Diary of a Tracer (London Trip '08')
08/02/08
Dear Diary,
Today was tiring but overall very exciting. I started the day as usual; up at 7:00 and leaving for school as normal, a long tiring bus journey then finished my route to school. Time then progressed leading me to an I.C.T lesson with Mr.Senior I managed to keep concentrated through the whole lesson slowly completing my coursework. Now here's where my normal day started to speed up, the sound of the school bell alerted me to what was supposed to be happening today. So I showed Mr.Senior my permission to leave note and Connor passed his leaving off as 'A quick trip to the toilet', we then retrieved our belongings and set off in the shining sun on the beginning of our 'Jump London Trip'. This started started at Connor's house: getting changed and packing our bags, next was a quick wait at my sisters house saying hello to Josh and a new arrival 'Felix'. The train station was our next destination catching a train to Euston followed by an underground service to Kensal Green. Arriving at 5 o'clock gave us plenty of time to spare before the freerunning class with Asid. Part of this was spent in a small kebab shop which according to a local drunk 'had rats in it'. After slowly eating our food we left and resorted to moving from bus stop to bus stop to pass the time finally finishing our last 10 minutes with a quick training session near the sports centre.
The class started with a long warm-up mainly consisting of quadrupedal movements and stretches. The food we had previously eaten had affected Connor so sadly he had to sit this session out. We were then split into three different groups: Handstands, flips and vaults and precisions. My first task was the handstands, which were fine at first but soon became laborious so after finding a slanted vaulting horse I set to work and soon conquered the slanted wall spin. Next up was the precisions and vaults, although nervous at first I soon built confidence and began making jumps that some six foot tall men couldn't clear! Finally I moved onto the flips most the group insisted on trying frontflips some succeeding and some just falling flat on their backs. I however, sought advice on the dreaded arial within ten minutes and some advice from an obvious martial artist my puny butterfly kicks had hit another level! The warm-down was pretty much a calmer version of the warm-up with much more stretches so that passed quickly. The way back to my aunts phased way talking to a fellow tracer about my UF backpack. A short introduction later and we were at my aunt's house and soon after: asleep...
09/02/08
Dear Diary,
Yet another brilliant day of freerunning! We started off at about twelve walking to the station then moving onto Charing Cross. Seconds after crossing London Bridge we had found all of the famous southbank locations from 'Jump Britain': the bollards, the circle walls, the cafe, the concrete stairs and the glass stairwell. Over an hour passed as we christened the monumental sections not for a second thinking of filming. Realising time was still moving we thought we should do set same and marched towards the famous Imax walls...
These huge concrete beauties were much larger in person which increased our eagerness to start. The thick rounded walls had obviously become a magnet for freerunners since 'Jump Britain' and we saw this from the 15 tracers already training there. About twenty minutes into our practise Blue, Asid, and Sticky came out. Seeing their standard really motivated me into heavier training for a larger outcome. Blue's kong to precision had become extremely fluid and silent which really promoted the repetition technique. A few hours later it was getting dark so we decided to walk back towards the pier and maybe think about some dinner. We moved ourselves towards Chinatown and found that we had been wandering around the packed streets for an hour so we rushed each other into one of the hundreds of restaurants and picked the nearest dish on the menu. After finishing up we waved goodbye to the thousands of lanterns commemorating the Chinese New Year and caught the next train back to Erith.
10/02/08
Dear Diary,
Today was very similar to yesterday. Again we started up at about twelve and me and Connor wen to the train station. We had some trouble with the ticket machine because it wouldn't take our money. We decided to go without and buy some at London Bridge (We thought...), upon arrival we were told that any customers travelling to Charing Cross would have to change at Canon Street. So to our disappointment we moved on to Canon Street and spent half an hour and some confusion talking to a small Chinese man bout routes and tickets.
Finally we emerged from Charing Cross! Yet another beautiful day meant that we would have a good training session. We stopped at the same places as yesterday except this time taking pictures and videos as we regretted not doing so yesterday. We then arrived at the Imax walls , again greeted by other tracers and noticing that Blue and Sticky had decided to greet us with their presence. Next began repeating moves we had learnt from the day before. About an hour later all other tracers had moved on which left Spiral and me the concrete jungle all to ourselves. This improved practice and allowed us to take more videos. Another hour ahead and we had me another tracer called 'Oliver' he lived just 30 minutes from the walls which gave him great opportunity for practice. Oliver left us at about five as it was getting dark so we thought we would move on to some other smaller spots and then head back. We returned at about half past eight and watched a quick film.
11/02/08
Dear Diary,
Today was rather empty and slow but due to the last three days I think it needed to be. We spent most of the day resting, stretching and recovering from or wounds. The day passed by slowly with no unexpected outcomes or events. At about five Gill cooked us a roast dinner and we then ran to the train station in order to get to our class on time. We took the train from Erith to Canon Street, then on to Embankment followed by a final train to Kensal Green. We had to run to the class as we were 5 minutes late! Upon arrival we were greeted by a huge, muscular, motivated man called Andy who led us through an excited, humorous warm-up. The session then moved onto split group sections which consisted of sit-up exercises, push-up and squat partner based activities, a vaulting to jumping exercise and finally a timed vaulting obstacle course. The session seemed more beginner based then the previous session on Friday night and included a lot more women and older people. It seemed a lot more structured and was easy to tell that this was the parkour workshop not the freerunning one. I found myself noticing how focused and goal based these instructors were compared to the freerunning session. Forrest seemed to have improved greatly since some of the previous videos I had seen him in.
Finally the session was concluded with a 'Mr.Motivator' style warm-down of course led by our own black, muscular, motivated Andy!
The way home was fairly straight forward and we got to bed at about twelve to be ready for the next day.
12/02/08
Dear Diary,
Today was a more relaxed session of training; we left my aunts at about 12 o'clock and began to search Erith for some good spots. This wasn't hard as we found hundreds of these all over Erith, the only problem was making time for them. Training ranged from basic precisions to vaulting combos and some great cat leaps. We finished up at about 6:30 when our muscles decided to call it a day. Overall it was great though bigger towns always have better architecture and Rugby really can't be called big after seeing some of the local spots around Erith.
13/02/08
Dear Diary,
Today...well what can I say. Today consisted of timetables, trains, waiting on platforms and waiting at bus stops. Yes today was home-time the dreaded day of our week. Carting bags across platforms and fighting passengers for seats o don't we love public transport. We left my aunt's at about 3:00 and ended up arriving in Rugby at about 9:00. We could see that delays were on our side today as the 2hour wait in Euston station told us. Nothing really happened apart from travel and sleep but oh well tomorow is another day...
Joe Read-AKA Presha