January 2009 newsletter

My skating news

Just to remind you that I'm running my Sunday Stroll course this month, which is an excellent way to get the skills necessary to do a Sunday Stroll. Students who have come on this course before have gone on to do Sunday Strolls, so I know it works!

I've scheduled a 1 day course for 14th February to coincide with my Valentines Day offer: if you and your partner (or just a friend) want to attend together then one of you goes FREE! If you're struggling to find the time to do the more thorough Sunday Stroll course then this is an ideal opportunity to get your skating started.

You might also have noticed that I've been working quite heavily on this website over Christmas. Hopefully everything is more accessible. If you want up-to-date news I recommend subscribing to the RSS feed or, if you're on Twitter, you might like to follow me (@mattdenner) as I've signed up myself.

I've got some exciting stuff going on behind the scenes at the moment and a couple of big ideas, which will be announced over the coming months. I can't say much at the moment but, whether you're from the UK or abroad, I'm hoping you'll appreciate some of the things I'll be doing. Best thing to do is subscribe to the RSS feed where you'll get the latest news as soon as I post about it.

Courses Coming Up

Here are a few courses that I'm going to be running in the next few months. Each one of these courses gives you access to the students area, which is like your own personal skating manual.

Sunday Stroll

This is a 3 lesson course, costing just £30, that will give you everything you need to cope with the Sunday Stroll, or just to get you skating well.

Booking ID	Dates
C-SS-01	07-Mar-2009 14:00-15:30, 08-Mar-2009 15:00-16:30, 15-Mar-2009 14:00-15:30

You can find more information, and book onto any run of this course, by visiting the Sunday Stroll page.

1-Day Skater

Finding timing in the 21st Century to make courses that happen over multiple weeks can be hard! So this course happens on one day, costs just £20, and will get you skating in no time.

Booking ID	Dates
1DS-01	14-Feb-2009 11:00-12:30, 14-Feb-2009 13:30-15:00

You can find more information, and book onto any run of this course, by visiting the 1-Day Skater page.

Skating Events

Crashed Ice

This being winter the weather can be, and has been, against us inline skaters. So many of the skating community take to the ice but I doubt many of them get involved in Crashed Ice: an extremely scary combination of speed, hockey style pads, bladercross, and extremely sharp ice skate blades. You have to watch the video, and the others on their website, to get an idea of just how this event works!

But this event has become popular outside of the UK and, this year on 24th January, it's on again. Flights out to Quebec aren't looking too pricey and I wish I could go; maybe next year I'll try to organise a trip because it looks awesome.

The Great Eskate

As I mentioned in December's newsletter, the Great Eskate is happening in February. Looks like it should be a lot of fun but, one thing worthy of note is that, Naomi's slalom retreat appears to have been delayed by a week for a really good reason: there's a launch from Kennedy Space Centre on 12th February. Suddenly I wish I was going!

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.

Aggressive Skating Videos

Here are some trailers for aggressive skating videos that are out, or soon to be in your local stores.

Here's a wonderfully shot video which appeals to me, not necessarily because of the skating but, because of the lighting:

Roller Derby

The NY Times has an article on Roller Derby entitled The Dude of Roller Derby and His Vision (found via Digg). Roller Derby has been quietly growing a following in the UK, amongst men & the women competitors, and the article gives some insight into its modern origins:

Policarpo liked that the sport was circular. He liked that part a lot. He liked the kinetic energy. He envisioned low lighting, quick flashes of red, blue and green, glow sticks, drummers, a cramped track, violence and microphones everywhere. He wanted women "with tattoos, Bettie Page haircuts and guts."

If you're looking for information on Roller Derby in the UK you could do worse than look at London Rollergirls, which has information on the London based league and have turned up in the park at least once, or you'll probably find a league for you on Wikipedia (covers lots of them!). And then there's Fracture Magazine that has a Derby 101 section that should get you started.

And, in case you want to know what it looks like, here's a video from London Rollergirls with the highlights of their 2008 season:

Xuan Le

Having reviewed quite a few slalom videos recently, when looking at the World Slalom Championships, I've come to believe that Xuan Le is awesome! The way his moves flow, his style, and his sense of rhythm to the music that's playing is incredible and, in my opinion, to be aspired to by all skaters. Check out these two videos:

Other instructors

New Blog for Aggressive and Freeride skating

David, manager of Club Blue Room (one of London's largest skate shops) and familiar face on the skate scene, has launched his own blog: Custom Roller.