Archive for the ‘Slalom Event’ Category
Sep 17, 2007
Well, we had BattleUS last week, and it was really an awesome week! There’s the obvious things like all the great skaters and learning new tricks, but we even had plenty of great food, and drew some rather large crowds at Union Squre.
The Union Square sessions
On Wednesday night, Sebastien and Naomi met us at Union Square for our usual skating. We had a much bigger turn out, though, and the energy was really high. Then on Friday, Phil and Jim (from the UK) and Igor, Chloe and Olivier (From France) joined us, and as you can imagine it got even more interesting. The mix of Union Square freestyle with European freestyle slalom actually drew quite a large crowd. So big, in fact, that a break dancing performance that was originally on the other side of the square (two blocks away) actually moved their show right next to us to try to get their crowd back! After these two nights, I was already content with how the event had turned out, and it hadn’t even “officially” begun yet!
The Competitions
The International Battle was great to watch, and we even had two Americans make it to the semi finals (Evan and myself both got 3rd in our semi-final groups, just missing the finals, and tying for 5th place). Then came the US Battle, which was also pretty exciting. You could really see each skater pushing their limits to try and do their best. The top four were me, Evan, Stacy and Denni. Next we had an off-cones freestyle battle, with Team USA vs Team World. It was a bit light hearted and involved lots of trash talk between the teams, but the audience decided that Team USA was the better freestyle team, giving two of the top three spots (1st & 3rd) to Americans. Oh we did speed slalom as well :P.
Battle US 2007 Results
The Food
I’d be letting a major part of the event slip if I didn’t mention all the great restaurants that the local New York skaters took us too. We had a tour of asia, with some of the best Japanese, Schechaun and Korean food I’ve ever had. Thanks to Pete, Shawn and Young-sang for picking great places to eat.
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Jun 20, 2007
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/
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May 11, 2007
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.
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Mar 7, 2007
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.
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Jan 17, 2007
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.
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Posted in Slalom Event
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Dec 12, 2006
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.
(more…)
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Oct 11, 2006
I spent last weekend in the UK for the first annual BattleUk freestyle slalom competition. It was so much fun, and it boosted my passion for the sport of freestyle slalom. I made loads of new friends, got to skate with so many great skaters, and even learned a few things. I got 8th in the free jump which totally surprised me since I wasn’t planning on even doing it. Plus I got some more training time with Naomi, and got to meet Sebastien, whose videos on universkate.com are what inspired me to learn freestyle slalom in the first place. Oh, and I bought a suitcase full of slalom cones for my friends, since they aren’t available in the US.
Let me give you some background, since freestyle slalom is so new to the US. Traditionally, competitions have been run by the IFSA. In these competitions, judges watch all of the competitors perform their “routine” which is about 1.5 minutes. Then they try to rank them using a fairly complex system defined by the IFSA. I’ll not go into the details here, because you can find a number of heated debates about the IFSA rules elsewhere online.
In a Battle competition, which is not run by IFSA, you get placed into groups of 4 or 5 based on your qualification run. The qualification run is about a minute, and allows the judges to spread out the skill level of each group (preventing all the top skaters from being in one group). Once you’re in your battle groups, all four of you go out to the floor. You each take turns doing quick runs of about 30 seconds, doing a total of 4 runs each. This allows you to adapt based on what your opponents are doing, and it also allows you to be less conservative, since each run is scored separately from the others.
When I was younger, I was a competitive figure quad skater, and the figure skating world has a very similar tension that you can see in the slalom world: some feel that the judging system is too restrictive and limits creativity and expression. Using my figure skating competition experiences, I’d have to say that Battle style competitions create a strong sense of companionship and fun, while traditional competitions foster isolating the competitors from each other, and stress. Its not an uncommon thought to wish your opponent to mess up in a figure skating competition, but at BattleUk, I really wanted every one to do great, and I felt like they wanted me to as well. Being on the floor with my group while each of them skated really sucked me into wanting everyone to do well. Instead of sitting on the side by myself, I felt like I was with them, and this made me get excited when they did a cool trick.
