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)

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!