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Tuesday, 23 February 2010
ITV Fixers & Absolute Radio
On Sunday morning I was at my computer, surfing the web and doing some programming. I kept an eye on Twitter, noticing that Dave Gorman was tweeting about the radio show he was broadcasting at the time (Absolute Radio). The theme of his show was people's odd routines & rituals; things they do all the time, without questioning. People were texting, emailing and tweeting in saying things like they always put their left sock on before their right, or that they always eat food in a particular order (crisps: large to small; skittles: yellow first; etc.), when they changed the volume on the TV it would have to be even or a multiple of 5, and other things like that. I sent Dave a tweet saying I don't have lucky numbers, but criticise people whose lucky numbers are non-prime..., thinking little of it at the time. A couple of hours later I happened to check my ReTweets (my tweets, retweeted by others) and noticed that several people had retweeted this tweet, none of whom I recognised until I noticed that among the retweeters was none other than Dave Gorman himself, meaning that he must have seen it in his mentions, liked it and retweeted it, then several of his followers must have seen it and retweeted it themselves.By the time I had seen this it was towards the end of the show so I waited for the show to be made available as a downloadable podcast (similar to iPlayer, et al; watching shows after they were broadcast). I downloaded and listened to it when I got home last night, listening out for my tweet to be read out. Unless I missed it, I don't think Dave actually read it out on air, but at one point one of the co-presenters performed a song about the things people had sent in - and he mentioned it! That part went like this:
I'm normal you know. I'm normal you know.The podcast can be downloaded from Absolute Radio (21st February).
I sort out my sweets in an orderly row
In case I end up with too many yellows.
I'm perfectly normal, aren't I?
I'm perfectly normal. I'm perfectly normal.
I have to read an old book at bath time.
I don't have a lucky number but if I did it would be prime.
I'm perfectly normal, aren't I?
Now allow me to explain my prime number thing. I don't have any numbers I would consider my 'lucky numbers', partly because I rarely find myself in a situation where I need to pick numbers in such a way, but mostly because I know there's no such thing as luck and cannot stand people's attitude to sticking to their 'lucky numbers', especially when it comes to things like the Lottery (I hate the Lottery and despise people who play it thinking they have a reasonable chance of winning, but I think I'll save that for another blog post). Being a mathematician, the only method I would use to pick numbers where there was no indication of any difference to be seen between them at the point of selection would be to select mathematically interesting numbers. Usually number selection of the nature to which I am referring is between 1 and 10, sometimes 1 and 20, 30 ... 50 or around that area, so you're looking at relatively small numbers (note that seriously interesting numbers are numbers like 33 550 336, 9 814 072 356...) so the even numbers have little appeal as they're common and have many factors or are factors of other regular numbers, which pushes me to go for the primes. Having said that, 6 is a wonderfully interesting number as it is the smallest perfect number (the sum of its factors 1, 2 and 3 is 6), and 2 is the only even prime.
Recently I was contacted by an organisation called ITV Fixers, which is a project to give 16-25 year olds the chance to do something to help others in their area of interest or something they are passionate about. We arranged for the Manchester parkour group to take part in this to launch a project to promote our view of parkour and show people what we do. They filmed us doing some training last week and we shot some interviews, and the week before, Paul & I attended the exclusive launch event (ITV Fixers has been running down South for some time and is just launching in the Northern areas now) where I was introduced to the regional news reporter Tony Morris who asked me to speak about the project during the official launch.
The main show will be shown next week but the preview (meet the fixers) was shown yesterday (watch from 2:18):
EDIT: Something I forgot to mention; Dave Gorman has to be commended for his commitment to replying to people on Twitter. He makes such an effort to reply to people who mention him in tweets, which is a great thing for him to do. If you remember reading on this very blog almost a year ago, I posted explaining what had led me to start using Twitter (Tweet Tweet); it was due to a blog post of Dave's in which he explained the one-way system of connection (as opposed to becoming someone's friend on Facebook, Twitter lets you follow someone to see their tweets without them having to see yours, only whose they decide to follow). He explained then that he always tried to reply to people who sent him tweets, which made up for him not following people back, and still meant that he could use the service the way he wanted (i.e. following only people he wanted to.
I happened to mention Dave in a tweet a couple of weeks ago ('Googlewhack' was trending at the time), without demanding or expecting a reply, but one came. I replied back and so did he again. The next day something else came up and he replied again. This was actually the day before I saw him do standup at Sheffield City Hall, and that night I mentioned him in a tweet saying the show was great and I'd really enjoyed it - he sent one out thanking everyone who'd tweeted about the show, that he was glad they enjoyed it. Then this week he retweeted my prime numbers thing during the radio show, and after I posted a link to this blog post (mentioning him) he replied saying:
@Ben_Nuttall Just so you know... it definitely was read out on air. Sometimes a link doesn't get into the podcast for tech reasons.He's actually followed the link and read the blog post and replied to me to assure me that he had read it out on air! How brilliant is this guy!? As I said, Dave has to be commended for his commitment to replying to people.
Labels: Featured, Internet, Maths, Parkour, Twitter
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 14:34 
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
What's The Score?