During the event I was mostly hanging out with other skaters and everyone just just had a lot of fun. On saturday night we all went out for a city skate in Nottingham, which was a blast, and then killed the night at a local pub. Finally, back in London, Naomi, French JB and I went for a late night skate through London, where I skated on the Queens steps, and she was home, because the flag was up.
As you can tell, I totally loved it, and will be going to more competitions when I can. Next on my plate is organizing BattleUS, and improving my skills, so that I can win more than just the prize for coming the longest distance (Yes, I actually won that prize, which made me feel very welcome at the competition. I got a nice set of slalom wheels and a Robin Hood hat and bow & arrow). If you’re wondering where I placed, its hard to say, since I didn’t progress out of my initial group. I was very satisfied with my performance though, and it was exciting to be the first american to compete in any freestyle slalom competition!
Oh, and a huge thanks to AcidEdge (Jim), Mark and others for organizing and all the other people who contributed in anyway. I can’t thank you enough!
There are a couple videos of my battle group (Olivier, Max, Samy, and Me):
»Mine, thanks for holding the camera Luke! (mpg)
»Miles Video, from the other angle (wmv)
And here’s the video of the finals (Igor, Seba, Olivier, JB):
»From Universkate (mpg)
»From Miles (wmv)
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Oct 3, 2006
I just spent 3 1/2 hours practicing for BattleUk. I’ve been nervous up till tonight, but i realized the best thing about going is that there will be tons of good skaters there who I can learn stuff from. Whatever happens in the battle is fine with me if i get to skate with all them!
So in order to do my best i’ve been practicing. Brian Lipko came out tonight for about 1 1/2 hours which made it easier for me to keep going. I finally got the front volte down pretty well today, and I’m starting to do runs without completely planning them out first, which is definitely good for the battle style competitions. I’ve been focusing on the 80cm cones almost exclusively now… hope that doesn’t hurt me this weekend.
Anyway, wish me luck! I’ve only got tomorrow night left to practice!
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Sep 3, 2006
I just bought my ticket to London for the BattleUk freestyle slalom competition! It’ll be my first competition, and I’m psyched, and a bit nervous!
I have 1 month to get my stuff together and practice, will be sure to let you know how it goes.
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Posted in Slalom Event
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Aug 13, 2006
Dennis, Phila-Jeff & I did Naomi’s workshop this weekend, and it was great! I’m very happy that we were able to organize it on such short notice. Over the two days, I got the basics down for tons of tricks. Before I could just do Crazy and Mabrouk, but now I have learned Volte, Italian, Nelson, Crazy Sun, X, Wiper and the cool Sweep move from Naomi’s video as well as the front stroll, back stroll, barrel roll and a handful of freestyle (non-slalom) moves that I don’t know the names of (one was the grapevine, but Evan had already taught me that). Better still, Naomi taught us some good tricks for mixing moves together, using either Crazy or Mabrouk as a “soup base” to throw other moves into. That way you always know what you’ll do before and after a move, which takes a lot of the mental block out of doing a real freestyle run.
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Freestyle Skater (RSS)
On Wednesday night, Sebastien and Naomi met us at Union Square for our usual skating. We had a much bigger turn out, though, and the energy was really high. Then on Friday, Phil and Jim (from the UK) and Igor, Chloe and Olivier (From France) joined us, and as you can imagine it got even more interesting. The mix of Union Square freestyle with European freestyle slalom actually drew quite a large crowd. So big, in fact, that a break dancing performance that was originally on the other side of the square (two blocks away) actually moved their show right next to us to try to get their crowd back! After these two nights, I was already content with how the event had turned out, and it hadn’t even “officially” begun yet!
I’d be letting a major part of the event slip if I didn’t mention all the great restaurants that the local New York skaters took us too. We had a tour of asia, with some of the best Japanese, Schechaun and Korean food I’ve ever had. Thanks to Pete, Shawn and Young-sang for picking great places to eat.