I've had a frustrating but interesting week. The problem is with AS levels looming this summer I have a huge amount of work to do, I'm finishing off self-teaching a further maths M2 module over these holidays on top of all my revision/work and it's taking up huge amounts of my time. So as a consequence, I've ended up spending lots of days just working. I still try to train enough to keep a steady rate of progression though, I need to hold on for now until the end of the summer exams, once I've survived that, it's time for the summer to really begin. So I'll only write about the days I've done anything more than go outside and move around a bit or a bit of conditioning.
Wednesday: Met a couple of traceurs in Keighley for a few hours after my weekly voluntary work with the Bingley Blind Assosciation (which I love but that's for another post to talk about). I'd met one of them (Mac) on msn a while ago but never actually had a chance to meet them. It was interesting, they've been training a fair while but not very hard, I think a lack of motivation and people more experienced to show them the way has held them back. Keighley is a pretty rubbish town to train in, what we call spots here we'd walk straight past in Leeds but we have to make do with what we have. I'd never really trained much in Keighley but they pointed out a few things to me I'd missed which can be used for training. I hope I taught them a bit in the process too, showed them new movements in existing areas. I hope in the long term I can get more involved with them and help them to progress and learn from my experience, they already show a lot of potential. I spotted a pretty big and awkward catpass armjump which I belive is within my reach, however it requires a lot of commitment if it's to be done and the takeoff is off a railing. There's a catpass precision off a pretty high rail onto a wall as well. I tend to go too close to the rail for rail catpasses which means I kill some of my momentum. So I really need to work on catpassing rails in general and then come back to these with a fresh mind and greater confidence. More training options are still more training options, no matter what form they take.
Saturday: Another sunny saturday in Leeds, it was a shame that Hollie and Jamie are both away from Leeds at the moment and couldn't be there but nothing's ever perfect. Anyhow, ended up getting to Leeds about an hour later than I planned because had to get a replacement bus for half of my train journey to Leeds and the driver set off in completely the wrong direction for Leeds before being corrected by a passenger. He then took an incredibly indirect route. Sigh. But anyway, I eventually made it to the Art Gallery. Said my hellos, was pleased to see Scott had the day off work with it being a bank holiday. Kudos to him, still suffering from the afformentioned back injury, he spent the entire day teaching and doing some light training completely barefoot. Didn't even bring any shoes or any clothes other than his trousers with him. At least he'll get tougher feet out of the day.
Anyhow, did my usual warmup at the Art Gallery, had a bit of a run, did some dynamic stretches and then eased into the parkour. My judgement and control continues to improve, along with my confidence. I take movements for granted now that would've required serious preparation not too long ago. I think a few posts ago I talked about a running armjump at the Art Gallery off the second of a line of bollards and how we thought it was probably possible to do it from the third one. Well it took a fair bit of prep work but I got it off the third one. Pretty good feeling. On the down side though, I was twisting my legs to the side a bit which is not a good thing at all. Strange how the body has instincts, usually good but that particular one actually makes you more likely to get hurt. I haven't twisted on an armjump in a very long time now so I'll be drilling that one next time I'm in Leeds to sort it out. I would've prefered to have stayed at the Art Gallery for longer but everyone else seemed to want to move on (*cough* wanted grass to trick on *cough*) so I went with them.
We went to Millenium Square next, I finally got the big passe muraille done, it's probably twice my headheight or there abouts. I really focused on being explosive with the last few steps of my runup and using the best possible technique and I found myself getting more height than I ever have done before. Got it on the second attempt, was pretty happy about that, I've grabbed and then fallen off or just outright missed the top of that wall so many times it's nice to break the curse. Did some bits and pieces in that area including a pretty tricky tic tac to crane which wasn't considered possible by Ed and Jamie. Sometime when there's less people around and it's all less chaotic I should have a proper look over Millenium Square again, it's a much underappreciated spot and I feel certain there's more to be done with it.
Anyhow, on, predictably to Morrisons. Having made it all the way along the gradually increasing in height wall using catpasses off the floor, I decided to work on other things in the same manner. Firstly, I catpassed the highest bit of the wall again a few times to make sure I am becoming comfortable with it. The answer to this was yes, which is good as it means I am now comfortable catpassing stuff above shoulder height. So anyway, I spent a good bit of time working my way along the wall with speed passes and pop catpasses (as in clearing the wall, not just popping onto it). The speed passes were pretty scarey but I got a fair way along the wall before my confidence gave out. Something to work on. Pop catpassing over walls of a reasonable thickness like the Morrisons one is pretty difficult, however it is definatley a useful movement and worthy of more training time in the future. Was just lining up to repeat the big running armjump when a security lady spoiled the fun. Oh well, can't have it all your own way.
Onwards and upwards to the uni where I had a good look at the catpass armjump across the stairs by the entrance. Frustratingly, trial runs on the bit without the stairs underneath proved that it's comfortably within my reach (but the landing wall is not high enough in this section for it to be landable). However, there is a huge pile of decomposing leaves in the takeoff area for the bit over the stairs and benath that, a load of slippery mud. So if Scott and myself really want to do this, then we're going to have to shift all of the leaves and then leave the mud to dry. Fantastic. What are dead leaves doing around in spring anyway?! Went on to the dash wall area, somewhere I haven't visited for ages. Dash wall is pretty much the perfect wall for vaulting practice so it was great fun to let rip with flat out speed passes and cat passes over it and enjoy flying as far as possible. Revisited an old armjump which took me months to do back in the day, didn't even bat an eyelid doing it this time. Sonic (forgotten your real name, sorry) helpfully showed me a place I'd never noticed before in the area. Had a lovely standing armjump and precision to reverse it over a moderatley deep hole in the ground. Did the armjump about 10 times, building confidence and tecnique. Irritatingly, when I get tired, my climbups adopt sloppy habbits, I transition too early, making the climbups slow and cutting my wrists. So I need to be stricter with myself on that. The precision back was a fair mental challenge, faced with about 10 foot of drop beneath me and about 9/10 foot to travel with a drop of a foot and a bit on my side, it was quite hard to get done. The problem was, even when I did it and repeated it plenty of times, I wasn't able to relax like I normally would on that kind of jump and land softly, I was landing far too heavily as a result of my lack of confidence not letting me relax before I landed.
Headed off out the top of the Uni onto some other spots. Revisited lots of stuff that used to seem difficult, it's really nice being able to do that sort of stuff much easier now. I was starting to develop concerns about my back again by this stage and so started doing less. Eventually we ended up in a really cool little area in an estate that I've never been to before but some of the others had. There were loads of cool little technical movements to do there and it was great fun. Unfortunatley, after landing one running jump over and obstacle onto another, I felt my back spasm with pain. I knew immediatley at that point I was more or less finished for the day, unfortunatley.
We made our way back into town via the estate across the road from the swimming pool and the overpass from the swimming pool. Had time to eye-up the 13 foot level armjump in the estate that tempts us every time. I didn't even bother trying because my back was not up to any sort of impact, not even just dropping off the takeoff wall. Ed pointed out that it's also doable as a running precision across a different point. I think though that before too long, these will get done because it is most definatley possible, just yet another test of confidence and commitment. Likewise the 12 foot armjump at the swimming pool itself. But I'm not going to obsess over those, they'll get done eventually and there's no sense in rushing, particularly not with an injury.
Anyway, with all my work and Duke Of Edinburgh, looks like two weeks of rest ahead, I'll still work on my conditioning though. If my back persists after the rest, I will go get medical help.
Plenty done, plenty more to aim for.
Oh and here's a cool pic of me and Ed (the little guy haha) as we were making our way back through the estate yesterday:
