This past weekend my friend Christophe generously offered to host a freestyle skate weekend inside an empty building he has access to. Evan, Denni, Christope, Rosicel, and I had a great time, skating for around 12 hours over saturday and sunday. Christophe’s wife and daughters joined us sunday as well.

Having Christophe, who is just getting into slalom and Evan who is starting to apply his own unique skating style to slalom really made the weekend much more fun than just Denni and myself. I think both Evan and Christophe are hooked on the cones (Christophe already bought two pairs of Sebas!) I ‘ve got tons of video to comb through and make a movie for the weekend (about 5 hours!) so i hope you enjoy the video when its done.

Denni and I are definitely getting better; our skating is more smooth and relaxed, and we each learned a few new things. The real star of the weekend, though, was Evan. Skating freestyle has been his past time for years, but until recently, he only made fun of Naomi for being into those silly cones. Now he’s applying the skills he’s built up over the years to the cones, and the result is unlike anything i’ve seen from either the asian or european slalom scenes. I suspect when people see his slalom skating they’ll start talking about it.

Another great freestyle weekend. Check out the videos:

Winter Warehouse Land
Shoot the Duck!

So, we went up to Boston on the 4th, as planned. Brodie and everyone we met were very friendly, and open minded enough to try out our “Euro” style slalom. Then when it rained everyone came over to the bridge we had set up under, and skated with us for a few hours, while the 6ft spaced large american cones got rained on.

All in all it was very fun, and we’ll be going back next year, i’m sure. Head over to the videos page to check out videos of all the people we met.

So the grapevine that Jeremy taught me looks a little different than the one in Brodie’s vids. There’s more turns involved and snaking and stuff… Brodie’s grapevine looks more like a modified crazy. Jeremy and I made a connection between the crazy and the grapevine while we were practicing. He said that the grapevine is like the crazy only crossing over the cones going forward instead of facing sideways. I’ll have to look at some video of us doing the grapevine or our “insanity” and compare it to the grapevine vids from Brodie. He does it kinda fast so I’ll slow it down to watch his feet movements easier….

… after looking at it in slo-mo, it still seems as if Brodie’s grapevine is actually the crazy done on cones spaced further apart than 80cm. It also seems as if it is nothing like the thing we have been calling the “insanity”. Maybe Jeremy will have some insight on this. Brodie moves very fast through this thing and with loads of expertise so I’m probably just not seein’ it.

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.

Rocking it Philly style. If i didn’t live in Philly i doubt I would have ever learned this.

click here for the video of me skating down the Art Museum Steps

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.