A specially designed Great EsSkate jersey will be available at the 10th Annual Great EsSkate for only $55.00 (see drawing) in the registration/sponsors area of the Royal palm Hotel. 10% of the proceeds will be donated to the Haitian Relief Fund of the American Red Cross.

There are two kinds of inline skating. One covers distance; it uses large muscle groups and efficient strides to get from point A to point B. It is athletic.
The other is maneuvering. It is turns and twists and control; it is stopping on a dime while looking like a million bucks. It is graceful.

Naomi Grigg of Skate Freestyle is of the million bucks persuasion. She not only makes it look easy, she shows you how to do it. Naomi will once again strut her amazing stuff at the Great EsSkate in 2010. Watch for her during the skates, of course, but also at Saturday's picnic, when she will stake out a bit of pavement adjacent to the beach for an hour or so and invite Great EsSkaters to learn how to weave through the cones while looking like-well, like 1,719 bucks, anyway.

Naomi takes on all comers. "Come and have a go at it," she urges GES attendees in her London accent. She and her team will offer pointers, teach the basics or set up a mini battle-style competition-whatever her fans request.

Want a preview? Naomi looks like one million, eight hundred and ninety-two bucks at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmX3-gOo9qI.

Naomi will offer a two-day Slalom for Instructors class Thursday and Friday, February 18 - 19, in Miami Beach, just before the Great EsSkate. For information call Trish Alexander of the Skate Instructors Association, 206-276-9328.

She will hold her 5-day Miami Beach Freestyle Slalom Retreat February 21 - 26. Get more information at http://www.skatefreestyle.com/workshops/florida_slalom_retreat.asp. Contact Naomi at naomi@skatefreestyle.com.

If the Great EsSkate is a tantalizing taste of the sport you love, consider the full-course meal being served up the following week in Miami Beach.
Freestyle Champion Naomi Grigg will again offer her Freestyle Slalom Retreat February 21 - 26. The five-day retreat (Wednesday is a day of rest) challenges 8 to 10 skaters of all levels, from slalom beginners to international competitors.
"The idea is to help skaters kick-start the 2010 season by making significant improvements in their slalom during a highly focused week, while enjoying warmer weather and-with any luck-a beach vacation!" says Naomi, who lives in drizzly London.
But before you pack your beach hat, check out Naomi's schedule. Even she admits that she "turns into an army sergeant" during her retreats.

Sunday evening skaters meet and talk about wishes, goals and the week's schedule. Anyone who brings competition or practice footage gets some professional analysis.
The rest of the highly structured week is broken into style sessions, skill sessions, off skates and combo/practice, with a different focus for each day and session. Evenings are food, rest, one-on-one video review and progress meetings.

Style sessions start each day. Instructors adjust each skater's basic style, with the goal of transferring those changes to the more technical slalom style as the week goes on. Skill sessions teach one new move per day per skater. With practice, they are integrated with other moves.

Off-skate sessions may review the day's video; discuss posture, fluidity, smoothness and power; hold an equipment Q&A; identify practice techniques; review competition formats and judging or discuss the "Combo."

Combos and practice end the day. Skaters learn how to make a Combo, then practice and have fun with it, participating in slalom games and, on the final day, a mini competition.

All sessions take place where? The fee is $400 fee and does not include accommodations, but generally the class shares a Miami Beach Hostel apartment at a cost of about $40 per night per student, which includes breakfast.

Get more information at http://www.skatefreestyle.com/workshops/florida_slalom_retreat.asp. Contact Naomi at naomi@skatefreestyle.com.

Naomi also offers a pre-Great EsSkate Miami Beach Slalom for Instructors class. The two-day course costs $200. To register or for information, call Trish Alexander of the Skate Instructors Association, 206-276-9328. She invites Great EsSkaters to maneuver around the cones during Saturday's picnic, or participate in a mini battle-style competition.

For a preview of what Naomi Grigg teaches, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmX3-gOo9qI.

Kris Fondran is certified to teach both inline skating and yoga and she's a regular at the Great EsSkate. On Thursday, February 18th, 6:00 - 7:30 P.M. on Miami Beach, she's combining all three to offer a free yoga and skating workout to Great EsSkate attendees.

"Adding yoga and breathing techniques to your skating workout enhances skating technique, efficiency and performance," Kris promises, "which leads to a more satisfying skating experience."

Kris will tailor the free yoga and skating workout to beginner and intermediate skaters, but all levels of skaters can count on a challenge. Come dressed for skating. Helmet required. To RSVP or for information, contact Kris at krisk8s@gmail.com.

For purists, Kris will teach a free street skating 101 refresher class Friday, February 19, 4:30 P.M. on the sidewalk at Ocean Drive and 5th Street. It is open to registered skaters who need some practice in handling stops, curbs and obstacles. A helmet is required.

