Filming Has Begun

Next week is the deadline for my World Round Up Online Showdown freestyle run, and I'm very glad. As I believe I have mentioned before, I'm very much over doing the same run over and over in practice. I'm ready to incorporate new tricks, but I can't for filming because (a) I want the run to be as smooth as possible and (b) I don't want to have to film it five million times just to get a clean run. I'd rather get several usable videos and choose the best from all of them rather than get one video and have to use it because it is the only one that is clean.

So, Monday through Friday this week I took a video everyday. On Friday evening I went back, looked over them, and chose the cleanest for the competition. Now, my run is very simple. Simple footwork, simple tricks done the smoothest I can on a longboard NOT a freestyle board. I have, essentially, made this a freestyle run without any of the rail or pogo stuff (which I don't care much for). I know I made claims that this run would combine freestyle and dance (and I still do a cross-step at one point in the run), but I ended up with trucks so tight to make the freestyle oriented stuff look freestyle-ish that the dance elements looked stiff and terrible so I took most of those out. 

Over the course of the weekend I've skated a little but I've done zero freestyle. I've set up another hybrid longboard deck with Caliber 160mm trucks and I've been switching between that deck and an OG Dancer from Funbox Distribution that is set up with Gullwing Chargers. I'm really enjoying the turn this weekend. I've been working on basic dance stuff: crossteps, Peter Pans, crossover carving (in Peter Pan position but carving back and forth without changing foot position) and some ghost ride stuff. It has been fun, but it looks like I'll have to switch back over for this last week so I can put my best freestyle foot forward.

If I'm honest, signing up for a contest sounded great, but I do think I regret it now. I don't know that I have the correct attention span to be a competetive freestyle skater. I enjoy going with the flow a bit too much, maybe? Next week is a cyber slalom challenge from the folks at the ISSA. I'm thinking about doing that, but it would be like my 100 mile ride for the IDSA, a one and done mission so I can go back to dancing.