Parkour & all things AV

2011-05-09T13:39:00.001Z

In another one of my highly occasional posts, here's my latest video, "The Path Of Least Resistance"

Strength training and conditioning for parkour 2

2010-05-18T11:38:00.004Z

It's one of those rare times when I actually update my blog!

Some of you may remember the strength training video which Dave & I produced almost 4 years ago:

Since we originally uploaded that video, it has had well over 500,000 views and has proved much more popular than we ever expected. It was shot in one night, and thrown together relatively quickly, so we were pleased that it got so many views.

Many people have requested a sequel to this video, and over the last couple of months, we have finally got round to actually shooting it. This time around, we've tried our best to demonstrate a variety of exercises at various levels of difficulty to cater for a broad range of practitioners. As per usual in my videos, there is also an element of stupidity. The production process seems to get more & more complex from one video to the next, and this one incorporates some special effects for the first time, including chroma key and rotoscoping. Anyway, take a look:

For an insight into the filming of the fake jump, this video may also be of interest:

Parkour - The Nature Of Challenge

2009-06-15T09:17:00.002Z

Weekend In Lisses 2008

2008-09-01T13:42:00.005Z

A couple of weeks ago, we were lucky enough to visit Lisses again, this time courtesy of K Swiss. With everything paid for, and some free trainers, who were we to say no? We didn't get to meet David Belle this year, or even the fake Yann for that matter. We did however, get to train with many great traceurs from the UK and much further afield (ie Sydney). The video is hosted in two parts on youtube:

The usual low quality youtube versions are embedded below, but I recommend watching these higher quality versions:

Part 1
Part 2

Updating this blog

2008-03-26T23:39:00.004Z

If you read my blog from time to time, you'll no doubt have noticed how infrequently I update it. This has been largely due to the fact that I've been busy with training, which I suppose is a good thing really. I intend to start updating this blog more regularly to keep you informed with recent activities. A couple of weeks ago, 6 other traceurs and myself took part in a sponsored crawl for sport relief. We set ourselves the target of crawling one mile, with the rule that if we wanted to rest, we had to remain in a squatting position. Thanks to a few training sessions of preparation for this event, we successfully completed the mile without too much trouble, and managed to raise a reasonable amount of money for Sport Relief. If you would like to contribute towards this, it's not too late to do so. You can sponsor us online at: www.mysportrelief.com/n.p
Thanks!

By the way, if you haven't already seen our recent Manchester video and you've got a spare 10 minutes, have a look:

TRace Gathering video finally finished

2008-01-02T23:05:00.000Z

Somewhat later than planned, the video featuring some of the footage I shot at the Trace Gathering 2007 is finally finished. Over new year I had some spare time, so decided to spend it finishing the edit which I actually started before going to Lisses back in August. If you've seen the official Trace video, you might recognise some of the footage seen in my video as Jason used some of it in his edit (which was excellent by the way!). Anyway, here's some of the highlights from my perspective.

Pull-ups update

2007-08-30T11:51:00.000Z

Some of you may remember my post about the 100,000 pull-up challenge. Basically, the idea behind this was to do a number of pull-ups on the bar in my studio each day, keeping a tally until I reached a total of 100,000. Unfortunately, the studio was never finished and the building changed hands meaning that we no longer own that room, and I don't have regular access to it (although it is not currently occupied). Still, whenever I've had a spare few minutes I've been venturing down into the dark basement room to continue my pull-up challenge. This has had to fit in around my work, so I'm currently well behind schedule with the task. Today though, I reached the 15,000 mark. Most of my colleagues tend to go to the local pub at lunch time for a beer and a burger. This is always a good opportunity to add a couple of hundred to my pull-up tally. The way I see it, when they're eating and drinking rubbish and making their bodies worse, I'm improving mine. The lunch time sessions don't happen every day, but when they do, it usually takes me half an hour or so to get 200 done. As you can see from this badly lit, out of focus photo, the room has no lighting and so I'm doing this challenge in minimal light. I set the timer on the camera to get this shot. It's the best I could get in the poor lighting conditions, but you get the idea.