I remember in Junior School when we used to play football every lunchtime; it was always the same game - always the same two teams against each other. We'd try so hard to win every time; it was so important to always know the score at any time, and at the end of the game the winners would boast in glory at the opposition's defeat. This taunting may have gone on in to the afternoon's lesson, but was completely forgotten by the next day. We would start again, 0-0, and the whole thing would recommence - the obsession with trying to be (even slightly) better than the other team that lunchtime.I have many memories of this state of mind from my youth. It seems that it was ever so important to everyone that they always won at everything, despite the fact it meant nothing whatsoever, would be immediately forgotten and had no bearing on future events. The same would be seen in P.E. class - if it was a game of rounders between two teams, each one would thrive to get more points than the other, going to the extreme of arguing over each disputed point, cheating, accusing one-another of cheating, lying and changing the rules to fix the outcome; all this just for the sake of winning that one game, the outcome of which would be discarded within an hour of the game ending. But in that hour the pride of the winning team's members (even those who had no input in aiding the victory) would shine and the shame of the losing team would show in the form of bitterness and shear bad losing.
I was reminded of this mindless desperation to win this evening at a pool session with my canoe club; we decided to have a game of canoe polo to get people more involved and give them more of a reason to put their skills to practise. I really enjoyed the game - we all did - it was a great way of getting people to use their skills to chase the ball, paddle forward quickly, stop immediately, turn on the spot, paddle backwards, and so on. However, it became apparent that people were more concerned about what the score was (whether they were ahead or behind, and by how far), which made me think about what people's motivating factors are. It annoys me that people have a tendency to only do as much as they need to, so if they were five goals ahead that they would relax more and not try as hard - but the team five goals behind would be fighting for their lives to try and catch up (unless they had given up).
Another thing that came up was a touch of cheating, foul play and attempts to disallow valid goals simply out of annoyance at conceding. People were gloating when they were ahead, and after every other goal they would claim it missed or that there was some rule to say the goal shouldn't count. Then when it came close to the end of the session people were arguing over when the game would end (next goal wins / first to ten / end at 9:00...)
In a way it was great that we found a way of getting people to practise their skills properly but I just don't see why we had to being the concept of winning and losing in to play. I couldn't care less what the outcome was, although I did try my very best to win each point - regardless of how many we were in front or behind. Some people with a very anti-competition mindset would say they would rather lose a game if they were playing one, because it meant they had to work harder and that they would feel pushed. Personally I always try to win for myself, regardless of what my chances were, and I'd always try my best to perform to the best of my abilities.
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 23:46
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Parkour Thriller Zombies
An amazing new film here. Parkour Thriller Zombies. Starring, written, directed & produced by Paul Maunder. Watch it. Keep an eye out for me (I'm the first zombie and I'm at the back-right during the Thriller dance):Over the last few months we've been rehearsing the Michael Jackson Thriller dance, and Paul's been writing and planning the film. We spent a few hours each week for about 6 weeks filming zombie parkour scenes and we filmed Thriller in one sitting (10 takes at different angles).
I didn't have a lot of time to be in most of the zombie scenes, but I got practising for Thriller and made sure I was around for filming it. The one night I was there for the zombie filming was the one at Dean's house when I came to the door at the beginning of the film and Paul threw holy water on me and I attacked him and mauled his arm before being hit on the head by Freeman's nunchucks and having my neck broken. That was a hilarious scene to film as I had blood capsules (which were out-of-date, might I add) in my mouth and had to pretend to bite his arm and shred his skin with my teeth. The way the blood capsules work is you bite them to release powder into your saliva which turns it red and makes it foam, so I was literally druelling it all over his forearm and shaking my head about to make it look like I was biting and ripping. We had to film the scene about 8 times to get all the camera angles Paul wanted (to make sure he had some good ones to pick from) so this meant I got hit on the back of the head with the nunchucks and have my neck "broken" 8 times! It also meant that my bloody saliva was all over Paul's arm and was starting to get really mankey for him to have on his arm. There was a brilliant clip we filmed of him running off after the final take to wash it off in the sink, saying "That was the most disgusting scene I've ever shot - bloody Ben Nuttall's saliva all over me..."
Anyway, it's a great film and has had over 10,000 views, 500 comments & 500 ratings in just the first few days. Between you and me, we're aiming for 1,000,000 views within 12 months. So get commenting, rating, favouriting and most of all get sharing!
Huge thanks and congratulations to Paul for producing, to Dean for his efforts with make-up and to everyone else who took part.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0GtKbeyYBg
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 17:23
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Sometimes We Forget Why We Started The Journey...
Winter in Manchester isn't great. It rains a lot, it's extremely cold and generally unpleasant. Not good for going out and doing parkour training in. Well, it is if you're the sort of person who likes to train in all situations, which, don't get me wrong, I'm all for - it's just that I find I could be spending that time doing something else more productive. If you know me at all, or if you read my last blog post, you'll know my time is very precious and I can't afford to waste it. I'm not saying training in horrible weather would be a waste of time but I feel I'd rather be training in conditions where I can practise things as normal. I have plenty enough to be getting in with that I'd much rather stay home and do some uni work or web design than doing a watered-down training session: it's freezing cold; you can't feel your hands; the surfaces are wet, slippery and maybe icy; and you can't do any of the stuff you want to practise.Also, being out and unable to train normally really does make me miserable - and parkour is supposed to make you happy, so this creates the opposite effect - I don't want to be in a position where I'm dreading having to do a parkour session (as daft as it sounds, I've been like that before) - I want to keep it a positive thing for me. I often find that if something you love makes you unhappy, you need to take a step back and think back to why you started it - then maybe stop it for a while, change the way you do it or try and enjoy it the way it is if you can find reason enough to do so.
I know a lot of people who would disagree with me here and say that I should be practising in all conditions, not just comfortable ones, and I wouldn't say they were wrong - but they're normally the sort of people who pretty much only have parkour in their life, and nothing much else to have to try and fit in to their week.
