As I said, it’s Sunday, and this Sunday is the date of our second monthly community session. There is a slightly chilly breeze in the air and the sky is grey, nothing like the glorious Sun from the day before. Yet the ground is dry, and there is no sign of rain. The days of ice falling from the sky seem to be behind us for another year.
The session is set to start in an hours time.
It’s not long before Blane and Shirley arrive, shortly followed by Dan on his roller blades/wheelie shoes. We shake hands and exchange greetings. For a moment, it’s just like the old days, with just the few of us training and joking together in the best of spirit.
As the clock draws closer to twelve, people start to trickle into the park from all directions. Our group grows from the 6 of us to 10, and then from 10 to 20. By the time it is 12pm the group is getting close to forty people. Along with the good turn out of beginners, I’m also amazed at the turn out from other cities and communities who have made the effort to travel here to train with us. As I look around the crowd, I see friends from Nottingham, Loughborough, Luton, Hinckley, Coventry, Northampton and London! I want to thank each and everyone of you guys for travelling down to train with us.
As everyone is chatting and exchanging greetings, I take a moment to look around. I see guys stretching out, whilst others are practicing handstands, or trying small climbs. As people being to move, I feel the excitement in the air growing, in anticipation of the coming session. I glance at my phone to check the time. It’s 12:15. Right! Time to kick this thing off!
The warm up
Look up, look down. Look left, look right.
Dan led the group, slowly waking each person’s body up, one joint at a time. The exercises started out gentle enough, but ask anyone who has experienced one of Dan’s warm ups before and they will tell you that they are anything but gentle!
Roll the shoulders forward, large shrugs. Now roll the shoulders backwards.
The pace steadily increased, gradually picking up in speed and intensity and then…
Hold your arms straight out to the side at 90 degrees.
Now this excise involves holding your arms out straight at 90 degrees, parallel to the floor. From here you do small circles forwards and backwards, along with various other small movements. It sounds very, very easy, but as you go from one exercise to another, without rest, the burn in your shoulders continues to build and build. The ingenious part for this exercise is that you can always go for longer and dig deeper, after all, who can’t hold their arms out to the side? It was nice to see the grins on the faces of some of the Parkour Generation collective during this one. As guys who regularly train and teach in London at the Parkour Generations Academy classes, they have more experience with this exercise than most!
Dan warmed everyone up thoroughly from head to toe whilst myself and the other LPA guys offered advice and encouragement to the groups of beginners in the collective body of traceurs. With a massive grin on his face, Dan explained challenge after challenge.
Through out the warm up I constantly saw ear-to-ear smiles, interspersed with determined looks as people gritted their teeth and pushed through the harder challenges. After half an hour of pushing, jumping and crawling, not to mention the one and a half mile run around the edge of the park, the warm up was coming to a close.
I love the sense of camaraderie you get during these large group warm ups and this one was no different, the vibe and atmosphere was incredible. It is a real testament to the Parkour community and the bond shared between those who practice. It is always amazing to see how so many like-minded people can come together, many of who having never met before, and act like they have been good friends for years.
After the warm up was concluded, we split everyone up into three groups. One group was lead by myself, the second group was lead by Dan, and the final group by Sam and Joe. Due to the large numbers of people, there was no way we could physically fit 40 people into one spot. So instead, we cycled between the first three spots, with one group heading to each spot. From this point onwards the day was fairly informal, more of an open session where everyone one was free to try whatever they wanted, rather than a structured class. Of course, there were always LPA instructors on hand to suggest little challenges or to give advice to the less experienced guys.
The training begins
I had one of the smaller of the groups, around 7 or 8 guys. We chatted as we headed over to the rocks at the far end of the Park. Looking up, I could see the grey clouds parting and the sun coming out. It looks like it was going to be a sunny day after all!
This first spot consists of about 14 or 15 knee height rocks that are laid out in a line. We dropped our bags at the rocks and got started. I kicked things off by taking a look at an off ground challenge. Simply trying to get from the first rock to the last without touching the floor, and it wasn’t long before everyone was having a go. What makes this challenging is the awkwardness of the jumps between each rock. Unlike the walls and rails of urban environment, rocks and trees are not uniform. The angles are constantly changing and rarely are you landing on a flat surface that is parallel to the floor. This means you have to alter your technique slightly on each jump, sometimes you will be landing at an angle or even with your feet on a near vertical face of the rock, grasping at the top with your hands in order to hold on.
The day continued in much the same way, with sun, jokes, laughter and challenges. And lots and lots of movement! I could give an in-depth description of the entire day, but you would be reading for a long time! So instead I’ll just highlight a few points that stick out in my mind.
I remember doing a balance challenge with Sean from Nottingham and having to “re-spawn” each time we fell off. Navigating our way over a series of rail precisions, along a rail at height, under a walkway and around a tree! It was amazing to train with old friends again. Guys like Sean and Aaron who I used to train with regularly at one point or another in Leicester, who have since moved away.
We hit up every spot we could between Victoria Park and the town centre. Whilst we were at the walls outside the old Phoenix theatre, a few people got to work sizing up the large running cat leap near the entrance to the car park. This jump involves sprinting towards a 3ft high wall, and using it as step to launch across a gap and grab onto a high windowsill. A few different guys got this jump, but a shout out has to go out to Ash from Coventry and James from London for this one. Ash needs a mention as he got this jump so damn ridiculously clean, although I think James was the true champion for his sheer determination to make this one. Despite being close to the end of the day, and after several attempts of just being an inch below the windowsill, James not only made the jump but busted it out three times in a row.
It was also Joe from Hinckley’s last session in the city before moving back home. As a parting gift, it was great to watch him fight for, and nail, the movement where you lazy vault into a sitting position on a rail and then spin your legs back over. After several attempts, and one funny but painful bail, Joe got the movement down super smooth. It was an amazing day to leave on and I’ll really look forward to the next time we can hook up.
Goodbyes
From about 5pm onwards, we slowly lost members of the group as peoples energy levels started to drop and legs started to grumble. By around 6:30pm we were training at DMU and about ready to call it a day. My body had had enough from the previous days of training, so now I was just stretching and chatting with the guys that were left.
With such large numbers earlier in the day, we had too many people to session the main spots nearby Leicester University. As a few of the guys wanted to check out the spots before heading back to their respective cities, we decided to make the walk back up to the university to finish the session.
About halfway back up to Victoria Park, the guys from London realised that they didn’t have enough time to get to the university and back down to the bus station in time for their bus. Sean and Jak also had to catch a train to Nottingham and had to make a move. We shared handshakes, hugs and goodbyes. After such a great day of training in the sun, we went our separate ways.
And that left four, myself and Dan, as well as Ash and Danny from Coventry. We spent a while exploring and sessioning around the university. After around 8 hours of training our legs could take no more. At about 8pm, Dan and I said our goodbyes, and headed over to the university Café for a well-deserved Soup of the Day and Hot Chocolate! A great end to an unforgettable day.
Thanks to everyone who come down. You all made the day what it was.
Here’s to many more!
You can also watch Lauri’s footage of the day here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6IVX7cH22U
For further details on our next monthy event, visit www.leicesterparkour.com
-Tim
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