Over the coming months, I'll continue to work on this challenge, still with the ultimate goal of reaching a total of 100,000. It will just take me a little longer than I originally envisaged.

Lisses trip 2007

2007-08-19T21:31:00.000Z

Having just returned from the best Lisses trip so far, I now have a lot of work to do editing the video together. I can't really be bothered typing up a full account of what happened, so I'll just show you a few photos for now. The video will tell the full story, and needless to say, it's going to be amazing!

A splendid time was guaranteed for all!

2007-05-27T22:07:00.000Z

'And Mr.I would demonstrate 10 somersaults he'd undertake on solid ground'. Dean gets some instruction from Danny on flips. Have a look at Pete and Anton's faces during the so called warm-down. Yes, it was every bit as difficult as their expressions suggest!

More photos from our meeting with Danny

2007-05-27T21:57:00.000Z

At home with the Ilabaca's

2007-05-27T20:43:00.000Z

Having never actually done parkour in Liverpool before, a few of the Manchester traceurs and I decided that it was about time that we paid our scouse friends a visit. Jak had arranged with Danny for us to meet up with him in his home town in the afternoon, but a few of us decided to take the opportunity to do some training in the centre of Liverpool in the morning. Unfortunately, the wet weather seemed to have put the regular Liverpool traceurs off, as they were nowhere to be found! Not to be deterred by a bit of rain though, Pete, Pete's nephew, Anton, Ste, Dean, Andy and I had a quick wander around the Lime Street station area and soon found some good spots for some training. After a few minutes we were joined by the one local traceur actually out training that day. By this point the weather had picked up a bit, and we were shown round a few of the parkour spots in the vacinity.

We were due to meet Danny Ilabaca at 1pm near his house, so we piled back into Pete's hire car and set off. That is of course except for Dean and Andy who had to get public transport as they'd come in on the train and there were no more spaces left in the car. Oh dear. Luckily for them, Pete was kind enough to go back and pick them up part way so they only had to catch one bus rather than two.

Jak had travelled down separately to us with his mum and brother, and was already training on the Pavillion when we arrived. We were greeted by Chris Ilabaca who informed us that Danny was on his way, but was running slightly late as he'd been at a Wushu demonstration with Jet Li's teacher! Anyway, needless to say he turned up and immediately put our poor skills to shame by demonstrating his extraordinary abilities. We were then invited to his back garden for some strength training. "Haha" I thought, "this will be easy after all those hell nights". I was wrong. It was a non stop onslaught on very tiring and difficult conditioning exercises. Great training though! He spoke to us about the importance of proper conditioning and about his philosophies on parkour and training. All very inspiring stuff. As you might imagine, Danny uses his garden for training pretty much whenever he's at home, so there are various training aids set up as you can see in the photos. There are also some great trees and a treehouse at the bottom of the garden which was great fun.

At the end of the day he were treated to a 'warm down' which was actually very difficult, and we then all headed home feeling motivated and looking forward to our next training session. Special thanks to the Ilabaca family for allowing us to train in your garden and for taking the time to assist us.

Hot weather training

2007-04-15T22:18:00.000Z

Saturday was the hottest day of the year so far, and after 6 hours of parkour training in the sunshine, I found myself somewhat sunburned! Despite this, we had a great day of training, although in that kind of heat the parkour to rest ratio is swayed more towards the rest side of things.

Dean and I have been working on an underbar to cat on some steps near UMIST. The technique used here is interesting in that due to the proximity of the bar you swing under to the destination bar, your feet engage with the wall well before your hands. This makes it necessary to correct your body position quickly in order to actually reach the final bar with your hands. I've posted a couple of photos to illustrate the body position shortly after the swing. As you can see, there's an instant where you're in a rather precarious position, shortly after your feet touch the wall. This seemingly simple move proved more tricky than we initially thought, due mainly to the speed with which you have to switch hand position after the swing. After several attemps we got to a stage where we could successfully pull it off every time without our feet touching the floor, although the precise technique will need refinement over the next few sessions.

