criticism!

Ross Gym Training

2007-03-24T14:25:00.000Z

No updates for a while so we have a feast of vids to show you. First here is Ross training gymnastics in the gym.

2nd Feb Friday Chemistry Sandwhich!

2007-02-04T12:34:00.000Z

As i mentioned last week, we are able to use our free periods on a friday afternoon to train. We brought along a close mate who wanted to try parkour first hand. We started with some climbing practise at the swings. Then headed to the back of the estate to drill some precisions. Chris and Myself both did one we had never done previously:

Afterwards we headed to the playground for genral training and i managed a new precision:

Last Day in Jan - Training

2007-02-04T12:22:00.000Z

After College Myself, Chris and Lao headed to Ivy for a bit of training. We started out with a little pktag to warm up. We later drilled some precisions and arm jumps. Chris and I experimented with rail arm jump grips and found a new arm jump. Lao did the running/steppingstone arm jump and drilled it to about 2pm, when he headed back. As a warm down the two of us headed to the disused swing to practise climbups and balance. Here are some videos from the day:

These are the arm jump rail grips, also used in the mission

Ross & Chris Friday Ivy Training

2007-01-27T21:45:00.000Z

Hello everyone, big update today!

Both Chris’ and my own college timetable have a three and a half hour gap on Friday afternoon. We decided that we should use this time to train at the Ivybridge estate. After stashing our bags in a mate’s locker we jogged to our destination. We headed straight to the playground area to warm up.

The playground area is one of the best places I have ever trained. It is really interesting because it has such a combination of different surfaces and shapes. It is enclosed by both a tall rail, and a low wall, making for some excellent combinations. In the middle of the playground, there is a frame, which has a climbing wall either side. We used this to practise the grip on our cat leaps. We experimented with many different combinations of grips and it encouraged us to be really creative. Only one realistic combination eluded us, as shown in the video below.

This shows our completed grip combinations.

Here is the mini video we made.

After a few playground missions we headed to the back of the estate where there are a couple of nice walls and rails. The walls rise up from a big metal grate, which is a great incentive to land your cat leaps cleanly. We decided to start a mission after spotting a few interesting structures on the walls. They serve as grips but actually hold the rail to the wall. We filmed our second attempt however we got it a lot faster afterwards. You will have to wait for Wednesday for that!

I found it very interesting that Chris and myself placed our hands on the rail differently. I found it easier to put my swinging hand over my holding hand. I believed this gave me more of a pivot to swing on. An analogy would be a weight on a longer string having more momentum. However we both completed it at a similar pace.

After that we headed round a few metres to a really interesting, derelict area. It has three different levels of concrete blocks, which lead to a cat leap. The most challenging part is being able to look up and spot the cat leap after treading on the blocks. However we both completed it in the end.

We later explored a couple of places we hadn’t really been before. I definitely spotted some awesome precisions I want to do this year.

As it approached 3.00pm it started to drizzle so we decided to head back via Tescos. However we hadn’t warmed down so I convinced Chris to jam in the playground one last time. After looking at some massive precisions earlier, I got up to one I had wanted to do ever since I first jammed there. Suddenly I just realised it was nothing and that I could do it. So I did. I felt so pleased; the hang time was the best part. Here it is on film.

From now on we will be holding regular sessions on Wed and Fri afternoons. Friday being more strength based. Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave comments or drop us an email.

Peace. Ross.

A new year and new surroundings

2007-01-14T22:37:00.000Z

First of all, happy New Year everyone!

We had the most amazing session today. We jammed at a place called the Ivybridge Estate. It has to be one of the best places to train not only because of the variety of different spots, but also its similarity to the estates in Lisses. From what we saw it has everything, and DC and Nick only showed us their select spots. We started off at the disused swing area.

There are tonnes of rails there for balancing and precisioning. The main attraction is this long rail, which gets progressively unstable the further you go down. Such an interesting way to improve balance. No doubt it will add a little competition to spur us on in our training!

Next was another flat building area with many bollards. The bollards go round in semi-circle and I was the closest to making it all the way round, it was just the wall that defeated me!

Then next was the playground area. Here were some precisions again, some wall to rail and wall to wall. Everyone was having go and the adrenaline was pumping. Law did get frustrated at one point where he kept bouncing off the wall for a wall to wall precision I’m sure he will get it next week as he had a break for personal reasons. Jo and I also made the precision. Joe did it after a two month lay off. Kudos to him!

Next we went to a nice wall which we were able to cat leap to. It had an element of height to which played with the minds of the NBT members but Chris and me managed to make it with some average climb ups!

Then DC and Nick had to leave and we were left to our own devices. So we played “Parkour Tag” in the playground. It was one of the most rewarding parts of the jam as we could really see ourselves progressing in that area. We all could now balance on the bollards without falling off. It just shows there are many different ways to train. Try it if your jam needs some livening up!

P.S On Chris’s car leap, DC gives his nod of approval after munching on a kettle chip!

