The metal equipment in this outdoor gym at a south London park is all made from melted knives taken off the streets. Now it’s become a focus for people to sharpen their skills and strength
It looks like Jay Chris is waving to the crowd with his legs. The bare-chested, two-time world calisthenics champion is performing a “flag handstand” atop parallel bars, a tricky manoeuvre in which he keeps his upper body straight while bending his lower limbs to one side. “I think that image gives a sense of the performative aspect of calisthenics,” says Bertie Oakes, the photographer behind the shot. “It’s a bit like skateboarding or breakdancing where you have a crowd circled around a person, who does what they can for a minute or two, and then someone else jumps in.” Muscles pulse, music pulsates and, he says, “everyone shouts encouragement.”
The picture was taken on a sunny afternoon in April and, like others in a new series by Oakes, it provides a snapshot of a community that has flourished over the past year at an unassuming outdoor gym in south London. In this corner of Ruskin Park, Lambeth, friendships have been forged over planches, muscle-ups, back levers and other moves from calisthenics, a type of strength training that’s sometimes called “street workout” or even “street gymnastics” owing to the way participants contort their bodies. (It uses bars and bodyweight and includes reps-based exercises, “static” holds and “dynamic” moves such as swinging and spinning.)