The LondonSkaters Freestyle Club (LSFC) are delighted to announce that they intend to exploit the final 6 months of having Kim Taehong (AKA: Theo), the coach of the Korean ‘No-Break’ slalom team’s Slalom Academy, living in London…

Clearly he does a better job than Naomi, because Kim SungJin, the guy that beats all others, is from his team… so, if you’ve ever wanted to be able to slither through cones like a hot knife through butter, with the beauty & fluidity of the Korean slalomers, this is where you want to be each weekend afternoon, so you can follow the No-Break program of learning slalom.

So, what’s the program?

Instead of running intensive learning, these sessions will be spread out to allow more time for each skill to sink in – you will learn in 90 minute sessions, weekend afternoons.

The initial pilot of the Slalom Academy will last 10 sessions, after which it will no doubt be extended due to heavy demand, and threats of dire action if we don’t continue. I say ‘we’ because although Theo will be running the Academy, Naomi may be required to provide additional support from time to time due to the intimidatingly high level of attendance.

The sessions will be Saturdays & Sundays 2pm until 3.30pm on Serpentine Road in Hyde Park, starting from 23/24 Feb, running until 29/30 March (22 March weekend we’re probably all going to Battle Moscow), and are suitable for those who have never slalomed before, right up to international competition standard.

If it rains, the session will be postponed, and the initial pilot will run into April.

The damage:

Like all the best mobile network providers that we like to model ourselves on, we have two price plans that you can opt for. You can pay-as-you-go for just £10/session, or you can buy into the program at the bargain price of £80 for 10 sessions which includes complimentary membership of the LondonSkaters Freestyle Club and the UK Freestyle Skating Association.

If you buy 10 sessions, and you can’t make one of them, you need not worry, as the sessions will continue on at, at worst, a less frequent basis beyond the pilot program.

More information

If you want more in-depth information about the LSFC, the Slalom Academy, or just want to have a chat to discuss your freestyle needs and what colour socks are most likely to help your slalom, drop Naomi a line on 07867 848 883, or send an email over to Naomi@ukfsa.org

The ethos of the team is all about the fun of competition, and doing well in competition is merely a pretty damned convenient side effect…  Clicky clicky the pictures to find out more about each team rider (a couple more riders to be added):

Becoming a member of the SkateFreestyle team is certainly not a decision one takes lightly. Each day the team members wake up at 4am to begin their stretching exercises. An hour later the team eats breakfast, which consists of a small bowl of raw rice and a glass of tomato juice.

The team members then ritually chastise themselves with bamboo sticks - one for every cone they knock over. Often this takes many many hours…

Training begins in the temple courtyard at precisely 12 noon. The team ties their hands behind their backs to ensure they don’t get into bad habits. Unfortunately, this means they have to replace the cones with their mouths - their trade secret to ensuring sufficient knee-bend.

The day ends with a short swim of the sacred lake, 5000 lengths or so, for fitness. If they can complete these before the resident monk completes his meditation and rings the temple bell, then they are allowed to eat dinner.

JB is the one person on the team who hates competing. Infact, he’s the only person we know who temporarily resigned his sponsorship because he ‘couldn’t be arsed with competing’. He’s since been re-recruited as a non-competition rider… which… apparently makes you suddenly find competitions more bearable.

‘Why is he on the team then?’ we hear you ask, well, he’s the newly crowned British Champion, and he works for the officey & filmy side of SkateFreestyle as a day-job, so, despite not being coached by Naomi, or indeed, letting her offer him any more advice than he offers her during casual skating, he was begged to join, if only so he can take the videos at competitions…

Club: LondonSkaters Freestyle Club, UK Freestyle Skating Association

Competitions & Workshops:

• SkateLondon competition 2006
• Bremen competition 2006
• LSFC Demo Team 2006
• Paris Slalom World Cup competition 2007
• BattleUKII competition 2007
• No workshops… clearly…

Doug is pretty much the pioneer of freestyle slalom in the US of A. So it’s him you can blame. Wanting a bit of a fresh input into his skating, he organised the first US based Skatefreestyle clinic back in 2005, in his home town of Seattle. Had his wife been able to see the future, I think she would have objected…

Club: Skate Journeys, US Freestyle Skating Association

Competitions & Workshops:

• Seattle intro workshop 2005
• Seattle intermediate workshop 2006
• New York Seba & Naomi workshop 2007
• Seattle advanced workshop 2007
• BattleUS competition 2007

Denni, or Daniela/Denise/Delilah/Doris/Debbie as he is better known, is quite the character. Words fail when trying to give any kind of background on this guy.

Daniela is the all American guy. Pizza loving, baseball cap wearing, and his voice will drive you crazy during the first 5 minutes, before you rapidly acclimatise to his overwhelming enthusiasm for whatever is currently at hand. ‘YOU WANT US TO DO PRESSUPS TO WARM UP TODAY?? THAT’S SOOOOOO COOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!!!’

Skating 14 years, Debbie travelled all the way from Massachusetts to impose himself on the first ever philadelphia SkateFreestyle workshop, and the rest is history.

Club: US Freestyle Skating Association

Competitions & Workshops:

• Philadelphia intro workshop 2006
• San Francisco advanced workshop 2006
• Boston advanced workshop 2007
• New York Seba & Naomi workshop 2007
• BattleUS competition September 2007

Tim’s, AKA Sch3lp, main contribution to the team is his incredible foot size. It’s certainly not his ability to remember his passport when travelling to international skate comps… will he ever live it down? We think not.

Fortunately, due to his 12 years skating, he’s the king of style when he prances around cones, and has an unnerving ability to do spitting image impersonations of people. Denni watch out… 

Club: ConeCrazy 

Competitions and workshops:

• ConeCrazy demo team 2007 
• Groningen advanced workshop 2007
• Bordeaux competition 2007
• Belgium advanced worskhop 2007
• BattleUK competition 2007, had he remembered his passport…

John is a total rink-rat. Whiling away his 13 pre-slalom years obsessing over smoothness & fluidity in a roller rink in Melbourne, and wearing black, John was the hero of all that frequented his lands. But Then… in a whirlwind of obsessive practice whilst wearing black (are you getting the obsessive side of his personality through ok?), converted all of his moves to be fitted around cones, and made his frighteningly smooth competition debut, in his black Bayside Blades team shirt at the Shanghai Open 2007, leaving only one question unanswered… will he need a special team t-shirt in black?

During Johns 14 years, he’s also played 3 seasons of inline hockey, and still continues to speed skate as a 2nd discipline. We’ll have to put our foot down about the lycra thing though.

Club: Bayside Blades

Video clip: link here

Competitions & Workshops:

• Melbourne workshop 1 2007
• Shanghai Open competition 2007
• Melbourne workshop 2 2007
• Sydney workshop 2 2007

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Carmen, AKA ‘Cowry’ is quite possibly the coolest person alive. According to all the kids at her sisters school, that is. She did a demo, and now they’re all on skates. What it is to be a school kid’s hero… *swoon*. She is also the current teachers pet of the team. Always submitting footage on time, and pretending very convincingly to take note of all the feedback given & changes that need to be made.

She is also clinically mad, which probably helps along her slalom a great deal…

Club: Cone Kicking Gumbies

Video Clip: link here

Competitions & Workshops:

• Groningen intro workshop 2005
• SkateLondon competition 2005
• Groningen intermediate workshop spring 2006
• SkateLondon competition 2006
• Barcelona competition 2006
• Groningen advanced workshop autumn 2006
• Cone Kicking Gumbies demo team 2007
• Groningen advanced workshop 2007
• BattleUK competition 2007