First of all, Tim and I will be scheduling Skatefreestyle workshops for the autumn and winter. Summer is just too busy with travel and competitions for us to be giving any in the next few months.
Second of all, we've been up to a lot in the past few weeks, including Battle Warsaw last weekend, which was very different this year than it was last year. The technical level has grown astronomically, which was amazing to see. For me it was very revealing about just how lazy I actually am with training in comparison, as I tend to practice one trick only for as long as it is entertaining, and then I move on to something else. You can see that the Polish skaters train very specifically and very effectively, until a trick is of water-tight consistency. I have taken their example to heart this week and spent the majority of my time working on tightening up tricks and beginning with a few new ones. It's satisfying in its own right, especially with a good drum and bass mix in my headphones, which easily provides a one to two hour backdrop while I plug away at wheelings or sitting tricks or whatever.
However, many of the skaters at the battle appeared to ONLY train tricks, with no nice freestyle mixed in. Without the freestyle, only half the job is done, in my personal opinion. This was reflected in the judging, as I made it through to the final ahead of people who are technically further along than I am, and I assume this is because I was one of the few female skaters representing "freestyle slalom" as a whole, as opposed to "slalom tricks." I was very proud to make it to the final; it was actually the goal I had going into the battle, and once I got there, I didn't really fight. I came in fourth place. *Maybe* if I had fought I could have secured third, but I'm not really sure who I could have beat in that final, because the level was VERY hard.
I was a bit nervous skating in this battle, as opposed to other recent battles, so that was a little disappointing, because I couldn't really pull off any back wheelings, and my sevens were still failing left and right, whereas I am knocking out 7-9 of them easily in practice. Before Paris, I hadn't trained seven in a month of Mondays and just kind of took it for granted that I could do them, and it's been showing in battles lately. So, I've been back to the grindstone and they've improved massively in the past few weeks. However, they still didn't work in Warsaw. This is possibly the most frustrating thing, that I KNOW I can do a trick really well and then I fail it because I am a bit shaky. It just goes to show how sure of your tricks you must be in order to do them well in competition. With back wheeling, I am inconsistent in practices as well as in public. However, I've been drilling the crap out them all week, so maybe I will show some improvements in the next battle. Currently I am shooting for the elusive 20 cone back toe wheeling, and while I've come as close as 19, I've never gotten down the whole line without a single tap or mistake.
Anyway, back to Warsaw, the atmosphere at the battle was quite competitive and serious, and I didn't get much of a sense of the camaraderie amongst the skaters that I so depend on in order to keep bringing me back to battles. However, I realize that a lot of peoples' motivations are different than mine, and that for some people, winning is the only way to have fun. No matter. To each his own. However, it does concern me if this attitude becomes prevalent, and then people shy away from competing. On the one hand it is not necessarily a bad thing, because then it opens up the sport to having several different levels of competition and different kinds of events, but on the other hand, it does not help the sport if the competitions themselves have smaller and smaller numbers of people entering to compete. This is absolutely not the case so far; in fact, there are more people than ever in the freestyle slalom rankings, so I guess it's just a natural part of the evolution of the sport as it gets more popular and the level improves.
Personally, I am still improving all the time and know I am nowhere near the top of my potential, so I will continue to compete as long as I feel like I should be doing so, because I WANT to be as good as the people who are the best, and I know I can be, but it just takes more practice and more experience...i.e. competitions.
The women's slide competition in Warsaw was my favorite part of the whole weekend. I hadn't signed up to take part originally, because I hadn't practiced any slides in ages. I had sort of lost interest in sliding somewhere between last summer and this one, partially because of the fact that I didn't really know how to improve, and I tire easily of something when I know there is no improvement. I suppose I could have sought out internet videos and studied them to learn, or bugged people to show me things, but I didn't, probably because I've been enjoying slalom way too much and I am content most of the time to just keep skating around the cones. Anyway, Ukranian skater Ksenija Komarchuk had an infectious enthusiasm about the whole thing and basically said to me, "Come on, why aren't you sliding?" which of course, worked on me and I signed up! Lidia Wardzinska was also taking part, and it's basically because of those two that I didn't want to be left out. :)
Ksenija took me on as her sliding paduwan and showed me heaps of tips and tricks, AND Mistrial slide, which I had never done before. I learned so much from her that when I left the competition area on Saturday evening, I left with an altogether different outlook on slides in addition to already being improved from the morning. Not only that, I managed to take fourth place in the women's slide competition, which was held apart from the men's only due to late registrations like mine (sorry, organizers!). Last but not least, I managed to do the whole thing in short shorts, and all of my skin remained intact, a fact of which I am very proud. :)
This week I practiced slide a bit on my own and with Pierre Alix, and I can feel how it's different than it used to be. Different better, if still rather noobish.
Well, apart from Battle Warsaw, there's actually been a lot going on, skating-wise, in that I've been training quite diligently. Last night I also had the pleasure of taking part in the Brussels Rollerparade for the first time, and I am hooked. I will be joining as often as possible until the season is over, that's for sure.
To close off, please enjoy some of these EXCELLENT slide tutorials, which come, fittingly enough, from Ukraine. :)
First up: Mistrial slide
Parallel slide
Pornstar slide
There's lots of these tutorials so check them out and happy sliding!
xoxoxo
meg
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