Mary Knox – Week 1

This is the Mary Knox educational centre in Lincoln, its main aim is to help pupils who have been suspended or excluded from schools around Lincolnshire.

you would expect these kids to be rowdy and naughty, but when we got there we were treated with nothing but respect (except for a comment made about me being ‘emo’ – I don’t see it myself)

without any prior experience, the kids jumped straight in, focusing on the fundamental basics of Parkour.

Conditioning Success!!!

So on Thursday Lincs Parkour had it’s first OFFICIAL session dedicated to conditioning ! and what a battle it was.

Straight after the Christ Hospital workshop me, Gainey, Cobie and Jack (Ledbury) went and got ourselves stocked up with food and ate while waiting for Ryan to arrive. Once he got to City Hall we went underneath and started with a quick mobility session as it was very cold to just jump straight into conditioning. The mobility included the regular kind of stuff but with a few more side kicks and stretching movements!

Once Finished we started of with about 25-50m sprints with a partner on your back then we did 5 sets of running up the stairs with a partner on your back to get the quads burning (and trust me it did) after the stair sets we then began to lengths of lunges but with some one on your back we did two lengths of about 25-50m.

We had a bit of a rest and stretched of our quads once we had done this then it was on to the monkey leg stuff don’t know the exact name for it but I’m sure you know what I mean, However we did 10 on our right then 30 secs of horse stance then another 10 on our right and 30 secs of horse stance and we repeated it on our left, Then we finished of our quads with a nice tasty jumping circuit at the top of city hall and after 5 times round the circuit it was hard for us to feel our legs !

Now Straight after the leg circuit we had a quick stretch off and while doing so I made up an arm circuit for us around the top of city hall. we had to complete this circuit 3 times, it included handstand push ups, one armed push ups, cat press ups, tricep dips, tricep push ups and also stretched out push ups (to work the lats and shoulders) then you would have to reach from the black rail to the wall and shimmy up the walk way to about half way up! Trust me after doing this 3 times we were all KNACKERED !

Workshop Madness

Well Saturday was the day that the Lincs Parkour Gym sessions had its biggest register ever, with over more than a hundred students turning up. what an outstanding turn out of little Lincolnshire !!

So any how about the workshop this week. It was truly crazy ! To begin with I took everybody outside (as it was such an awesome day) for a warm up/conditioning session. This included a lot of CV work for instance jogging round the football and rugby pitches, then sprints, side stepping, big skips and quadrapedal all the length of a rugby pitch twice ! After that we got into some jumping on your toes to get the calves burning (cant say the students were a big fan of this one) then some more leg work mainly on the quads though. Then I got the students doing some arm work then finally finishing of the conditioning with the core for example static abs, v-ups, crunches etc. Once we had finished conditioning I then took them through some stretches and then we all sprinted back into the hall after about 45 mins of warming up !

Once in the hall Me, Ryan, Jack Dale, Jammie and Jonny all took a group of the students and took them through different routes through a different set of obstacles, This included Tic-Tac precisions, slides, arm jumps, Cat pass – arm jumps, Balancing and a whole variety of just moving through round and over the red blocks ! It was all going well just getting the kids to move their own way maybe giving some ideas of what to do. After they got the idea we let them have about 45 mins to do as they pleased looking at different things seeing if they could overcome an obstacle their OWN way and if they wanted help to do something specific like help with a technique we were more than happy to help as I know me and Jammie set up a Cat Pass course to help students work on it. The students seemed happy yet tired as all of the moving and conditioning they had been doing but was amazing to see kids as young as 8 still trying their hardest. After their 45 minutes of “freedom” I then again took all the students outside for a warm down once finished the beginners went home and then It was time for advanced.