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/

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.

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.

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.

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We’ve started the US Freestyle Skating Association (USFSA) with a bunch of skaters from all over the country. Its for all kinds of freestyle skating, on and off cones.

We’re still working out our charter, etc, but the basic idea is to promote freestyle skating in the US. Drop on by our forums, and join the community!

One of our first events will be BattleUS, sometime in 2007!

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)