One of my good friends from parkour, a great practitioner who is very knowledgeable about training and everything associated with understanding parkour - he once told me, during a conversation along the lines of this blog post, that for him, parkour is seasonal (along with other things in his life), and sometimes it's good to have time away from things to concentrate on others. It really hit home at the time, and I stuck by it as a way of thinking about everything.
Over the last few years, there have been times when I've had so much going on that I've not managed to get out to train much - and it was great to come back to when I was ready, even if I was a little out-of-step with my training/fitness/technique. There's always something that comes up that I have to work on, like last Winter (the UK kayaking season - when the rivers are at their highest levels), I spent a lot of time, pretty much every weekend, out doing river trips and improving my skills, much like I am now, and will be over the next few months. I've already said to myself and a couple of the main guys I train with that I won't be attending many of the training sessions during the Winter due to other commitments and the things I've mentioned above. I've got better things to do with my time than crawling around in the rain, even if they haven't (and I completely admire them for it if that's what they do).
Rather than simply skipping training sessions because it was raining/wet/cold and finding something else to do, like I did last Winter, I've decided to think about what training I can do to replace this. Maybe find exercises I can do at home to stay agile and in shape, and maybe things like jogging, maybe even do some weights to build strength over the Winter. I haven't got into any routine yet but I'm having a dabble in different things and will establish for myself what I will concentrate on and look at when I can fit it in over the week.
There are things in life which are more important than things like training - there's no point me throwing my education away just to get fitter, and there's no point me getting into financial trouble just because I didn't have time to work because I wanted to train. My education is very important to me and I'm not even doing it to get a degree, I'm doing it because I'm passionate about my subjects and I want to learn more about them and become more enlightened about the world of science and technology. What's the point in me putting more effort in to training or running the canoe club?
Parkour is important to me because it helps me deal with life, overcoming obstacles and solving problems, getting to where I want to be - but if I train every day and give up on my education then how am I supposed to get to where I want to be!? Sometimes we forget why we start a journey and get carried away enjoying the ride that we end up not getting to our destination.
Labels: Parkour
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 22:44
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
So Much To Do, So Little Time...
There was a time in my life, while I was at sixth form, where almost every day of the week was full of me being busy. Literally from getting up in the morning to going to bed at night I would have no time to spare on some days. For instance every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in my final year would go like this:Tuesday
8:30 - 4:00 - school
4:30 - 8:30 - parkour training
8:30 - late - bus home then revision / computer / websites / etc. (cramming)
Wednesday
8:30 - 3:00 - school
3:00 - 5:30 - go home then revision / computer / websites / etc. (cramming)
5:30 - 9:00 - scouts
9:00 - late - go home then revision / computer / websites / etc. (cramming)
Thursday
8:30 - 3:00 - school
4:00 - 7:00 - work
7:30 - 10:00 - venture scouts
10:00 - late - go home then revision / computer / websites / etc. (cramming)
I had so many commitments when I lived in Sheffield - I was an Assistant Scout Leader at a younger group (11-14), I helped run the activities & organise things at the venture scout unit (14-18), I ran the venture scout unit's website (and still do haha), I had a job as a pool lifeguard, I had parkour training, I ran canoe classes for the scouts at the swimming pool and lifeguarded the swimming session for them as a volunteer, I had my A-levels to prepare for, and on top of that I was a bit of a geek and needed to spend time on the internet doing what I used to describe as random but necessary internet tasks (things like sending and replying to emails, checking forums, social networking, reading bits of news, finding out about new technology and such, and blogging, of course...) - I can't look back on these things as a waste of time because I wouldn't know half the amount of stuff I know about computers, the internet, websites or random articles I read up on on wikipedia!
At one point I was doing maybe four parkour training sessions every week - and with three evenings with scouts, two or three shifts at work and trying to fit everything else in - it was manic. All of these things were important to me and the more I got involved, the more committed I became.
I've realised I'm at a stage now where I'm going to be in a very similar situation here in Manchester. I've just started by second year at university (this year's marks count towards my degree classification, it's a lot harder, I have more units and I'm now living in the South Manchester suburban area of Withington, near Stockport, which is a lot further out than I lived in halls last year!), I'm in a more demanding and responsible role on the committee of canoe club (of which I also run the website), I'm trying to train harder in parkour, and I'm also trying to learn more programming languages in my own time - as well as doing freelance web design alongside everything. I got my timetable for uni last week and that's what reminded me of my situation of my last two years back in Sheffield - I have some days when I'll finish at 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening (ugh!) and other days when I finish at 1:00 in the afternoon - the three days I finish early are the three days I need to be in town (where uni is) in the evenings, so I either waste time getting the bus home and back again (accumulating an extra hour to my travel time), or I find something to do in uni, in town or with friends in town - like today I finished at 1:00 and had to meet up with the canoe club committee for a meeting, then we went into the Union office to sort some admin stuff and fill forms out, then met with another committee member to discuss the upcoming pool sessions and weekend river trips, then had some food before going to meet the parkour guys for training at 6:00, trained till 9:30, got home at 10:00, made tea, caught up on some house stuff with my housemates then replied to the day's emails, checked the canoe club forum, did some stuff on facebook (canoe club stuff and catching up with friends) and then ended up writing this blog post in the early hours - and I've got to be up early for a 9:00 lecture! So I either have the choice of staying out all day (leaving at 8ish getting home some 14 or so hours later) or wasting time by coming home and going back again. The weekends are hardly a break either - I'm either parkour training, running river trips for canoe club or occasionally visiting my family or something.