Chris cat leap:

Ross's cat leap:

Chris's kong to cat:

Belated update

2006-12-14T23:28:00.000Z

So it's been errrrm 2-3 weeks since the last update. Since then the group has kind of got back into training regulary, well sort of. It's the winter season what do you expect!
We;re gonna make wednesday afternoon sessions, conditioning sessions. So with the one just gone we did our circuit at the library. Since it was ross, nath and i there we each took in turns to do climb ups with a rail as a handle and the wall was only waist height, walking on a rail (which gets more wonky as you move along), climb ups on a wall about 7-8ft and jumping on a waist high wall with two feet take off. Each time we did it for 1 min and we tried to do as many as we could. Then we would say how many we done and the challenge was the next person to beat it. I have to say it was pretty good to do and will build out upper body strength and its endurance. Next was leg work.

So basically nick aka Rip suggested that to improve the distance of your precisions you obviously need to improve your leg muscles. So we went to our relatively easy precision spot. The distance is only 7-8 feet (my own feet). What we had to do was bend our legs so that they were a 90 degrees keeping our backs as straight as possible. It's almost as if you're getting ready for takeoff but there is a delay, a delay of 10 seconds and then you jump and land. We did that 10 times. It hurts your quads after that, really tired.

However after that ross managed this bin precision which can be seen on the PKVM4 episode soon.

bin precision on Vimeo

A week earlier i trained with chris and lao but with chris and just me for the first hour. It was 3 weeks for him since his last sess and he is now getting back into the swing of things.
He did this sort of drop down thing with a roll. hard to describe, just watch.

drop down on Vimeo

So this sunday will be hopefully training at the southbank, apparently lao needs some inspiration and rich just wants to go.

With the christmas period coming, from everyone here, have a happy christmas :D

Mmmmm weather is getting worse

2006-11-26T23:36:00.000Z

Todays post is to just say that we got some new pics from todays sess. Clink on the link and go to nbtraining winter 06 to check them out.

adois Laws

P.S
Gotta fix my mental state soon and gyms.

Winter training.

2006-11-22T20:01:00.000Z

Right, it's November time and winter is lurking around the corner. If it's not officially winter, the weather does seem like it. Cold, dark, rainy etc etc etc. So obviously we still train. The cold shouldn't hamper training, it's just that I would like to train more often. The sudden change from 4 times a week in the summer hols to just once every week is not good at all. Gotta find time somewhere...... Anyways, on Sunday just gone Rich and I and later some guy we don't know (but who i think is pretty negative) trained in tedders. To be perfectly honest we pretty much did the same old thing as every week. My aim is to try and go to twickenham,guildford and some other places to train cause training in the same place gets real boring. I however did do something different, in a way, i had just not done this thing for ages. It was a cat pass to arm jump on the rails at a stair case. It's pretty good fun as well.

Note to me: Need to find a gym for winter training!

blog6 on Vimeo

Until next time
Adios

Laws

Long Time, No See

2006-11-12T10:24:00.000Z

Well, its been a while, nearly a whole month, since our last training session. This is becasuse Laws has been tied down with college work. I've managed to put some time in but nothing too exciting to report. Anyway, onto the sess! We had some new interst in the discipline in the form of Toby and Tom from my school. We all gathered at the lock ready to dust away the cobwebs. After waiting for Laws to turn up an hour late we got back into the rythmn of good, hard training again. After working on the distance of our cat passes we moved onto the office to work on some turn vaults and arm jumps. Having refueled on snacks and drinks we headed off to the pk tree and messed about a bit there. At the courtyard we practiced rolls, precisions and running gap jumps. It was starting to get dark so we decided to hop to the Lock for the last hour of training, we got some video footage, which Laws has so look forward to it next week. For the last move before the end I decided to do a little jump from the bridge to the gravel below, it was getting dark and someone had left a fishing rod near my landing and as I got up I slipped to avoid it and ended up having stones in my leg and side which still hurts! It was all good though. We are promising now that there will be more frequent updates because we have more time on our hands so look forward to those!

Au Revoir,
Rich

Another week, another sess

2006-10-10T00:35:00.000+01:00

Hello one and all, i know its been time since the last weekly update but last weeks sess was to the least, 1 hour at best. The rain kept coming and going. Well i exaggerate the one hour, half hour, jokes. The sess was hampered by the rain.
So onto the weekend just gone. It was good day with some sun. Chris,Rich and I were out and it had been 2 weeks since Chris's last sess.
At the upper car park Chris and I tried again for the cat pass to arm jump but Chris got the closet with this attempt.
:

Later we reached the pk tree where we did some branch work. Chris did a nice branch to branch to arm jump while i did a branch to branch to branch. With the first transtion being a reverse. Truth be told, i tried to get it as smooth as poss but i couldn't.
:

