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Stacy wrote a great review of our PSWC Trip, so i’ll just link to it instead of making up my own less articulate version:

http://www.freestyleskaters.org/2007/06/11/paris-slalom-world-cup/

The venue for BattleUS has finally been approved! We’ll be holding it at Riverbank State Park in NYC. Its a nice outdoor skating rink with a roof overhead, and not too far from Central park (maybe a 15 minute skate, i’ll need to try it out to be sure)

Now there’s tons of other details to figure out, but its a huge relief to have the venue squared, because i’ve officially announced it and people can start buying plane tickets, etc.

Once i get back from PSWC, BattleUS planning will take up most of my free time.

Me and Stacy will both be going to the Paris Slalom World Cup, one of the biggest freestyle slalom competitions on the planet! We’ll both be there for about a week, so there will be plenty of time to learn slalom moves from all the great skaters that will be there. I’m really excited about seeing all the skaters i’ve met from France, London and Germany. I’m also very excited to be going to the city where freestyle slalom seems to have come from. Sebastien, Vinz, Igor, Skali, Olivier are all from France and these are some of the biggest names in the sport!

I almost was not able to go, because tickets were very expensive, but my very awesome and supportive wife cashed in all her frequent flyer miles to get me a ticket.

There’s going to be an amateur and pro category, but I decided to go for the pro group because I think I was on the borderline in germany, and besides, Naomi not-to-subtly called me out in her inlineplanet article:

The German competition in Bremen took a different approach and split the competitors into Pro and Amateur. (I don’t think Jeremy will be competing in the amateur section again!)

So I guess its time for me to start getting beat up by skaters who are leaps and bounds better than me. Which is all good by me, since thats what I did at BattleUK, where there was no amateur group.

So wish me luck. And by that I mean that I’m lucky enough to learn a few new moves while I’m there, and maybe do well enough to move up just one level in the battle pyramid!

UPDATE: Seba told me to consider doing the Amateur Battle, since there will be many great skaters in that category, he said i’d have more fun, so I switched.

Ken, one of my students at Drexel, and I have started a Drexel club for freestyle skating. We were able to get use of the ROTC Armory as a place to practice in the winter, which is great! Next week we’ll be trying to get everyone some decent skates.

Also, there’s an article on inlineplanet about my trip to Bremen.

Mark your calendars for the premier freestyle workshop in the US:

Naomi Grigg is coming to Philadelphia the weekend of June 23rd & 24th.

Sat & Sun morning will be the advanced workshop
Sat & Sun afternoon will be the beginner workshop

Naomi’s workshop is behind just about every US slalom skater who can do more than the crazy, so don’t miss this chance to literally add anywhere from 5 to 15 tricks to your arsenal!

I did the beginner workshop last year and i’ll be doing the advanced one this year.

So today it was something like 70 degrees (F) with blue skies and the sun shining down. I was actually out skating in a T-shirt, and I was hot! The whole time felt very surreal for January, but I had a great skate anyway. Some great people from the past came out, Tom & Sarah, and John Franke.

I gave out lots of USFSA stickers, and practiced cones while Tom & Sarah’s daughter Emma ran around the Art Museum area.

This past weekend I travelled to Bremen, Germany to attend the first Freestyle Slalom Festival. It was a great event with a huge turnout. I’m sure it will become an annual freestyle spot now. The weekend was a great balance of competitions and just doing slalom with everyone when no official competitions were underway. Practicing with all the big names like Seba, Igor, JB, Phil and Nathan was worth the trip alone, never mind that I actually won the amateur battle! Here’s my write up of the weekend.

We did tons of skating over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A small group of skaters showed up Friday night including Seba and Igor, so our small group got to take advantage of some personal training time with the two of them. This totally rocked! Seba worked on heeling and toe-heel spinning with me, both of which I was able to put into my battle runs thanks to his help.

On saturday we skated for at least a few hours before any official events started which was great, because i got to meet tons of skaters, and so many great skaters showed me things i didn’t know yet. Overall this event had tons of unstructured time for skaters to do whatever they wanted, which really made it worth the trip. The “Rollersport Staddion” where it all took place is basically a perfectly smooth cement floor the size of three basketball courts at least. It was perfectly level too.

Read the rest of this entry »

This past weekend my friend Christophe generously offered to host a freestyle skate weekend inside an empty building he has access to. Evan, Denni, Christope, Rosicel, and I had a great time, skating for around 12 hours over saturday and sunday. Christophe’s wife and daughters joined us sunday as well.

Having Christophe, who is just getting into slalom and Evan who is starting to apply his own unique skating style to slalom really made the weekend much more fun than just Denni and myself. I think both Evan and Christophe are hooked on the cones (Christophe already bought two pairs of Sebas!) I ‘ve got tons of video to comb through and make a movie for the weekend (about 5 hours!) so i hope you enjoy the video when its done.

Denni and I are definitely getting better; our skating is more smooth and relaxed, and we each learned a few new things. The real star of the weekend, though, was Evan. Skating freestyle has been his past time for years, but until recently, he only made fun of Naomi for being into those silly cones. Now he’s applying the skills he’s built up over the years to the cones, and the result is unlike anything i’ve seen from either the asian or european slalom scenes. I suspect when people see his slalom skating they’ll start talking about it.

Another great freestyle weekend. Check out the videos:

Winter Warehouse Land
Shoot the Duck!

Me, Denni, Stacy and a few others are mentioned in Naomi’s latest freestyle article on inlineplanet.com. Woot!

We’ve started the US Freestyle Skating Association (USFSA) with a bunch of skaters from all over the country. Its for all kinds of freestyle skating, on and off cones.

We’re still working out our charter, etc, but the basic idea is to promote freestyle skating in the US. Drop on by our forums, and join the community!

One of our first events will be BattleUS, sometime in 2007!