There are a lot of ways to become a better skater. Just showing up is probably the easiest: When you skate on a regular basis, you can't help but improve your skating technique and speed just by doing it over and over again.

Hanging with skaters also helps you learn about brands of skates, how size of wheels affects skating, great skate routes and other skating events. It's almost osmosis; skate with good skaters on a regular basis and you improve your skating.

But on March 5-7 we get a rare chance for a world-class lesson when Eddy Matzger brings his Skate Farm to South Florida. Eddy is a champion inline racer, but don't let that intimidate you. He invites skaters of all levels to his Skate Farm in Virginia for 3- and 5-day clinics, and sometimes, if you're really lucky, he brings his class on the road. This winter, South Florida is really lucky.

Eddy's class is two grueling 8-hour days of skate talk and skate action with one of the most down-to-earth world champs you will ever meet. Eddy is casual, enthusiastic and more at home in his skates than he is in shoes. (He does housework and climbs Mt. Kilimanjaro in skates.) His classes are eye opening and challenging, no matter what kind of skater you are. They're also fun and funny. You get one-on-one time with Eddy. You see videos of your skating and hear critiques. You do group skates. You break for lunch and casual conversation.

By Sunday night you're exhausted - but you've made a couple of dozen good friends, including Eddy. And your skating is pretty much exactly what it was before the weekend. Because attending an Eddy Matzger clinic (like skating with knowledgeable skaters, or just being a frequent skater) doesn't guarantee instant results. Eddy crams your head with information on what good skating looks like and feels like, and what your shortcomings are. But your feet are still skating like they always have.

It takes several months for all that new information to percolate down to your feet. Months of thinking about your outside edges more than being on your outside edges. Months of thinking about the position of your knees and your back, and where your weight is inside your skates. But with time and practice, that information works its way down to your feet, and your head can forget it. (Then you're ready for another clinic.)

The road to better skating starts with just showing up, and one excellent place to show up is Eddy Matzger's clinic. Sign up if you'd like to improve on the basics. Sign up if you'd like to enter a race. Sign up if you'd like to win more races. Then, after you've attended the clinic? Practice, practice, practice.

Slalom Class Helps Inline Instructors be Better Teachers

How can snakes, crisscross and freestyle tricks help you teach inline skating? Wouldn't it be fun to find out?

World champion Naomi Grigg of Skate Freestyle brings her unique Slalom for Instructors class to Miami Thursday and Friday, February 18th and 19th. This two-day workshop, endorsed by the Skate Instructors Association, gives any instructor, even those who have never so much as looked at a line of cones before, the skills to use slalom tricks in their classes. Naomi teaches her students the tricks, then teaches them how to teach.

"If you can help your students master edging, weight distribution and rotary motion in an environment of fun and instant feedback," says Naomi, "you are giving them the tools to thrive in speed skating, artistic skating or any other discipline."

By providing a slower, lower-risk environment, she explains, slalom training expands comfort zones and encourages experimentation with edges and balance. "Skaters too afraid to do cross-overs find themselves crisscrossing through the cones with confidence and delight!" she promises.

Children love the challenge of cones and have insatiable appetites for the next trick. Slalom provides instructors with a supply of tricks to drill hungry children on basic skills. The children think they are learning new skills; the instructor knows they are practicing basics in new ways.

The Miami Beach Slalom for Instructors course covers:

• The slalom skills and tricks of a regular workshop. Each participant moves at his or her own speed, learning forward/backward, snake and crisscross, along with several freestyle tricks.
• Tested methods of teaching slalom basics, learned over seven years of slalom teaching, focus on breaking down the trick and the importance of the upper body.
• Ways of using slalom to solve common skating problems. Skating problems are due to key skill deficiencies. Slalom tricks target these deficiencies and can also teach common skating skills, such as the parallel turn.
• How slalom drills cross train with other skating disciplines. Each discipline utilizes a specific combination of skills; for example, speed skating would not require much in the way of backward skating skills. Slalom tricks can be rewarding drills for use in isolating and developing specific skill sets.
• Competition styles, judging and preparation to encourage further development within the slalom discipline. Background information about the international and national freestyle slalom scene will enable instructors to teach slalom and encourage students to continue their skating education.

The two-day course costs $200. To register or for information about the Miami Beach Slalom for Instructors class, call Trish Alexander of the Skate Instructors Association, 206-276-9328.

Naomi will also hold her five-day Slalom Retreat in Miami Beach immediately following the Great EsSkate. Get more information at http://www.skatefreestyle.com/workshops/florida_slalom_retreat.asp.

She invites registered skaters to learn to slalom and participate in a mini battle-style competition during the Great EsSkate's Saturday picnic. See Naomi in action at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmX3-gOo9qI.

The Great EsSkate has its own Facebook group page. Check it out here.