A good friend of the Saiyans, Elliot recently left all of us Londeners behind for an adventure in Finland. He's only been gone a couple of months and he's already writen a thought provoking insight into his life, along with an awesomly arty video.
"As a race we no longer live in a kill or be killed world, where other humans or animals are an immediate threat to our survival (although some people may have you believe that). It is no longer only the strong who survive, and this is one reason why my motivations for training are not for the sole purpose of escape."
This is a really inspiring piece and its worth taking time out of your day to read it.
We've had a couple of busy weekends recently and one of which was a trip to Lincoln to see Dale, old skool member of the Saiyan family; and the ever-growing Lincs Parkour community. It turns out Lincoln is somewhere near Mordor, so it took us forever to get there, arriving just before midnight Friday. We headed back to Dale's for a healthy meal and a good nights sleep ;-) On Saturday got up early for a greasy breakfast, uni style, with Jim and Stu (pictured left), followed by a tour of the small but beautiful town of Lincoln, complete with its quirky back alleys and its apparent lack of adults! We then headed to the main meeting place of the local traceurs and were introduced to some new faces as well as some we knew from the Trace Gathering. It was cool to meet a really tight community, who trained so well together and all help and encourage each other. We were taken to some really varied locations for Parkour including some scaffolding with some really cool angles, where some of the guys spent time showing us their swinging dismounts, brilliant stuff. We then came to a spot where there was a progressively growing rail precision which was excellent for finding your limits. Unfortunately the ordinarily focused Jim suffered a lapse of concentration and his foot landed short of the rail, shinning himself silly. Which he didn't seem to notice until he pulled up his trouser leg unveiling thick blood pouring into his white sock!! Instantly everyone gathered to help with people removing wristbands as make-shift bandages and helping him stop the bleeding. Its good to know if you fall in Lincoln, the guys have got your back. In Jim's credit though, he didn't complain a bit. There was a lot to see so moved quickly to the playground in the arboretum. On route we had to cat crawl backwards up a couple of flights of stairs, then straight into a challenging climb especially as everything was slippery. Once we reached the top we headed into "Banksy playground", so named for its juxtaposition of children at play with the overbearing reminder that Big Brother, even in Lincoln, is watching. There were a few challenges we set each other but one stood out as our fave; The Silent landing challenge! The video below is pretty self explanatory, turn up your sound for this one...
On Sunday we woke up fairly late in the day due to a tour of Lincoln's nightlife that extended into the wee hours of the morning. With a coach to catch that afternoon we grabbed some grub and followed Stu's lead to a couple of his favorite spots. One of which was the breathtaking rooftop run which had so many possible opportunities for movement and had an eye-popping roof gap which looked just perfect. The picture doesn't do it justice, but the surrounds and the height made it very challenging however it felt attainable and it drove us crazy that there was a huge puddle right in the landing spot. Deeply disappointed that we didn't get a chance to seriously contemplate it, but next time... It wouldn't be a Saiyan trip with the fuzz popping up, on our way down we realised police had been called and had surrounded the building. They were a little aggravated at first, but once we explained what we we're doing, and were not daylight robbers, they changed their tune and showed quite an interest in Parkour.
All in all a fantastic break away from the big city, with an excellent community of traceurs, that for us was reminiscent of the early days at Liverpool street.
Thanks to all of Lincs Parkour, hope to see you all soon, head down to London whenever! A special thanks goes to Jim, for the deep conversations about Parkour, conspiracies, and everything in between; Stu for showing his personal uber rooftop runs, and for setting the pace for the weekend. And a huge thanks to the man himself Dale for...everything! Rest assured we'll be back up soon, there was so much we didn't get time to do.
Parkour was featured in the NBC tv show the other night: HEROES!
To watch the clip from season 2, episode 10, click here.
The awesome copy-cat girl with the ability to learn anything she sees using muscle memory completes some nice simple moves. She does a quick reverse vault to keep on running, and does a tic-tac against the wall whilst vaulting the rail one hand. Really nothing flashy - but her aim was not escape in this instance, it was breaking and entering. Glad to see no flips or unnecessary movements, but how might this demonstration affect us as the practitioners? Could this reflect badly? Well hopefully it wont!
The only question that remains is.. Who was the dude performing the parkour?
Over the last year or so Mike has been training with us as much as he can, giving his weekends up as well as one mid week training night. Hes worked hard and shown a great attitude both for Parkour and Saiyan, and so at this point we welcome him into are little family. He will be posting on the blog a bit more and hopefully on some of the boards as well as keeping up his training. Got a long way to go, wish him luck. Cable
Sorry to all who haven't heard from us recently, it has been a little quiet on the blog. Anyway here's a short update on one of the projects we've been working on recently.
On Wednesday 15th of August we did some filming work with Parkour Coaching in which we shot some innovative ident material with Channel 4 for The Discovery Channel in London. What was cool was that we were using POV cameras that allow the viewer to see exactly what the traceur sees as he or she moves.
Blake - What this meant was me having a camera attatched to a helmet on my head with a wire leading to a runner with a 20kg vcr on his back (I'm sure its more hi tech), then a wire leading to the director running along with a portable monitor. I then had to run while doing very simple parkour movements and try and capture all the other guys in the shot, without tripping over the wires or getting the crew in shot. Sounds mental but really quite fun. Keep your eyes peeled for some pk action on the Discovery channel in October!!
Thanks to all at Parkour Coaching Ltd, Chris, Dom and Ramon, and a big thanks to all the Channel 4 crew for your work. Also thanks to our boss Tim for letting us take the day off on such short notice.
A good friend of the Saiyans, Elliot recently left all of us Londeners behind for an adventure in Finland. He's only been gone a couple of months and he's already writen a thought provoking insight into his life, along with an awesomly arty video.
