Parkour in the sun

It was really nice out yesterday. I took V and Pines to Olympic Stadium to do parkour, they had never been there and it was good times. Since the weather was so nice there were a bunch of traceurs, freerunners, tricksters and break dancers out as well. I spend the day training and show the stadium to Pines and V but right before we left I ran into a friend from PK514 who I hadn't seen since before the winter. Was a nice jam.

Street Escape and Evasion

Tonight I was at a party with some friends, it was being held at a friend's house. Turns out Pines and V were there so I was glad to see them. Met some people there and all that. Pines and V tell me that earlier they were on the roof, they'd gotten up by a fire escape that was just stairs and a ladder. We went up later just us three. However some friends who were smoking followed us up and after a while they made enough noise to get the cops called. Hearing this we all dispersed, the groups splintered I was of course with Pines and V, two smokers followed us down another fire escape into a unlit alleyway. Everyone else went down the way they came which I don't like due to predictability. In the alley we head toward the street after checking a few corners we proceeded stealthily until we hit a really tight area where we had to shimmy through. After that we got to the street.
I led Pines and V over a few fences and through a few alleys to make sure we were invisible ghosts and that the cops wouldn't find us. V wasn't too sober and he was freaking out a bit but he trusted us so it was more of an emotional problem than a physical or tactical one. We checked my friend's street saw three cop cars and casually walked past, we continued until we saw a dark dirt alley. I brought us into that where we ducked under a stair case for about ten minutes as V collected himself with a bit of reassurance from me and Pines.
After laying low in the alley for a bit we returned to the party, all our friends were outside getting ready to call it a night. We joined them and headed back to the residence. Pines and V left for the train after a few blocks and I plan on training with them at Olympic Stadium tomorrow. Other stuff happened later in the night but it wasn't ninja stuff, parkour or anything like that so I'll leave it out.

Return to the Stadium

Today after training ninjutsu at the Dojo I met up with Kusa at the Olympic stadium. It's a huge place with a ton of small spots to work on all kinds of parkour movement. I showed him all kinds of different areas and we did a lot of parkour in all areas, good training. Later we went to train in some housing projects nearby didn't want to train in a certain spot because of a group of shady dudes right near it, not sure how bad the projects around there are but it was night and I was tired no need to take stupid risks. Since the stadium training spots are mostly cement Kusa cut up hit hands a bit, but they'll get stronger in the long run. Nice Jam. Got back, are food then watched Point B with Kusa. If you haven't seen it watch it, it's a documentary, but not the boring kind. http://www.pointbmovie.com/Watch.html

Shinobi Schooling

I decided it was time to teach Pines some stealth and escape stuff, to see if he was into that kinda thing. He has the potential to be part of my group of operatives. Teaching began two days ago:
Equipment:
Me:
Black martial arts pants
Black tank top
Black short sleeve
Woodland sleeveless jacket
Black water shoes
Pines:
Brown cargo pants
Red short sleeve
Black hoodie
Black high top converse

