My skating news

No teaching in December

I've decided that I'm not going to be teaching in December. This year has been an interesting experience, considering it's been my first year teaching: the weather has played havoc with lessons and my accident in the middle of summer could have been better timed. Now the days are extremely short which just doesn't help. So December is going to be a month for me to work on some of my personal skating skills and prepare for next year.

Skating Events

Santa Skate

A quick reminder for those of you that have either forgotten, or missed the announcements: the Santa Skate 2008 will be on the 13th December.

If you want to do this skate but are worried about your skills, or have never skated before, then take a look at my Santa Skate course which will give you everything you need. I might even throw in mince pies if I can find any.

Stuff seen on the WWW

I've been wandering around the WWW looking for interesting skating articles and videos; so here's the best I've seen in recent weeks. Note that I am not responsible for the content of external third party websites or videos; some music and commentary found in such videos may contain language of an offensive nature.

If you have seen anything you think is interesting, contact me and I'll consider putting it into future newsletters.

Why kids make good skaters

As a kid I used to do some stupid things on BMX bikes; as an adult skater I take a lot less risks. Why? Because I'm scared of getting hurt (and I'm a little further from the ground now!). Here's a video of some kids doing aggressive skating, just to prove their lack of fear!

Found via Daily Motion.

I so want a pair of these...

Deshi are making a new pair of skates and they're due out in December. The Deshi Carbon skates are made of leather and carbon fibre, which makes them extremely light: at 700g, for both skates, they're almost as light as speed skates and yet they're aggressive skates.

Found via rollernews.com.

I'm looking to try a pair on, not to use as aggressive skates, but to have a street skating frame fitted so that I can skate in comfort around town. At £200, for just the boots, it may be a while (or a Christmas Present to myself) before I get them!

Other instructors

Naomi Grigg's Slalom Retreat

Mahbrook. Sun. Nelson. Volte. It probably sounds like gibberish to most of us but to Naomi Grigg these are like breathing: all of them basic slaloming moves. And I got the chance to attend her Slalom Retreat Week tester and, don't tell anyone, I had an absolutely brilliant time! I'm not a slalomer, I've never had the patience to practice one thing for hours-and-hours on end (I probably shouldn't be telling my students that!) but, for this week, I did.

It all started Monday afternoon when a few of us who were attending her course bumped into each other on Serpentine Road, in Hyde Park. As the rain came in late in the afternoon we wandered up to Paddington Station for a coffee in the dry, and then across to Naomi's flat for the evening meeting. It was here that the group got to meet each other, find out what the course was about, and determine what we wanted to get from it. There was a very wide range of skill sets present: I put myself in the category of "I know what a cone is but I've never really done anything 'slalomey'", whereas there was Tim Schraepen who's a member of Naomi's slalom team. But rather than being intimidated by the rest of the groups skill level I actually found it inspiring, plus they were all really nice and friendly.

So Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were designed to have 4 one-and-a-half hour sessions: the first would be about learning a new skill, the second would be about linking moves together, the third theory and video review, and the final session would be about improving your slaloming technique. Friday followed a pretty similar pattern except that the afternoon session, for us, stretched into a 3 hour chat and watching Naomi's slalom video choices.

Tuesday we learnt the Sun, along with the Swinging Basket Weave; Wednesday was the Crazy and Volte; Thursday meant the Nelson Family; Friday we did Mahbrook and Italian (or as I came to call it "the vomit inducing spinning thing"). All of these are "families" of moves: the Crazy and the Volte are similar in nature, as are Mahbrook and Italian. I've got to say that I absolutely loved Tuesday, Thursday and Friday but I just couldn't get the hang of the 2-cone crazy, which meant the Volte was out of the question. But that's what this was about: pushing your abilities.

Naomi describes slaloming as falling, which pleased Mike as he's into all that speed skating stuff which has the same philosophy, and once you got into that, and followed her advice about posture and other tips, things really did feel better. I particularly found her advice helpful when doing forward and backward Nelsons, but things like the Swinging Basket Weave helped you build that confidence.

I can't recommend this course enough; before it started, being completely honest, I wasn't sure I was actually going to enjoy it as much as I did. My one piece of advice, and this might not be true for her future camps, is that I think you need a basic foundation in slaloming: if you can forwards and backwards criss cross and snake through cones you'll get more.

And no, there are no videos of me cone dodging! Any that do exist might have a slight "accident"!