As some of you may know, there are weekly Gym Sessions in Sleaford at Northgate Sports Centre now just beginning their 6 week run. At the moment it seems to be only open to special groups, and summer activity camps, which means we should be getting a new load of kids every week. This friday marked the first of these sessions, and despite the lack of basic equipment, we were able to teach the kids, a good few basics, and even get them working on runs. One of the most refreshing sights was seeing a little girl called Hope, just drilling her precisions trying to perfect them, which was really nice to see compared to a lot of kids who would just jump then carry on.

We followed this 2 hour class with a trip to Burger King, in which Dale not only realised his dislike for Sleaford, but also our Buns at Burger King haha, also Stus proclamation that his new personal motto, was "Parkour, for the Birds, The Money and THE GUNS!" After walking back to the Station with Dale. Me and Stu left off to do some training.

Focussing a lot on runs in our session, aswell as variation, we tried out various differnt runs, and other movements involving control. It was a really fun training session, which ended in Stu missing his bus and staying at mine. Discussing possibly the manliest scenarios we could, we thought of a good few.

• A man emerging from a burning building, topless, in the pouring rain, holding a Chihuahua in a blanket
• A man hanging one arm off a cliff, the other arm holding onto an unconcious man
• A man taking a single shot of whiskey, with a slight grimace as he swallows the liquer followed by a satisfying "Ahhhhhh" then slamming the glass on the table
• ANY THING CONTAINING STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN

Suggestions, on a manly scenario? Or Just Comment this video we made haha :) Enjoy x

Trace for me began at 8:30am in the morning, on the 28th of August, after making sure all my belongings were packed, me, my mum and two of my brothers and sisters, got in the car and headed off towards Edale. After a quick stop off at Tesco's for some supplies, (Fruit, Rolls, Meat, Water etc.) we proceeded to follow the AA routefinders directions to Edale. After a few mess ups involving closed roads and diverted traffic, and well as the fact that Edale seems pretty non-existent on road signs, we managed to get there. I said bye to my family and signed into Trace, and proceeded to let Dom (Grylls) set up my tent :P

For the rest of the day we spent in the glorious sunshine, socialising and messing about on the local field. Unfortunately due to residents complaints, we weren't allowed to use the public playpark, which was a shame as it had been one of the nicest places to do some light training in the evenings. However, in true Parkour style, a tricking circle was set up :P and i did a few light tricks, but stopped soon after fucking up my ankle on an attempted B-twist.
The rest of the night i spent worrying that the ankle wouldn't be okay for the next day. That and sneaking around the campsite in ninja attire :P Infact 6 of us managed to sneak up on a group of Trace reps completely unseen until we were literally inches away from them haha. Jin even jumped up in surprise! LPK :1, Trace Reps: 0 ;)

In the morning we awoke to find the campsite rather soggy, it had rained during the night which left peoples mood rather down. However i was in Jin and Livs group who left at 9:20 so by that time the weather had started to warm up. After the large walk up the forest slopes, i began to realise my ankle wasn't so bad and that if i kept it light i'd be fine. So on arriving at Padley Gorge, i started leaping about, doing some light practice, only to find the rocks were extremely slippery. Abandoning my shoes, i found another positive use for Barefoot training, my feet were much more grip to the wet rocks. And i began training around the area, albeit with a little more caution.

After I had trained here for around an hour, i noticed Teige's group with a number of my LPK chums in it, I asked Jin if it was cool for me to head off with their groups then joined in with Teige's group, including if i remember rightly, Johnny (Fezz), Cobie, Charles, and Ollie. We headed up to the first set of peaks, after the lovely now comes as standard, bog walk. Just as disgusting as I remember :)

After training up on the first peak, we found a really nice run to do across about 15 rocks, which included running precisions, vaults, and a nice jump and roll at the end. We practiced this nearly 15 times, perfecting our foot placements and adding other little efficient touches.
Soon after Blake and Cable came down with their group from the Highest Peak (Higger Tor) and we showed them the run we had been practicing, as well as discussing the day we had had so far.