There's so much to do and so little time, and I find myself trying to be better at everything I do all the time - which makes it even harder to do it all! I want to train harder at parkour, I want to practise and coach kayaking, I want to do well at uni, I want to make new friends and spend time with the old ones, I want to visit friends in different places, I want to do freelance web design, I want to learn new programming languages, I want to spend time with my family, I want to watch films I've never watched, I want to spend time on the internet, I want to blog about things, I want to learn more maths, I want to do the Rubik's cube, I want to learn about things that interest me on wikipedia, I want to spend time with my housemates, I want to read all the books I've been meaning to read for ages (and re-read the ones I love) - and I just do what I think is best at any one time (like I'm writing this blog post now when I really ought to be sleeping).
Labels: Computers, Internet, Parkour, Programming, Scouting, University, Web Design
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 03:52
Monday, 27 April 2009
Lots of Training and a Session with the BBC
I've had a weekend full of training, which followed two days of programming with parkour training in the afternoons, and today is my rest day. Thursday I went out training as a break from Java; Friday I met up with my good friends Gordon & Scott for some afternoon parkour in the sun; Saturday I went along to the usual jam and then attended a session with the BBC; Sunday was the monthly pole jam followed by weekly gym (as is -nastics) session.
One of the things I've wanted to do for a while is to wallflip outside. I've done them in the gym on at least one occasion but never bothered or had the guts do try them outside. During a gym session back at home I tried them to see if I could pull one off first time, which I could. I practised for a while and decided I was going to try them outside at first opportunity. This opportunity came to me on Friday when I was at UMIST with Gordon & Scott. I did it fine. That was over grass, and at first opportunity I tried it over concrete, also fine. It's not a huge achievement but I'm glad it's out of the way. I can feel much more confident about them now. As most to you know I'm more into pure parkour than flips, but I think it's important for everyone to have the capability to comfortably perform the basic flip movements: front; back; side and wall flips.
I can do backflips (standing on floor and off smallish objects) fine, fronts I probably could do if I tried but I've lost comfortability with them so it's a target to get them back. Sides I have only ever done in the gym and I've not really any idea if I'm doing them right or not, but they seem to be very comfortable when people do them, and seem to be a natural flip movement once familiar so probably worth getting. Once my flips arsenal contains those four I'll be happy with them and will ensure to maintain them. Some pictures of me wallflipping:
Then came the Saturday jam; Gordon & I arrived at Castlefield to find Dave leading the group through an exhausting push-up exercise using triangle numbers (*not factorials! as we sometimes call them. Triangle numbers are simply a sequence of numbers starting at 1, increasing by 1 each time, and used in such exercises in that you do 1 repetition of something, then 2, then 3, then 4, and so on until you reach your physical limit. They'd done it slowly up to about 15 and ordered us to catch up, so we got straight down to it and did 1 then 2 more then 3 more then 4 more, right up to about 8 without stopping (which would be 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8=36), then I took a short rest before doing the 9th set, then the 10th, then the 11th, and leaving it there.
*Factorials are multiples, not sums. i.e. 5! (5 factorial) = 5x4x3x2x1 = 120After the jam, five of us (Dave, Paul, Scott, Dean and myself) headed of to the McDonald Hotel in Manchester to meet up with some people from the BBC who had contacted us the week before to see if we would be interested in auditioing for a TV programme they were making. The programme would aim to prove that intelligence comes in many forms, not just the Oxbridge / Rocket Science type, and that people who practised parkour, for example, were intelligent in other ways to rocket scientists. They were getting groups of people (some of the ones they mentioned were rocket scientists, hairdressers and drag queens) to audition to see which groups they would like to take part in the programme itself.
They filmed some interviews with us to try and get us to prove our intelligence in a variety of forms: listing the similarities between a dog and a cat; giving advice in a hypothetical relationship scenario; working out a problem-solving riddle; putting together a cardboard box from flat; etc. It was clear that sme of us were very good at certain bits and not so good at others, for instance Scott was spot-on with the problem-solving task, Scott & Dean were very quick with their cardboard boxes, Scott, Dave and I seemed quite helpful with the relationship issue while the others stayed quiet, and Paul & Dave were very imaginitive with listing the similarities between a dog and a cat.
Then came the hardest bit, which turned out to be very interesting: we had to state the strengths and weaknesses of each other in the group, so Paul listed Dean's, Scott's, mine and Dave's and we would all, in turn, list each other's. It was very hard to think of something constructive for both of these, but very interesting to hear what everyone had to say. My general stengths mentioned were that I 'have my finger in many pies' (Dave) saying that I am keen to be involved in many things in life and not just stick to one thing, that I make good websites (Paul - want to stick to your judgement now you've seen this?), that I am generally good at certain movements in parkour. Weaknesses were that I don't train hard enough (Scott), that I don't do enough variety of training (Dave), that I am a stickler for spelling and punctuation (Paul), oh and Dean didn't like my shirt. I did my best to say things that were constructive to people, and that were fair and just. Then they asked us to say our own strengths and weaknesses and give ourselves a mark out of ten for intelligence (1 being Paris Hilton; 10 being Stephen Hawking); I said that what I liked about myself was that I never just concentrated one one thing in life and that I keep my options open and try to be good at a wide range of things rather than just really good in one thing, and that my main weakness was that I make excuses for things I know I ought to do, like if I know I ought to do some conditioning I'll often find a lame excuse for not doing it, and explained that I am aware of this and am working on it. As for the score out of ten, I hardly think of myself as a genius, and refused to place myself anywhere near Stephen Hawking (I have so much respect for how intelligent he is) so I put myself on 6, but Dave convinced me I had drawn myself short so I upped it to 6.5, which probably should have been 7 really. We were all between 6 and 7 (except Dean who placed himself on about 3). They filmed everything and will show all the footage to their executives for them to decide who will be featured.
