Workshops
London pilot of 4.5 day slalom retreat week
Pilot has taken place!
A great success, much fun was had by all, the rain stayed away (almost), and the results will be available soon....
The old text...
In 2009, Naomi is going to be running two mid-week slalom retreats, each starting Monday, finishing Friday. One will be held along side a competition (BattleUS, Boston, June), and the other will be a 'destination' style one in some nice vacation location (Florida). For the actual retreats next year, everyone will all stay in one villa/hostel/hotel/whateve
NOVEMBER 3-7th 2008 LONDON:
We need to test it! For people to physically and mentally last a week it needs to be highly structured, and have different pacing to the current weekend workshops. Also, motivationally speaking, it needs to be top notch, in order for people to keep developing for the entire duration. It is these things that need to be road tested.
Here is an overview of the current structure - the idea is to deep clean and make significant (not superficial) changes to each of the 5-10 skater's slalom:
Day 1:
Isnt actually a day, its just an evening. People flew in on this day, or spend the day recovering after a weekend competition. For the London Pilot, it will be a Sunday or Monday. But this day is the most important session of all, its evening meet up to discuss individual goals for each of the group. All together, review any existing footage of each skater, and decide two sets of goals: Style/quality improvements, and technical developments. Ie, maybe someone could need fluidity/speed/arms-not-wa
Day 2-5:
Session 1: Quality & style. This is where the style goals are worked on. No new moves learned (thats a lie, but no gratuitous learning of new moves...).
Session 2: one new move each, & combining it with existing moves etc
Lunch: this, and session 3, is expected to probably take place at Naomi's flat for the London pilot/test week - each take turns cooking one day, and there are laptops for video review. Alternatively could eat out if people prefer & have budget. But, staying together, is what is needed in order to test this retreat structure.
Session 3: no skates, its 'theory session'. sometimes theory about improving slalom (this used to be explained during workshops as & when, but too much time was spent listening & not skating, so now its separate, and can include reference to video clips of very good skaters), competition rules, making combos for competition or otherwise, and of course, most notably, reviewing video footage of the morning, to see what improvements have been made, and what needs to still be worked on.
Session 4: combo making & practice. Putting the moves from earlier in to practice. maybe just a lighter session, with some fun slalom challenges, based on not learning anything new, but working the slalom from earlier into your other moves/combos. perhaps this session is about making a combo with the moves from earlier, that actually works nicely, or practice based on what was seen during video review. This session would probably need to be different for each day, and is expected to be *very* relaxed.
Here is an overview of the current structure - the idea is to deep clean and make significant (not superficial) changes to each of the 5-10 skater's slalom:
Day 1:
Isnt actually a day, its just an evening. People flew in on this day, or spend the day recovering after a weekend competition. For the London Pilot, it will be a Sunday or Monday. But this day is the most important session of all, its evening meet up to discuss individual goals for each of the group. All together, review any existing footage of each skater, and decide two sets of goals: Style/quality improvements, and technical developments. Ie, maybe someone could need fluidity/speed/arms-not-wa
Day 2-5:
Session 1: Quality & style. This is where the style goals are worked on. No new moves learned (thats a lie, but no gratuitous learning of new moves...).
Session 2: one new move each, & combining it with existing moves etc
Lunch: this, and session 3, is expected to probably take place at Naomi's flat for the London pilot/test week - each take turns cooking one day, and there are laptops for video review. Alternatively could eat out if people prefer & have budget. But, staying together, is what is needed in order to test this retreat structure.
Session 3: no skates, its 'theory session'. sometimes theory about improving slalom (this used to be explained during workshops as & when, but too much time was spent listening & not skating, so now its separate, and can include reference to video clips of very good skaters), competition rules, making combos for competition or otherwise, and of course, most notably, reviewing video footage of the morning, to see what improvements have been made, and what needs to still be worked on.
Session 4: combo making & practice. Putting the moves from earlier in to practice. maybe just a lighter session, with some fun slalom challenges, based on not learning anything new, but working the slalom from earlier into your other moves/combos. perhaps this session is about making a combo with the moves from earlier, that actually works nicely, or practice based on what was seen during video review. This session would probably need to be different for each day, and is expected to be *very* relaxed.