Slalom - Slow
This is a playlist for the start (warm up part) or end (cool down) of a practice session.  My legs are super relaxed and move through the cones very easy and gentle at the beginning of a session so I thought it would be good to have a relaxed type playlist.  This playlist also calms me down at the start of a session if I’ve just come from a stressful situation (like work).

How to Save a Life               The Fray                               How To Save A Life
Waiting On the World to Change   John Mayer                             Single
Chasing Cars                     Snow Patrol                            Eyes Open
The Riddle (You & I)             Five For Fighting
Over My Head (Cable Car)         The Fray                               How to Save a Life
My Immortal                      Evanescence                            Fallen
Island in the Sun                Weezer                                 Weezer (Green Album)

Slalom - Speed
This list is for when I’m practicing moves that I know well.  I use this list to practice these moves in a super speed manner.  This is also where I practice putting in transitions randomly to different moves.  It tests how fast I can transition and also how spontaneous I can be with my runs.

London Bridge                    Fergie                                 Single
Black Horse and the Cherry Tree  KT Tunstall                            Eye to the Telescope
White & Nerdy                    "Weird Al" Yankovic                    Straight Outta Lynwood
Peanut Butter Jelly Time         Chip-Man & The Buckwheat Boyz          EP
Sugar, We're Goin Down           Fall Out Boy                           From Under the Cork Tree

Slalom - Moves
The “Moves” playlist is designed to make me want to look good while doing moves.  It motivates me to do a “bad ass” version of all the moves I know, emphasizing style.  This list is very good to use when wanting to work on how each move looks and where my arms are and what kind of beat the music has and how I can present the move so that it flows with the beat.

Promiscuous Girl                 Nelly Furtado                          Loose
Dirty Little Secret              The All-American Rejects               Move Along
Move Along                       The All-American Rejects               Move Along
London Bridge                    Fergie                                 Single
White & Nerdy                    "Weird Al" Yankovic                    Straight Outta Lynwood
Remember the Name                Fort Minor featuring Styles of Beyond  The Rising Tied
3 Rs                             Jack Johnson                           Curious George Soundtrack
Shake                            Ying Yang Twins                        U.S.A (United States of Atlanta)
Sugar, We're Goin Down           Fall Out Boy                           From Under the Cork Tree

Slalom - Control
These are songs that I use to help me learn control when doing moves.  The idea is to be motivated to do the moves slow and very controlled.  This is best when at the end of a practice session while I’m super tired.  Very good for working on technique.

Yea                              Usher featuring Ludacris
Snap Yo Fingers                  Lil Jon featuring E-40 & Sean Paul     Single
Run It                           Chris Brown Big Mike And Big Stress
Shake                            Ying Yang Twins                        U.S.A (United States of Atlanta)

  

I’ve had the best few days skating!  I learned a few new tricks: 

1. Front Italian 
2. Total Cross 
3. One foot backwards 

These few tricks I tried for the first time in the past few days and out of practicing the crazy over and over and over and over, all three of these seemed a bit natural (The first two still make me insanely dizzy). 

I’ve also discovered a trick that we talked about on here a bit which is the Greasy Italian.  It might go under another name but that’s what I’m callin it.  I still don’t have a video of it yet. 

There’s another one that I started doing but again, I’m not sure what it’s called.    It’s a varialtion of the backwards snake and backwards stroll.  I’ll have to up a video of that too. 

That makes five new things that I’ve started practicing since last week.  Very exciting!

Just got back from practicing for a few hours. I wanted to spend the night working on the moves themselves, and tomorrow i’ll work on transitions between them. Tonight, i learned a couple new moves (spent some time on the universkate videos page first):

1) One Cone Stroll
2) Special

I tried to remember the front volte from seba’s video, but couldn’t figure it out… hmm sounds like a justification for an ipod video…

The Special is kind of cool. I didn’t realize this till after i started doing it right, but its just the X, but you’re only on your toes the hole time. Being so close to the X, its easy to transition into and out of from the X, and therefor all the other moves that I can link with X.

I also practiced my old moves (Crazy and Mabrouk) and all the moves Naomi showed me at the workshop:

More »

Just posted a new video. Its pretty good, since its not just the crazy over and over and over…

Practicing new moves

I just got back from the basketball court across the street. When I go out for these solo sessions, I aim to learn something I didn’t know before about slalom. Here is what I learned tonite in about 30 minutes of learning the new trick Jeremy learned:

1. 80cm is a good width apart for this trick. It might be easier at 40cm.

2. Six cups stacked, of the cups we bought at Walmart, is a good enough stack of cups to withstand a pretty heavy gust of wind.

3. Thirteen cups in a line, or an odd amount, is good for going back and forth over the cones without stopping. I started out with a forward cross on the first cone, down the line forward crossing. At the last cone, I did the last of the forward crosses, then did the cool stop and go thing of the crazy to reverse direction. Then did backwards cross down the line to the last cone which was a cross, then did the cool stop and go thing of the crazy to reverse direction. Then did more forward crosses, and so on and so forth and so hence forth on and forth, fifth and sixth.

4. Doing the Crazy, I haven’t figured out the best angle to start with. I don’t know if it’s easier to do back and forth straight then diagonal, or do all diagonals. But I learned that the angle at which one starts with matters.

5. Doing the Crazy, I haven’t figured out how far out to go. But I learned the distance one goes out from each cone matters.

6. The laces around my ankles need to be tightened for more support from my skates.

7. Doing the Crazy, going from backwards to forwards is harder than the opposite.

8. I want to rocker my wheels as soon as possible.

So, I suppose you could say I learned enough for about eight sessions. It was a good 30 minutes.

Last time Jeremy was here, I bent one of the metal lace loops. I fixed it with some pliers. Good stuff.

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.

I’ve been looking around for places to skate. Last Tuesday, (I know it was a while ago…) a few of us went looking for a place to skate. I took the plastic cups, ribbon, and sidewalk chalk to the park across the street, along with my niece, nephew, wife, and mother-in-law. It was a family outing. There was a straight-away street that is beside the school and park that I thought I would be skating on. However, when I got there, it was terrible pavement as well as highly traveled. So I picked the side walk along this street. It was thin, but newly paved. I set up about 15 cups spaced 120cm. Then the fun began. It was pretty simple because the 120 cm spaced cups are easier. After the skate, while skating back home, I noticed a very cool basketball court. It’s paved nicely and would certainly be great for skating. The problem with it though is many times, basketball courts have rules that one can not skate on them. So, I checked for rules. Guess what, there are none! So next session in MA we will be skating there. I can not wait. I am also going to be purchasing some of the Ikea cups that Jeremy found. I need to be skating now instead of typing. See ya.

Oh and see my videos section for the videos of this post.