Cleveland Workshop

Cleveland, OH Access to Speed Workshop, June 25, 26, 27, 1999
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Eddy Matzger's Access to Speed Workshop bumped and ground its way to better skating where rock and roll all started, June 25, 26, 27, 1999, in Cleveland, Ohio. In spite of high humidity and a few hard knocks, workshop participants toughed it out and earned their status as workshop "survivors."

In fact, skaters were driven by such purity of purpose that they steadfastly refused to wear their survivor t-shirts until they had duly completed the course and could declare themselves graduates. Little did they realize that the effort they had expended alone was enough to pass them with flying colors.

The workhop was an unrelenting cascade of skating knowledge, oftentimes dispensed too quickly to assimilate and fully integrate. Seekers nonetheless sipped liberally from the fountain, pausing only infrequently to catch their breath.

The Access to Speed course began Friday with a social skate and chalk talk, and then got down and dirty with skating basics Saturday morning and crossovers by Saturday afternoon. Sunday early, skaters atacked double push like there was no tomorrow, and late in the day they tackled hills, competed in a stage race, and launched themselves with explosive pliometric drills.

The workshop drew to a close just as a welcome wall of rain descended upon the group. By that time, skaters' worlds had been rocked. Some had attended to fine tune their skating, others came simply to learn from the bottom up. Invariably, everybody left with a new appreciation for the finer skills yet to master and the realization that the road to improvement oftentimes requires complete retooling altogether.

Bendy Efrain	Steffi at play	New uni's!
No-way low	Group huddle	Veritable wabbits
Ken closes	Full-fledged d.p.	Marvelo
Uncle!	Ape	Course load
Tall and small	Race heads	Skate city

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