Not long after this, we needed to return to the train station, so we made our way down from the peaks, down to the train station. Catching the Train to Hope, loads of people sprinted off at first to get to the Spar first (incidentally, i had heard, that 20 of them rushed in and nearly knocked over an old woman :( ) However, i stayed back, chatting along the way to some other members of Lincs Parkour, about their day.

Arriving back at camp, we headed out to the pub to relax and talk about the day gone, this was a really enjoyable part of the day, really topped it off, as we relaxed, had a laugh and a few drinks, as well as listening to Tarik from SA singing, playing the guitar, and rapping.
After that, i headed back to camp, to a now 3 man tent, with me ryan and now tumo sleeping in it (due to his tent flooding the previous night).

Waking up around 6 the next morning, it was my groups turn to get up early and head to the higher peaks (my favourite spot). However the weather, seemed even worse this morning than the other day, it seemed it would never dry up. Never the less, we proceeded to carry on an attempt some caving routes. Danny Ilabaca's, which included Ian in it joined with us and me and Ian set off on our own finding some of our own routes. This was really enjoyable, and by the time me and Ian had popped up back to the surface, the sun was out and the rocks were bone dry.

We found Danny who was encouraging the guys to attempt a run, i joined in, and it involved an arm jump to a rock, turning over, then sliding into a precision, followed by another half turn and a sliding drop. We practiced this a few times, with the emphasis on no hesitation, i think i did quite well, however the arm jump required me to do a box jump rather than a running arm jump. However i was pleased with it.

By around Lunch time, another two groups came up to Higger Tor, i was supposed to leave at this point but decided to stay and train with, what seemed like the entirety of Lincs Parkour who had just arrived. We found some beastly precisions and had a really good time finding new paths and runs to do. This day was probably the best day of training i did at trace, and it was really great fun. Check out this picture:

After this, we headed to the pub that evening, and relaxed and chatted, however, a number of people seemed to take it a little to far, and get really quite drunk. Despite this i had quite an in depth chat with Martin, from Liverpool, which was really insightful.

Waking up the next morning on the final day of training, we woke to find Johnny Yeah had been kicked from the Gathering due to a mishap at the bar that evening. Despite this the weather seemed really nice. However this way due to change, by the time we had arrived at Grindleford, it was already starting to spit, so we decided to try and sit it out at the Café, however the weather only got worse, we started to head up to Padleys gorge, however, we perched on a rock on the way, and made a decision to go into Sheffield for the Day. Me, Jim, Luke, and Johnny Yeah went to watch The Dark Knight, whilst the rest went to Decathlon.

After returning to camp, there had been flash flood warnings, so we were advised to go home, or to camp out in the Village Hall. I managed to get a ride back with Ollie and Charles, which was very generous of their mum, not before a big game of throw the ball up into another guys balls game in the village hall which was complete giggles haha. I arrived back at about 12:30 at night, and had a good long sleep :D

So it comes to this, What have i learnt from Trace?
Well,

• I've found that my need to trick in Lincoln stems from a boredom of the same routine, as at Trace i had no need really to do any tricks when i was at the peaks, because there was so much to try and attempt.
• This concludes that i need to think more out of the box, in Lincoln, look past what i already know and find new combinations, new routes etc..
• I also need to combine movements much more in a run, and not hesitate to try new things.
• I need to work on my foot placement in runs, much more and repeat lots and lots, to perfect this.
• Finally, i feel i have a much greater awareness of what can be done in Lincoln, already i have imagined, much larger possibilities in my head, and cannot wait to try them out :D

That concludes my post for this years Trace, oh and one last thing,

"BUTTSCRATCHEERRR!"