They also filmed a private interview with each of us individually where we were asked to give 3 words to describe ourselves (I really stuggled with this as I didn't like the idea of branding myself so lavishly! Ended up going for Determined, motivating and dedicated), say the alphabet backwards (I got stuck at t-s, or is it s-t?), but when I got stuck I said "Ok I can't, but I can recite pi to 35 decimal places!" and she was like "What, really? Go on then - you mean like pythagoras and that?" and I said it was Archimedes who really distinguished it, and then said "Ok, pi is 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288" and she was astounded and said "So would you say you were more mathematical than linguistic - but you're a stickler for spelling and punctuation! So are you good at memorising things?" and I said "Not really, I was just determined, motivated and dedicated enough to learn that!".
Then we had to fill out some questions and do an IQ test of which some parts were dead easy, others were dead hard. One question was what is the missing number: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,...,34 (It's the Fibonnacci Sequence: a term is given by the sum of the previous two terms, so the answer is 21 as 8+13=21 and 13+21=34).
Then on Sunday we went to the pole jam which was interesting as usual, followed by the gym session which was fun. I'm going to try to make it to the gym every week now.
Hopefully the BBC executives will think we'll make a good match for rocket scientists and cast us for the show, but who knows? It could be the drag queens or the hair dressers.Posted by Ben Nuttall at 16:37
Monday, 13 April 2009
Not The Sheffield Parkour Diaries
A little video from a few days' training with the lads back in Sheffield while home for Easter:
It's not the diaries. Honest.
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 12:49
Thursday, 5 February 2009
Parkour - The Nature Of Challenge
This is the new parkour documentary. It was produced by two good friends of mine; the legendary Paul Maunder and written by the Chairman of the British Parkour Coaching Association, Dave Sedgley. This is truly the greatest parkour documentary we have seen to date, in terms of its content (the words and the movement) and in terms of how well it was produced, putting the word of parkour out there in such a way to put the name of parkour in its proper place. It's the best thing we've ever seen in parkour.
As stated at the start of the film, its purpose is to introduce people to parkour and to correct any misconceptions the viewer may have from past explanations or natural assumptions about what parkour is based on what they may have seen.
It's in four parts and well worth taking the time to sit down, turn off any distractions and just watch and learn. You may want to click the video to be able to watch in HD.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 14:43
Thursday, 23 October 2008
BCU Student Safety Seminar
I was asked by the chairman of the canoe club if I would like to attend the BCU whitewater student safety seminar with him and the vice chairman, being a fresher who is keen to commit to kayaking and to the club and likely to be seriously involved in the club over the next few years. I jumped at the chance and we went last weekend and had a great time - it was at a whitewater & mountaineering centre called Plas-y-Brenin in North Wales, hosted by some of the greatest kayakers in the UK. It was a great experience for me to hear the opinions about gear, techniques and advice from these well-accomplished paddlers, without it being dictated to me like it has been in the past - it's great when someone can just give you their personal opinion for what it's worth, explain and justify it and leave you to hear opposing views and make sure you get the facts, rather than hammer it into you that their way is right.
We arrived at the centre before 9:00am (having got up at 5ish to set off by 6:00am). Not much to report about the journey other than us finding the following joke hilarious at the time (mostly due to lack of sleep):
I spent all yesterday in the garden with my step-ladder; not my real ladder, my step-ladder...
On the Saturday we sat through a seminar with Tom Parker about the importance of safety and avoiding at all costs the chance of an accident happening where you could be left to blame, by simply making using common sense and being sure not to take inexperienced paddlers down rivers beyond their abilities and leaving them in positions where they would be vulnerable to an accident. Then we did a session on ropework where we tested some throwlines (bags of rope used for rescues by pool lifeguards and canoeists) to see how easily they break, which was interesting! Things like this are really worth sparing no expense on to ensure you've got a good one. We did some work on how to manufacture a harness from a short length of rope and use it to climb or abseil a vertical face to get to, our out of, a river and manouvre boats in such a situation. Then I attended a talk on how to plan trips abroad from your club, which I think I'm going to pursue this Summer, probably the Alps.
We ended up staying in a grotty bunkhouse with some paddlers from Birmingham University and on the Sunday I put myself down for the session on how to lead and run steep river creeks, where we drove out to some grade four sections of rivers and chucked ourselves off some mental waterfalls and drops. The sort of experience where you do something, then look back on it and think "Woah ... that was a bit mad" but it was cool 'cause the session was aimed on how to run it safely, so we got out to inspect each difficulty when uncertainty laid ahead, and spend much time dicsussing our strategies, choosing our own lines through the water and watching each other to learn from each other's actions.
The quality (and presence) of safety equipment was very much stressed at this seminar; I now know I need to go out and spend a lot of money on new gear. I underestimated the need for good shoes (yes, canoeists need to wear shoes while boating) because you need to ensure you're safe when getting out to inspect difficult unfamiliar sections of rivers, and also when getting from the car/van/minibus to the river, and back again, as this can often prove difficult and may require a bit of climbing, lifting boats and setting up rope & pulley systems to get the boats to where they need to be. Another thing I'd overlooked was my helmet, which is perfectly suitable for paddling about on flat water (where the only likely dangers are maybe banging your head on a boat, getty or paddle) but for the sort of thing I'm doing these days I need a good quality full-protection one (not a full-face helmet - but some paddlers do choose to). One of the guys on the course said he doesn't mind spending £100 on a helmet because, quite frankly, his head is worth more than that. How true.