So Chris had to leave early cause of college homework and it was Rich and I. He wanted to go to the ringed wall and so we did.
Here's Richard being indecisive at the top.
:

and here's how it should be done. (not that i like to brag hehehe)
:

Then we reached our final stop the libary. Rich and I were filming a little run i had just created and waiting for the sun to go down for one last shot when Nick (aka Rip) from TT saw us. He was with the filmcrew who were doing a documentary for a compilation dvd called Parkour Journeys.
It was being filmed by the company which did Space Chase.
Here's what we had before we left.
:

Between takes Nick and I and Rich were just talking about pk and otherstuff when the director asked us whether Rich and I would like to take part in the doc. Talking only. lol So hopefully we'll be in a dvd player soon. You gonna have to buy the dvd obviously

Adios

Laws

Some links and stuff

2006-09-29T17:24:00.000+01:00

It's me again. Just giving a little post to put up a link to our photo gallery. It's using photobucket so you can just browse through. [Photo Gallery] It's got all the photos from the proper site. We hope to add some more but we're too busy training to take photos. On that front the weather has been pretty poor. Tomoz (saturday) seems like the only good day.

P.s. I hope to get this documentary done soon because my college work load is piling up like anything :S

Adios

Laws

In the Sun

2006-09-17T22:02:00.000+01:00

So today was a day of achieving goals and being slightly pissed off. No, we weren't stopped by the community police officer lady, if that's what you were thinking. It was actually Lao, being off for one month doing some mamouth cat jump.

Mamouth Cat jump/Kong:

I shouldn't hold a grudge but I will beat that distance. lol. (just a reminder that parkour is not a competition.)

On another note, Mr Richard Wicks finally got his cat jumps down to a tee. He started on two feet at the beginning of the sess and saw it off with a one foot take off.

Two feet:

One foot:

and

I swear Richard is right footed though. Tres weird.

Anyway until next time, Adios.

Laws

Documentary

2006-09-10T23:54:00.000+01:00

Today me (laws), ross,richard and chris went down to the southbank for some training in the blazing sun and also I had to film Ross's part for my documentary. The documentary is for my own portfolio but it will also be published on fourdocs and hopefully on the video section of parkour.net (if it's any good). The documentary is basically the thoughts of traceurs of varying experience on the status of parkour now and the future, how it has affected them and so on. Filming went really well apart from ross complaining about his big head lol!!!!!. Training was really good, we met up with some people and trained at spots who we hadn't seen for ages. Overall it was really good and it was nice to go back. On the down side I stupidly forgot my tripod on the train!!!!!
I'll give updates on the doc, so far I have done Nick aka Rip from TT and Ross's.
Until next time, take it easy.

Laws

Training With Laws and Richard

2006-09-10T10:26:00.000+01:00

On the weekend I made my way to Teddington to do some light training with Laws, and Richard. Who is starting to get back into regular training after giving up some time back. After scouting the area for a bit, we found some new scaffolding had been put up and proceeded to do a little bit of strength and swing training on it. After that we tried to construct some small runs on it and I found a new technique for swinging with one arm. Here is a video with my run on taken on Laws Mobile.

After some more training we decided to head to the teddington locks where there are some very nice, grippy walls and some benches outside a small boat shop. The owners had never complained about us using the place to train so we thought nothing of climbing on and around the walls. Anyway me and Law set ourselves a goal to get proper two hand climb ups and a faster speed. After about half an hour, this is the result!

Ross:

Law:

During the filming of this we were accused by a community officer of breaking a concrete block plain in half. We tried to reason with her but she just assumed that it was us without any proof or reasoning and told us to go as the area was private property. The “NBT” and indeed the “TT” have all trained there previously with no trouble. Midway through talking to us she got a call on her radio telling her to stop and “interrogate” the old man who didn’t get off his bike while riding across the bridge. Community officers, making “bridges in their community”. Yeah my arse. These offices are causing way more problems then they are solving and their inexperienced methods often leave to conflicts and arguments. Which is of course not a good thing. Often its way better and more civilised to talk to people and do some research into the activities of the community before branding people as criminals etc. We tried to enquire whether the place was private property and came to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t. However we ill check to make sure. Rant over.

We then went to the library and filmed some runs. On this run I was trying to do with minimal steps and hesitation. I’m still not pleased with it but I thought id put it up because I need help with getting my left foot up as you can see in the vid!

Overall a great session barring the Officer. Next blog will be Sunday night probabally!

Intro to Training Blog

2006-09-10T10:15:00.000+01:00

Hi guys!

This is the first post in the training blog and it’s just to say hello to you all and to describe the ideas behind and the meaning of this blog. I got the idea from Jin's Blog (http://jinetics.blogspot.com) which I thought was a really interesting and inspiring read. I wanted to make my own because I not only would like to track my own/and crews progress, but I would also like to put something back into the community and to try to inspire people who are around my level to go out and train. I hope to try to update the blog at least weekly, depending on the amount of work at college I receive!

Peace.