Conditioning nights

2007-04-10T22:02:00.000Z

The benefits of our weekly conditioning sessions (hell nights) are now really starting to show. At the last couple of sessions I've heard comments from the other participants that they feel fitter, and even that the exercises are getting easier. That's good, but it's also a sign that we need to ensure that we gradually increase the amount we do, and also vary the exercises slightly from one week to the next. I've noticed that people's physiques are starting to change, reflecting the work they've put into their training. I myself feel stronger and fitter than ever before and I have started to notice improvements in my parkour as a direct result of the conditioning. For example, my climb-ups are getting quicker. For what seems like no more effort than I've put in in the past, I now find myself getting up much quicker. It's clear that this type of training is an essential part of parkour training, and I'm glad that so many newcomers to parkour are taking part in the hell nights on a regular basis. It will be interesting to see how these sessions evolve over the coming months, and I hope that by embracing conditioning in this way we can all gain a better understanding of what parkour is really about, and adapt our training accordingly.

Mini UK PK tour

2007-02-05T13:17:00.000Z

At a recent training session, a few other traceurs and myself discussed the possibility of doing a tour of some of the UK's parkour spots sometime this summer. The idea would be to allocate 5 or 6 days to travelling around various cities, spending a day in each location and training with the locals. So as not to cause widespread disruption everywhere we go, we'd have to limit the numbers to maybe 6 people at the most. I haven't trained in many of the parkour 'hotspots' yet, so this would be a great opportunity to do so, and of course to meet different traceurs along the way. The idea is still in its early stages at the moment, but it's certainly worth discussing potential locations. Personally, I'd like to visit Leicester (and to have a go at one of Blane's hell nights), and perhaps Cambridge again. I spoke to David from Edinburgh Parkour through email a few days ago, and he was up for training with us if we could find our way up there. Unfortunately, Edinburgh might be too far north for us to reasonably incorporate it into a tour. If you have any suggestions regarding locations, or just to express your interest in coming along, post a comment :-)

Sheffield Anniversary Jam

2007-01-27T23:20:00.000Z

9 of us from Manchester went to Sheffield on saturday (January 27th) for a jam to mark the anniversary of the first big Sheffield session two years ago. As you can see from the photo, over 30 traceurs from Sheffield, York, Manchester and probably a few other plcaes turned up to train. I had the intention of resting my foot today, as I'm doing my best to stay off it after a tendon injury which I seem to keep re-injuring. Despite these intentions I still ened up doing a few vaults etc, but restricted the rest of my training to strength stuff. I'm looking forward to the spring, when I'll hopefully be back at 100% ready to get back into some serious parkour :-) Anyway, it turned out to be a good session in Sheffield, and it was a good opportunity to discuss techniques and ideas with other traceurs.

Only 96,500 to go!

2007-01-08T14:46:00.000Z

Since I haven't posted anything in a while, I thought I'd give you an update on the 100,000 pull-up challenge. I'm a little behind schedule with this, as it's proving difficult to find the time to do it at work. I have only been counting pull-ups done on the designated bar in the basement at work. Since starting a couple of months ago, I have managed to do 3,500. This means that I'm behind my schedule of getting it all done in 3 years, but I'll continue anyway and complete the total no matter how long it takes. I'll keep you posted along the way.

Strength training video

2006-11-13T23:22:00.000Z

To compliment our parkour training, we also focus on strength training exercises. This video gives just a brief overview of some of the ways in which we train to improve strength & general fitness.

Danny's little accident

2006-11-04T21:08:00.000Z

Whilst out training in Sheffield today, Danny's head had a nasty collision with the top of a wall whilst attempting an under-bar. It just goes to show that even experienced traceurs get things wrong occasionally. He did however, manage to fashion a very trendy looking head band out of a t-shirt. As you'll see from the photos, the red blood compliments the white head band very nicely!