I haven't got any pictures from the seminar but here's one of me (looking rather angry for some reason) on the River Kent in Kendal in the Lake District last weekend:
I've treated parkour as a discipline over the last three years (my first year of parkour was more about finding my way and realising what I wanted to do than actually training - how are you supposed to train towards something if you don't know where you're going?) and now I've decided to treat kayaking the same. I'll be training & coaching every Wednesday evening at the Aquatics Centre and trying to do a river every weekend, sometimes I'll do a beginner trip on the Saturday and an advanced trip on the Sunday.
I'll be updating this blog more frequently now and I've got my next post planned for after the weekend, so watch this space. I'm seeing my parents when I go home on Friday and we're spending the weekend in London which will be awesome. I'm also getting my new laptop when I go home - I'm sure that ever since I confirmed purchase of the said laptop (using this desktop PC), and it realised it was being made redundant and replaced by a younger slimmer more portable model, it has purposefully and maliciously decided to boycott me and has been ever so slow. It's been great these last five years - its spec isn't anything to shout about but it's done everything I've needed it to do and it's brought you 55 blog posts and several videos! But it's the end of an era and I'm scarily moving on to Vista (dual-boot Linux) and may the new era of portability live long (until it gets replaced by the next technology, of course).
Labels: Kayaking, Parkour, University
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 14:45
Friday, 10 October 2008
A Fresh Start
I'm now at the end of my third week of university. I've moved away from home and now live in halls of residence in Manchester, which is a completely new experience for me. I can cook and generally fend for myself but it's still very different from being at home. I'm having a wicked time out here and loving the whole Manchester scene - the parkour's awesome, the bars and clubs are pretty cool, my flatmates are a great bunch of people and I've also joined the canoe club which is brilliant.
There are ten of us living in my flat - five boys and five girls - which sounds a lot but I think it works fine. We've each got our own room on the corridor and we share a sizey kitchen which we all use at different times so there's only ever a maximum of two or three of us cooking at once. I couldn't have asked for a nicer group of people to live with. We're all from different areas of the country (even one girl from France) and we're all completely different in person which makes us gel in that we all have something to bring to the group and there are plenty of questions bouncing off each other about all our hobbies, interests and ways of living. We all went out together the first few nights and got to know each other and the city, but now we're tending to do our own thing in smaller groups (a few of us joined different union clubs) and we're all settling in to our own ways.
In Freshers' Week I had no lectures, just introductory sessions. So after two weeks of lectures I'm feeling like I'm definitely on the right course; it's exactly what I was hoping for and I can see it being challenging enough to be worth doing, I feel like I'll be learning useful things rather than stuff that's pointless. My degree title will be BSc (Hons) Mathematics and Computer Studies - I opted for the Combined Honours programme where you pick two separate subjects and do the core modules of each rather than a single course where you do lots of extra modules. This was because I wanted to keep my options open by doing a combination of two subjects and develop a wide range of skills in two fields. Interestingly, the Maths course at my uni is very computer-oriented, and the Computing course is very Maths-oriented, so they'll go together very well.
I'm having to learn two new programming languages; M-Code for solving complex mathematical functions in an application called MATLAB (Matrix Laboratory), and Java for writing and executing programs.
My modules this year are:
- Mathematical Fundamentals
- Programming (Java)
- Discrete Mathematics
- Linear Algebra
- Programming (MATLAB)
- Computer Platforms
- Statistics
- Learning & Employability (lol)
I have the option to select a major and minor next year (i.e. do more Maths modules and fewer Computing, or vice-versa) or just leave it at 50-50. I'll see how I get on.
Maths started easy (C2) on Day One, then zoomed ahead to FP3 on Day Two, which is way more advanced than I did at A-level, but I understood the lectures and managed to do the questions afterwards so that's good. I did ICT at GCSE and A-level and learned nothing of any real use to me - everything useful I can do on computers has been self-taught. Schools just don't teach anything that's useful to people today. I'm glad to say that so far the Computing lectures and practical classes have been interesting and I can see me getting a lot out of the course.
Yesterday evening I had the best midweek parkour training session for such a long time! There were about 15 of us out, and even Sam Corbett had come over from Sheffield to see a Swiss guy called Tobias who he had met in Lisses who was staying with Scott McQuade. We did some great training for about three hours, we chatted about parkour and there was a brilliant atmosphere within the group. Then Sam departed for his train home, which he missed and so ended up staying the night at mine. We did some more jumps on Oxford Road on the way home and chilled out with a pizza and watched some Futurama! Unfortunately Sam had to set off first thing in the morning to make it back for his lectures but it was nice to have him round. The first overnight guest at my "pad".
I absolutely love the location of my accommodation. It's a maximum of five minutes away from where my lectures are, ten minutes from a massive ASDA and ten minutes from the parkour meet-up spot. Oh and canoeing takes place every Wednesday evening at the Aquatics Centre across the road. I love how I can nip home in between lectures for food or if I forgot something, it's so convenient. I can't imagine any other way now! I went on a beginners' river trip in Bury with the canoe club last weekend to get the freshers started (in fact, sue to my experience and qualifications they asked me to help lead the trip) and I'm going on an advanced trip this weekend! They've also asked me to take one of the three places on a BCU Event where you learn how to run a uni canoe club, which should be really informative and exciting! Tomorrow I'll be showing prospective students around the halls of residence (like I looked round last year).
I can see it's going to be a wicked three years. Watch this space.
