Naomi Grigg, an awesome skate instructor from London will return to the US in the summer of 2006 and hold her Freestyle workshops in Seattle on August 2nd, 5th & 6th.  Skate Journeys is hosting her again for three courses:  Introduction to Freestyle, Advance Freestyle and Freestyle Dance.

Here is the compete schedule of events and prices for 2006.

Freestyle slalom skating is widely popular in Europe and Asia, but largely unknown in the US. When visiting Paris or London you will see the locals out at lunchtime, after work and on the weekends with rows of cones practicing dozens of different maneuvers. Freestyle slalom skating is about skating with both fluid style and precision. Getting started is really not as hard as it looks!

The workshop is six hours long over two days. Each session is split into two sections, giving four sections in total. Each section is flexible for the different starting standards and learning speeds that shall be attending. You will learn four or five basic slalom moves and then learn to combine and link them into a slalom run.  Here is the Introduction to Freestyle Workshop described in detail.

Prerequisites involve being able to do slalom crisscross (like a basket weave, but leading with the same foot) both backwards and forwards, and forward/backward, backward/forward transitions. If you have any concerns, you can discuss it with us or Naomi before the course.

If you are interested in attending any of the three workshops, please email us at so we can keep you informed as we plan for the workshops. If you are traveling from outside the Seattle area, we may be able to find housing for you for the weekend if you are interested in staying with a local skater.

The Instructor: Naomi Grigg has been skating for ten years in various disciplines, including dance, freestyle, aggressive, speed, and ice hockey. Visit Naomi’s web site for more information about her.

There is also an article and interview about Naomi on the London Skaters web site: Thanks to Naomi and Naomi Interview

For more information on Freestyle Slalom, and to see slalom skaters in action, there are many videos available on the web (some of these files are very large and may take a few minutes to download on a high speed connection).

See Naomi dancing on skates for the BBC’s 28 acts in 28 minutes (4 MB)

French freestyle champion Vinz in Paris (12 MB)

Slalom freestyle with Cédric Diguere and KCF Sap - slalom à paris  (32 MB)

The most complete video library of slalom moves is at Universkate.com.

For even more, see the list in Kathie Fry’s Cone Skating and Freestyle forum or on the Skate Journeys resource page.