We met up later than usual the sky was getting dark but it wasn't night yet. We went to a parkour spot we call "the Fort" after food and I explained some shinobi-iri (infiltration) and some gotonpo (5 elements escape evasion). Once we were there we did parkour and I taught different walking techniques for stealth and enclosed spaces. We moved onto our next parkour spot taking a few short cuts and passing a police station which we may revisit one night soon.
After training more parkour at the next spot (a place we call "Black Marble" because it's made of...) I taught Pines different night awareness techniques to increase the sense at night. We checked the time (we were gonna go to a house party later) and decided we wanted to check out a spot in one of our campus buildings, a small dark passage we found unlocked. We ran around trying to find a flashlight until we realized that there was a pharmacy right in front of us that sold them. Armed with our lights we headed towards the building we planned on exploring took the elevator up and headed up a bit further on the service staircase to the small door.
Once we went in and closed it behind us we turned our lights on and were disappointed. We were on a small ledge near a huge fall filled with vents, and insulated pipes. Somewhere above us was a catwalk, but climbing in pitch darkness with a flashlight didn't really tickle my fancy so we left and explored the building some more. We found some interesting stuff including an entrance to the service elevator that didn't require a key which could get us on any floor that was inaccessible otherwise. We left after that.
We planned on getting a ride from a friend to a house party but he was out eating with his girlfriend and was taking hours (literally), Pines got tired of waiting and we went back outside to explore roofs on such a nice night. I told him that I knew a few roofs behind the building we had explored. The roof I planned on climbing was close to a group of people so we climbed up a staircase on the building across from it and then took a ladder to the roof. After walking around and looking around we saw that no one was on the ground level anymore and we could climb the roof we initially planned to climb. We headed down another staircase and ended up in a backyard full of old bikes, we took a small unlocked passage under a house and got to the street. From there we took more fire escape stairs to the roof, where Pines realized that we were across the street from a friend of his who's window we could see. After giving a call and finding that they weren't home we bounced to the closest alley.
This was a shady alley, complete with flickering lights and silhouettes of homeless people. After we walked through it once (avoiding said silhouettes) we waited on the other side for a bit then went back in without running into people. We found a ladder at the top of a staircase and climbed onto the roof, I guess we were near above a restaurant because it smelled of sex and fish. We walked around and enjoyed the view (we were looking down on a well lit street full of bars and clubs Smile ). On our way down we heard a girl scream, me and Pines looked at each other and rushed to the edge of the rooflet we were on and peeked over ready to kick some rapist ass. Turned out to be a drunk girl running around with her friends (so much for shady alleys...). We remained hidden until the alley cleared out and then left, we saw a chick smoking in a dark doorway, which looked pretty creepy since we could see her cig, the smoke and her knees only. We went to another alley across the street.
In between alleys we ran into the guy who was supposed to drive us to the house party, he had finally finished eating and was heading home. He said he'd call us when he was ready to go. We crossed the street and entered the last alley of the night.
It turned out to be a place we had trained a long time ago in the beginning of the school year. We had seen a fire escape with the stair case pulled up and decided to come back and do it at night, three months later I guess it was time. A wall run and some quick climbing got us onto the fire escape. Once on the rooflet (one story up out of three) I noticed a guy in a lit window so I crouch ran onto a fire escape on the same height level and flattened myself against the wall out of sight, as soon as Pines head appeared between the ladder bars I signed that he move fast. Ironically the fire escape we were now on was covered in barbed wire on the ground level but easily accessible from the rooflet of the adjacent building (where we were), no point locking a glass door. We ascended and crouched behind a wooded plank attached to the side a staircase (a make shift climb-proofing I'm assuming) while people on ground level passed underneath us. We climbed a ladder that had a wood cover with the lock rusted off (probably taggers or something). We hung out on that roof for a bit (the people who owned the buildings we were on had set up a couch and tables and had clearly partied up there before. We left when Pines got a call from his friend who was ready to go to the party, we hid a bit while we waited for the alley to empty out the descended and jogged to his apartment. Guy didn't drive us but he did pay for the cab ride...

A full night that proves that people still don't look up...

Maps:

Urban Exploration

Parkour has become a weekly thing with me and Pines, Kusa shows up sometimes, and Pines friend shows up a lot (we'll call him V). This week was ugly out (rain) and we all met up and went to a pillow fight in our city.
After the fight, (it was short but intense) we headed to a spot that Pines heard of from his brother, an old abandoned factory. We all talked while we were going there and I really feel Pines would make a good BSC ninja. I'm gonna start training him in BSC Ryu Ninpo soon.
At the factory the ground was really really muddy and walking through it quietly was slow and nasty. Not much on the first floor besides mud and some cement blocks. Upstairs however...
It looked great, lots of nice colorful graffiti and some spots of the ceiling were missing which let in rain and light which was very pleasing to the eye. As we walked around and checked the place out Pines signaled for silence and let us know a guy was around the corner, either a bum or a druggie I assumed because they had "gotten up" according to Pines and taggers and explorers don't go to sleep in abandoned places.
We left quietly and headed out of the building climbing a small fence on the way out. After that some parkour in the rain on a nearby playground. We're gonna wear grey from now on when we explore and red for parkour, because red isn't as stealthy as we'd like when it's bright out.