Labels: Computers, Kayaking, Maths, Parkour, University
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 22:45
Sunday, 14 September 2008
Athletics?
Yesterday was officially my last parkour jam in Sheffield. I'm moving to Manchester next Saturday so I told the guys that it would be the last time I'd be training with them all before I go away to uni, and we had a great day of training in Sheffield, starting at the university and working our way down into town. When we got into town, we saw a big inflated dome at the top of fargate which turned out to be a Track & Field area for people to try out their athletic skills and they'd been recording times, distances and so on throughout the day, keeping track of the top 3 in each event on whiteboards.
A few of us stepped up to have a go and we completely smashed all their records! It was fantastic. We did the standing long jump first and cleared the leaderboard straight away, then had a few more goes each and kept bettering ourselves. I did a 3.15 metre standing jump which was matched by Jordan, seconded by Will (3.10) and then Lewis (2.90). Lewis and I beat the record for the sprint (I can't remember the distance or time) then Lewis went on to beat it again by himself. I had a go at the standing high jump (you strapped a thing round your wait and jumped vertically, allowing the string attached to your wait to measure how far you pulled it and read the reading on the screen) which was 70cm, which was the highest they'd had all day, then I got 74cm on my second go.
The event staff were very impressed that we could jump so far, jump so high and run so fast and all our training was done personally, self-taught in a group of teenagers. They invited us to come along to the proper event at the EIS (English Institute of Sport) in Sheffield, which is a multi-sport facility which is where many GB Olympic squads train, such as the GB Volleyball 2012 hopefuls. My good friend Rachel Colley is on the women's team and they train like mad at the EIS to get up to scratch for 2012.
We went along today and had a go at the running long jump into the sandpit, where we were helped out with our techniques by a coach (the world record is 8.95 metres, our jumps were around 5m, with Lewis peaking at 5.10m). We then went over to the high jump area where we were taught the Fosbury Flop technique which we found awkward but got the hang of, and I'm sure with much practise can prove to be a good method of gaining maximum height from such a jump. The thing I find with a lot of athletic events is that they're mostly useless. The only only only situation in the world where you would need to get over a pole with a one-footed take-off and land on a super soft crash mat on your back is in this event - you couldn't possibly use it anywhere else.
We also had a go at the hurdles with Sally Gunnell OBE, a former British Olympic Champion in the 400m hurdles, who showed us the proper technique for getting over hurdles, which is unfortunately something we rarely train for, because we usually overcome such obstacles using vaults (i.e. placing a hand or two on the obstacle) but it is often the case that this is not possible, so I feel it is something we should try to work on in future, and should be easy to simulate outdoors in the normal environment. It was tricky to get a good take-off and landing as well as keeping the consistency of speed in between each hurdle, but we definitely improved as we practised and got our techniques down quite well for a first session.
The team of coaches running the event were very impressed with our abilities again and I had a chat with them afterwards, they asked for my details to pass on to people who might want to get us involved somehow. It's definitely something I'd like to pursue and will probably see if I can get involved with the uni athletics club when I start. A quick bit of googling tells me there is a club and their Wednesday night sessions start back up on 1st October. Excellent. I've no idea what'll happen with this but I'll probably give it a go and see how I get on. Training this sort of thing properly will probably benefit my parkour and it may be something I could take up as well.
I've just got back into kayaking after a 2-year absence from anything challenging. I've been doing a bit of volunteer coaching and taking groups of kids down easy rivers which is rather dull, but after a day trip to Holme Pierrepoint the other week, I've decided not to give it up but to join the uni canoe club and get back into the swing of things. Check out a few photos from the day on the set on Flickr.
Also a video:
Less than a week to go before I move out of my home in Sheffield and into halls of residence in the heart of Manchester. I can't wait. I've been out to buy everything I need (which is considerably more than I thought I would need) and was given some dishes, bowls and handy utensils by my cousin Stephen who's moving to Canada this week!
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 19:21
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Connecting with Rev. Josh Through Aslan
The internet is such an extraordinary thing. While I was googling for a good picture of Aslan for the video I posted last night, I came across a blog post about a guy who had gotten himself an Aslan tattoo:
I left a comment on his blog, saying I thought the tattoo was cool and that I shared his admiration of Aslan. I tend to comment on blogs when I find them randomly, but never expect a reply - you never know when a blog is redundant or still in use. Anyway, today - I received a reply. He commented after me to thanks me for the positive comment and he wondered how I had come across his blog, so I told him I was looking for a picture of Aslan for my parkour video and linked him to my blog post with the video. He went on to comment on the video post on my blog to tell me that he had posted a new post about the random incident of connectivity between us. His post explained how I had found his blog, that he realised he can't have known me because I was from the UK (he's American), that he had never heard of parkour before he saw my video, and that he enjoyed my video (which he had embedded in the post) and compared it to Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. He finished by warning blog-reading teens not to go out and try parkour, and explained that I referred to it as "training" and mentions the bail I talked about in the post.
This guy is called Rev. Josh, and his About Me says:
"I am an ordained UCC clergyperson serving as an Associate Pastor in the Connecticut Conference. I am also into fantasy, science fiction, video games, and Dungeons & Dragons... Contradictory? You'll have to decide for yourself!"
I love how the internet brings people together like this. Remember the time I was contacted by a guy who found my secret message from Danny Wood and Paul Maunder? And you know who are always at the heart of it all? Google! It was the same for Dave Gorman who ended up flying all over the world simply because someone had entered the words 'Francophile Namesakes' into Google. For more about this see this post. Speaking of Dave, I recently discovered he has a blog, which he updates regularly - it's worth a read (and even a subscribe if you like what you see). Also check out his awesome photography portfolio (again, which he regularly adds to) on Flickr.