The 100,000 Pull-up challenge

2006-11-02T09:41:00.000Z

After several months of somewhat sporadic building work, my new studio at work is finally nearing completion. Apart from the exciting prospect of finally being in a decent acoustic environment for serious audio mixing, I'm also looking forward to the pull-up challenge which I have set myself. The room is in the basement of the building, and has two arched brick ceilings, each of which has a metal bracing rod running just below it. After double checking that this was strong enough to support a human, I have set myself the task of doing a total of 100,000 pull-ups over the coming months. This will be done intermittently throughout my working day, during the lunch hour or when the computer is busy mixing down or importing something. Rather than sitting around, I figured I might as well do something constructive whenever I get a free minute or two. That's when I came up with the idea of doing pull-ups. I have created an excel spreadsheet, which I'll fill in daily to keep a tally of how many I've done so far, what percentage of the eventual total I have done, and how many I still need to do. As this will be done during breaks etc, it could take up to 3 years to complete! Needless to say, once I reach 100,000, I will then aim for more, and come up with a new target. I'll keep you updated on my progress.

Lisses video now finished!

2006-09-21T21:33:00.000Z

At last, 2 months after returning from Lisses, I've finally had time to finish the video!

And more photos!

2006-08-31T19:40:00.000Z

Some more photos. These are just a small selection of the whole lot. You'll notice that there aren't many shots of us actually doing parkour amongst all these. That's because when were were actually training, we were too busy to be taking photos :-) Look out for the video soon though!

More Lisses pics

2006-08-31T19:33:00.000Z

Just a few more photos from our trip

Lisses trip photos

2006-08-31T19:19:00.000Z

I was hoping to have written up a full report of our trip to Lisses by now. Unfortunately I haven't had the time yet due to work and parkour training funnily enough! Briefly though, we got to train with Yann Hnautra, some of the other Yamakasi & David Belle himself! We did at least some training every single day, and attempted to burn up the last of our energy on the very last day by crawling around the lake! After 1600 paces we decided that we'd probably done enough, and considering the fact that we were only about half way around, we decided to give up. It was a good week of training, and I think we all came back fitter & stronger. Here are a few photos:

Ready For Lisses

2006-08-15T10:27:00.000Z

Tomorrow Dave, Will, Danny & I fly out to Lisses for a week. It's been over a year since my last visit, and I feel that my Parkour has improved a lot since then. Whilst the last trip was good, this time I'm more prepared for it both mentally & physically. Recently I've been doing more strength training in preparation for the trip, and I feel that I'm currently in the best shape I've ever been.

After a few days we'll be joined by TCT. Last year our trip overlapped with theirs, but we only got to train with them for a day before it was time for us to head back home (with Owen who had an unfortunate injury on his first day in Lisses). This year we'll have at least a couple of days to train with them, and of course we'll no doubt bump into one or two other familiar faces while we're there :-)

I'll post a write up and photos as soon as I get back. Bye for now!

Crap decor, great hifi

2006-08-09T07:49:00.000Z

As I will soon be starting to upgrade many of the components in my system, I thought this would be a good time to document my current set up. I have identified a number of areas in which the performance of the system falls short of the standards of the theatrical dubbing stage, and will address these issues over the coming months/years with a number of upgrades :-) The time for compromise is over. The time for serious audio visual reproduction is about to begin! Here's a few shots of my current 'compromised' system.

Photos showing: The whole system, including high definition plasma showing HD content from Sky HD; The equipment rack along with the various components; The DVD/SACD player (the only component I'm 100% happy with at the moment); The subwoofer; One of the dipole rear speakers. Wherever possible, I've gone for THX certified gear.

A world of technology

2006-08-09T07:45:00.000Z

A few more photos showing: The mess of cables at the back of the
surround processor/preamp; The Protools system & mixing desk; The
acoustic cabinet for the computer; The conditioned mains supply; Some
of my DVD's

