skate

BattleUK II - Attack of the Cones

Well, i’m a bit late in writing, but since BattleUK was my first event last year, I guess I should write something now that I’ve been going to competitions for a full year.

I’m pretty happy with my performance. My goal was to get into the quarter finals, which i did. I also almost made it into the semi finals. Me and Mark Kempton both had to skate an extra run because the judges couldn’t decide who to send into the semis. In the end Mark won, and I left proud of my self, carrying a new resolve to add some more technical tricks to my arsenal. Overall I placed 9= (which means i tied with 4 other skaters for 9th place) out of 22 skaters, i think.

While i was there I got a new pair of the 2008 Seba Highs, which i’m working on breaking in currently.

Naomi and I also discussed details of starting a world freestyle team, which i’ll write more about soon.

my quarter final group

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Winter Warehouse Land

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!

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Boston July 4th 2006

So, we went up to Boston on the 4th, as planned. Brodie and everyone we met were very friendly, and open minded enough to try out our “Euro” style slalom. Then when it rained everyone came over to the bridge we had set up under, and skated with us for a few hours, while the 6ft spaced large american cones got rained on.

All in all it was very fun, and we’ll be going back next year, i’m sure. Head over to the videos page to check out videos of all the people we met.

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‘The Crazy’ & New Location

Lots of new stuff going on. First I got a new digital camcorder, so the movies aren’t crappy still camera avi’s. Second, I found a new location (thanks to Josh) that’s perfect! Its under i95 at front & washington ave (philadelphia) so it’s covered by the highway. The pavement is really smooth because cars can’t get to it (not sure why its even paved, but hey, no complaints). There’s even a slight slope at one part, which was fun to play on for a while, till i got sick of speeding up and knocking over all the cones.

Oh and third, I learned a new trick. I’ve been watching Naomi Grigg’s tutorial on ‘The Crazy’ like once a day until i memorized how it worked. Today I did it for the first time.

I’ve got a major hot spot on my foot. The Twister’s have this plastic power strap built in, but the place where it connects to the skate is right over a bone in my foot, and it kinda sticks into the skate more than it should. I think i’m going to get some wire at home depot tomorrow and attach it in a different way to avoid it rubbing my ankle.

Check out the videos, i trimmed and edited them in iMovie, so all the dead air of me skating around before and after each run is gone.

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An old school video

Rocking it Philly style. If i didn’t live in Philly i doubt I would have ever learned this.

click here for the video of me skating down the Art Museum Steps

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