Trace Gathering: My Experiences

History

It was in January 2006, that Dale Annous arrived in Lincoln with two very different intentions. The first was to attend the Lincoln University for the sake of his education. And the second, for the sake of his love for parkour, and his belief that everyone should at least have the opportunity to sample its unique thrills, was to form Lincolns very first Parkour community.

Wasting no time, Dale immediately made his presence on the Lincolnshire parkour scene known through the internet. Using forums such as Worldwide jam and Urban Freeflow, as well as finding videos on you tube and Myspace, Dale slowly began to build a list of potential traceurs to approach.

Firstly he contacted Jake Kelly, a traceur from the Boston area. Unfortunately, with Dale being based in Lincoln, this made regular training sessions a real problem. When Dale got in contact with Ben Christian, a Sleaford based traceur, communication became a lot easier. After the first meeting, Dale and Ben continued the search for other practitioners of parkour, and came across Lincoln and Metheringham based teams, Linx Freeflow and Team Flying Daggers.

After Dale got in contact with both Stuart Palmer of LFF and Jonathon Parker of TFD, it was not long before traceurs from all corners of Lincolnshire came together for their first major jam. It was an immediate success, with a dedicated training atmosphere and a genuinely friendly collection of people, all discovering new techniques and philosophies about the parkour discipline.

Several weeks and an equal amount of astoundingly successful training sessions later, on May 15th, The Lincs Parkour website and forum was released. Immediately after, popularity for the new born group grew rapidly and gained interest from the even further reaches of Lincolnshire including Spalding and Grimsby.
Now that Lincs Parkour had established a firm (but still developing) presence in the parkour scene, awareness of the growing interest in the discipline had grabbed the attention of Parkour organisation “Worldwide Jam”. In October of 2006, Daniel Illabaca, Luke Markey, Brad Wendes, Brad Moss and Chris Harbour all came down to Lincoln for a week in order to hold the cities very first parkour workshop, and train with the new and enthusiastic community.

This workshop gained immediate attention from local newspaper “The Lincolnshire Echo” who printed an article about parkour, and the Local parkour community.
In the following weeks, Lincs Parkour’s forum membership rocketed like never before. So many people, had gained a sudden interest in this exciting and adventurous new sport and were almost begging for a chance to try it out and train with Lincs parkour.

After this, popularity for the community went from strength to strength. Interviews with local TV and radio stations, several articles in local papers and even a short ten minute documentary entitled “Jump Lincoln” all helped to place Lincoln’s parkour community firmly on the map.

The sheer scale of the community became apparent to all at the very first annual trace gathering, when out of 120 traceurs attending the event, Lincoln arrived with the biggest following of all.
Success throughout 2007 was phenomenal for the community, with an astounding three members becoming sponsored athletes for Worldwide jam and Urban Freeflow and several other members performing jobs such as workshops, after school classes and public shows.

Lincs Parkour has recently set up a workshop which is already a resounding success with young people all over Lincolnshire and continues to grow in popularity week after week.

Intentions and information

Lincs Parkour have the exact same intentions now as we did in the beginning, to help promote and teach parkour to absolutely anybody who is interested. We are a team and a community, dedicated to assisting anyone who requires help getting started, or further developing their skills in parkour.

We do not consider ourselves an organisation, we are not work colleagues. We are an incredibly close collection of good friends who are always looking for friendly and enthusiastic new people to join us. We aim to promote a fun and constructive atmosphere at every single jam and event in order to display what an effective and pleasant community we run.

We also aim to promote parkour accurately to the public in order to spread a positive message and help people to gain a more detailed understanding of what exactly we are doing. We take care in how we convey ourselves to the public by maintaining a polite and more importantly, environmentally cautious attitude. Anyone who believes that we seek to vandalise property or simply cause any form of general nuisance, we tend to approach and describe to them our true intentions.

It has always been our intention to spread the word of parkour far and wide, and with our workshops and many close friends such as Worldwide Jam, Trace, and the Sayian clan all striving towards similar goals, the future for Lincs parkour, and parkour in general is looking brighter than ever.