From quadrupedal to quadraphonic

2006-08-07T20:35:00.000Z

After spending the last 20 minutes crawling up and down my stairs in a bid to build some more strength for my trip to Lisses in a few weeks, I returned to my computer to find that the Torrent I've been downloading for the last few days has finally finished. I recently read that a high quality transfer has been made of the quad mix of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon album. In the 1970's there were a number of quadraphonic albums produced and released on both vinyl and quad 8 track cartridges. This was well ahead of its time really, and it's only recently that we've started to see multi channel surround mixes of music appearing on SACD and DVD-A. A few months ago a new 5.1 mix of Dark Side Of The Moon was released on Super Audio CD. Being a big fan of the album, I rushed out to buy this and was very impressed with it overall. But for die hard Pink Floyd fans, the original Alan Parsons quad mix of DSOTM was still the definitive version. In the last couple of years, DTS CD versions of this have appeared on the internet, but these were derived from Q4/Q8 tapes or the quad vinyl releases. Unfortunately these sources were subject to the ravages of time and were a long way from the original studio masters. With no prospect of EMI releasing the original quadraphonic mixes, somebody with access to the masters took it upon himself to ensure that the original mix doesn't get lost forever. Hence the recent DVD-A version! Considering the fact that this is essentially a 'bootleg', it's an absolutely faultless transfer from the original masters, and superbly authored with menus, on screen artwork during playback and Dolby Digital & DTS encoded versions for anyone with a standard DVD video player. But it's the MLP Lossless soundtrack which most accurately conveys the subtleties and dynamic range of the mix. In addition to the 2 front & 2 rear channels, an additional sub channel has been derived from the low frequency content of the main channels. On a properly set up system, this fills in the bottom of the frequency range nicely (and pisses the neighbours off at night!). The album is a fairly big download (3.43GB), and as BitTorrent is basically a P2P system and the bandwidth isn't guaranteed, it takes some considerable time to download. You'll then need to burn the disc image to a DVD. Trust me, it's well worth it though!!

I'm off for another listen now, but here's a couple of pics of me marvelling at the whole experience. Please try to ignore the crap wallpaper!

Britain's fattest teenager

2006-08-07T20:15:00.000Z

I know that this doesn't relate directly to Parkour, but it certainly relates to health. I'm just watching 'Britain's Fattest Teenager', and it's downright repulsive to be honest. A stark reminder of what happens if you gorge yourself on fatty foods and do no exercise whatsoever! Here's a photo of me staring at the TV is disbelief at what I'm seeing.

More pics from saturday

2006-07-30T10:14:00.000Z

Saturday training in Manchester

2006-07-30T10:03:00.000Z

After several days of good weather, our training finally got interrupted by rain this saturday. However, we still found an undercover spot where we could do some strength training (in between eating bananas!).

Saints Row 5.1 Mix

2006-07-26T15:41:00.000Z

Those of you who own an Xbox 360 console, and have access to Xbox live may be interested to hear that the trailer for the forthcoming 'Saints Row' will be available for download over the next few days. I've just spent the afternoon doing the 5.1 audio mix for the trailer, and it's sounding pretty damn good, even if I do say so myself ;-) The game itself is basically a Grand Theft Auto rip off. Looks good though. I might see if I can blag a free copy. Worth a try!

More photos from today

2006-07-22T21:23:00.000Z

Some are more blurry than I'd have liked, but here they are anyway.

Today's session

2006-07-22T21:18:00.000Z

A selection of photos from today's session. Most of these were taken towards the end of the day after the serious training had finished.

New AV amp coming soon

2006-07-21T14:40:00.000Z

It's been a few years since I last upgraded my home cinema amp. There have been a few developments in the 5 years or so since my last purchase;Dolby Digital EX, DTS ES Matrix & DTS ES Discrete (6.1 channel formats), HDMI, 720p, 1080i & 1080p HD video formats, the HDMI interface, THX Ultra 2. All this points to one thing: an upgrade! After spending a few months trawling the internet, I've found what looks like the right amp for me: The Denon AVC-A1XVA. The only slight drawback of this particular model is its massive 44kg weight, which will mean reinforcing my hifi rack to accomodate it. A small price to pay for hours of high quality audio visual enjoyment!!

HD Update!

2006-07-20T11:36:00.000Z

Following on from my recent post about HD parkour videos, I've managed to secure an HD camera for this weekend! This will give me a chance to shoot some test footage before making a proper full length video. I will be filming some stuff around Manchester on saturday :-)

A few recent photos

2006-07-19T18:46:00.000Z

Recently we agreed to be photographed by Holly, a student who needed some shots depicting 'movement' for a project. The photos turned out well. Here are just a few of them:

A rigorous evening training session

2006-07-18T21:43:00.000Z

I've just arrived home after what started out as a fairly relaxed session, but turned into a navy seal boot camp kind of event. We had a couple of new people out tonight, someone whose name I can't remember (apart from his forum name, which is 'the one with the face'!), and Ollie, who came out for the first time tonight. From 6pm onwards we showed them a few basic vaults and jumps, and concentrated on helping them with some of the fundamental moves of Parkour. As the evening progressed and we moved around various locations around Manchester, the numbers gradually dwindled. Actually, let me rephrase that: everyone apart from Dave and I decided to leave at about 8:30pm. Due partly to the fact that our legs weren't feeling 100% thanks to the weekends numerous hours of PK, we decided to concentrate on upper body stuff more instead. I'm a bit too knackered at the moment to go into much detail, but we spent a considerable amount of time crawling down a set of concrete stairs on our hands & feet, and then back up again backwards. This is a great exercise for abs & triceps, and on what was perhaps one of the hottest days of the year so far, it was also extremely tiring! I lost count of just how many times we did this after about 4 or 5 times up & down the 30 or so stairs, but one thing is for sure: it was a lot!

I'm off to bed now to rest. Fear not though, because I'll be training again on saturday and sunday this weekend :-)

Parkour videos

2006-07-16T21:19:00.000Z

Somebody commented to me today about how the last Parkour video I cut together was the first he'd seen which was in widescreen. I approach anything like that with the mindset that it has to be as good as it possibly can, both creatively and technically. This means good camera work, good content, good sound & good picture quality. If the subject is worth filming then it's worth doing well. You only get one chance to capture something, and people will be watching it for some time to come, so it needs to be as good as possible. I've seen enough crap quality videos with blocky pictures and low bit rate sound. This is 2006, so we need to be going forward not back! Widescreen has been the standard in television production for at least 6 years now, so why film stuff in 4:3, a standard from yesteryear?! Over the next few months I intend to shoot some test footage and cut together a parkour video in HD. Some people would argue that a good parkour video is good because of the skill of the traceurs. This is true of course, but why watch some 10 frames per second video from a mobile phone, when you could watch a crystal clear high definition image of the same thing? As far as I know, there have been no high definition PK videos yet. I'm going to put that right very soon though. Watch this space :-)

3 day Parkour event

2006-07-16T20:52:00.000Z

Well, I'm currently relaxing after 3 days of Parkour. Although I've spent around 16 hours training in the last 3 days, I still feel that I could quite easily train tomorrow too. Maybe I'll go out for an hour or two in the afternoon. I booked a day off work to 'recover' from the weekend, but I actually feel surprisingly good! I think that's a testament to the physical conditioning that PK brings.

Of the 3 days, today was certainly the most enjoyable of them all. I arrived at UMIST just before 12pm today, to find 3 traceurs from Bury waiting for everyone. Over the next 40 minutes or so, the group gradually increased to around 30. More than we expected! Unfortunately, the numbers were made up largely of 'trickers'. Whilst much of what they do does require some considerable skill, it's just not Parkour. I'd much rather train with dedicated traceurs who are genuinely interested in training & improving. Enter the Sheffield lot!

As expected, the group from Sheffield was in Manchester today. I have trained with them numerous times before, and it's always a good session because we share a common outlook on Parkour. As the day progresseed, we managed to split off from the large group and concentrate on some real training. Manchester and Sheffield are two closely connected cities when it comes to PK, due mainly to the links which have been forged between traceurs in the two locations. Ben has made the analogy that we train in our own cities, and then 'synchronise' when we meet up and share ideas & techniques. This is a good way of looking at it, and it means that we learn from each other and continue to develop in our abilities & training techniques.

Will (one of at least 3 people at todays jam by that name!!) got really bad sunburn behind his ears due to the extreme sunshine. After that he had to resort to wearing a jacket over his head, making him look like a wandering nomad from the Sahara desert! Danny almost got a pretty big kong to cat today. There's only a very small run-up, but he was getting extremely close. Next time I'm pretty sure he'll get it. Ben managed to repeat his excellent dash vault over the wall at the geological gardens again today. After what must have been 30 or so attempts, he finally nailed it. It's something which he's done before, but it's not the easiest thing to do, especially after 4 days of Parkour! It looked very smooth though, and is almost certainly the most efficient way of getting over that wall. That's Parkour.