If you were wondering why I have a fascination with Aslan, then I suggest you read the Chronicles of Narnia. I recently read them all (as you know if you read my Pyrenees post) and even though they're written for children they're really enjoyable and thought-provoking. They helped me understand my beliefs and opened my mind to new ways of getting my head round why things happen and what there is beyond the scope of the plain-thinking view of existence. It's hard to explain but the stories put situations into a different context and use analogies to explain things that most people fail to comprehend about faith. C.S. Lewis was a genius who gained a Triple First from Cambridge, and had a thorough understanding of theological concepts and a brilliant way of telling a story. I have to admit the books are, for the most part, rather dull as not a lot happens until the very end when Aslan the King of the Beasts and son of the Emperor-Over-the-Sea comes and sorts everything out and explains everything. My favourite book was The Magician's Nephew which is where two children from Earth enter into an uninhabited world by means of magic rings made by the boy's Uncle, and they witness the creation of Narnia by Aslan. This tallies with the story of Genesis and even has a tree of forbidden fruit and shows the temptation in personal greed.
This has been a crazy post. I somehow managed to refer to four of my own blog posts, as well as four other people's blogs. Two of these people I have never met. I never plan my posts, so I tend to drift off the point and write way more than I intended. I'm working on cutting them down!
I had a great Bank Holiday Monday - I spent the day in the park with my Sister Kate and my four-year-old niece Olivia. Here are a couple of photos I took of Olivia:
With under four weeks left in Sheffield I have lots of people to see, so I need to arrange days to spend with friends I haven't seen in ages and those I won't be seeing much any more. If you didn't see yesterday's parkour video, you can watch it here. Oh and check out the new 'Post to Facebook' links which appear at the bottom and the sides of each post - click one of those to share that post on Facebook by either sending it as a link to one of your friends, or posting it directly to your profile feeds to share with anyone who visits your profile.
To close I would like to quote Rev. Josh:
"Be safe & be good to each other"
Labels: Computers, Faith, Featured, Google, Internet, Parkour, SPKD
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 00:01
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Let's Go On An Adventure, I've Got Lots To Show You
Last week you saw the revival of the Sheffield Parkour Diaries. This week I'm bringing you a parkour special edition of the recently-revived diaries with episode 15, edited by yours truly. It contains 90% parkour and just 10% silliness and promises to be entertaining and inspiring. This is a showcase of the movements we have accomplished during this week's training, and features training at the University of Sheffield English Department and also Tapton Flats, an abandoned estate outside the city centre of Sheffield. I hope you enjoy the video.
It's been a great week of training. Tuesday was horrible weather but a great session nonetheless, then we met up again on Friday and had the sickest day of training I've had in ages (in glorious weather too) and again on Saturday when we did some cool stuff even though we were very tired, but enjoyed the company of the group, talked about parkour and other stuff and had a great day.
One thing I feel I ought to mention is that I had a pretty bad fall on Tuesday. I wasn't hurt, injured or damaged in any way, but the potential was there. I did an arm-to-arm (as seen successfully executed in the video at 4:46) at Tapton Flats and it felt really good so I was raving to Will and Danny about it; they seemed a little less enthusiastic and weren't really up for giving it a try - for some reason this irritated me and I made it my mission to persuade them that it was fun and that they should try it. I was just on a buzz from this movement I'd seen, done and enjoyed. I started to get a little arrogant about it, which is odd, and did it again, but somehow slipped on take-off, missed the other wall and slid down it to the floor. It's probably a 10 or 12 foot drop from where I took off, and I slid down the side of the wall I'd failed to catch the top of, landed on my feet thinking myself lucky. I came down from the buzz and chilled myself out. The other guys tried it eventually (with a little more care than my second attempt) and found it fine.
This led me on to the point of discussion with Danny that parkour gives you a sense of immediate recovery. In a situation where you fall or slip (even in normal life situations other than training), your inner parkour comes into play and adjusts your body to where it needs to be to prevent injury. You just suddenly become aware that you are falling and in potential danger and you immediately and sub-conciously do whatever it takes to stop yourself; whether you need to put your arms and legs out, take a drop or force a roll, you just do it. This is like an extension of natural reflexes such as shutting your eyes to shield from something, ducking from something, putting your hands in front of your face or whatever. Parkour just gives us that edge, from all the practise of movements and being in unusual positions where accidents can easily happen, we're just used to adjusting quickly to defend ourselves from pain.
I used Windows Movie Maker to edit the video; I think it's a great piece of software to use, or at least it would be if it didn't crash every two minutes. I'm not kidding. I would be dragging a clip into the storyboard and then click to view the next one and ... FREEZE. Damn. I'd have to Ctrl + Alt + Del it and end the process. Then open up again, locate the project file, wait for it to load, hope that it worked and that I hadn't lost too much in the process. It's so temperamental! And incredibly hypersensitive. It just doesn't like you clicking something while it's doing something else, and instead of just ignoring you it simply freezes and there's no solution other than to close it down by means mentioned earlier, and waiting for it to load up again. That's the last time I use WMM for anything. I've used Adobe Premier and Adobe Premier Pro before (Pro was just annoying, as if they'd removed the useful features) but it's a massive application to run so not really the best option for me at the moment. I've heard good things about other software, so if anyone has any recommendations (except Paul telling me to get a Mac) they would be more than welcome.
Here are my photos from the week's training. View the photoset here.
Labels: Computers, Parkour, SPKD
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 00:46
