The video above is after a month of slaloming.

I'm really loving the whole slalom skating. While there's plenty of room for improvement I'm so happy with the progress I've made in four weeks and feeling well prepared for my slalom workshop in a weeks time. 

Still just chalk marks and no cones for now...

From going to the roller disco at Vauxhall this year I've managed to get my friend Ian back into skating. He discovered a nice roller disco at the Newham Lesiure Centre, Skating Heaven. 

They did try and force us to wear helmets because of insurance but we refused. I understand that we are on their premises but at the same time none of their marshals were wearing helmets and the Vauxhall location didn't enforce the same rules. After some talks with the people in charge they were happy for us to go helmet-less.
          We later found out that the whole setup was some what new at the time, so they were still finding their feet with the whole setup.

The floor is super smooth. Maybe a little too smooth if you're going fast, but usually the marshals signal to you before you get to that speed. They've got a cloak room. Some snacks and drinks available too. Music is played by the DJ in the corner which all the locals seem to know all the words and dance moves to. The great thing about this place is I now know where I can skate on a Sunday afternoon if it's raining. 

Big thing for me that day was that I managed to pull a heel heel trick on my inlines. Score!

So far my slaloming has been some what experimental, weaving whatever stone and twig that happens to be in my way. I dot an even line of white chalk markings to navigate too. This has all been somewhat self taught with the help of a really good Grapevine tutorial by inline slalom skater Naomi Grigg of www.skatefreestyle.com. 

From there I discovered another instructor, Megan McIntosh who has her own awesome slalom blog: megan9mm.blogspot.co.uk. Megan's newest post was a slalom workshop in Hyde Park for next month. (Perfect timing). This seems like a too good an opportunity to miss especially as her partner Tim Schraepen was also instructing too. 

Workshop booked, much excited. 

The video above is my fourth session on the quest for slalom awesomeness...

For the last seven days 'inline slaloming,' is all that I've really been thinking about. When I'm away from the park I'm on the internet watching how all the awesome people do it.

I haven't got any cones yet and I'm only slaloming random twigs on the ground. Just trying to get some flexibility without worrying about anything to trip on. I'm trying out ways of moving my feet that I wouldn't usually do. As a result I seem to have accidentally discovered how to skate backwards which is something I've been wanting do for years! Big score. 

So something to take away from this week: If something isn't working, you got to change your approach.


Below is a video from slalom champion Naomi Grigg, I've lost count how many times I've watched this great tutorial for the grapevine.