Fort Lauderdale Workshop 2002

Fort Lauderdale, FL, Access to Speed Workshop, February 15-17, 2002

Click on an image to see it full size with a description.

Bruce McNamara and Julio Palomino facilitated a fantastic season opener of the 2002 Access to Speed workshop on the freshly cured outdoor track at Brian Piccolo Park in Cooper City, Florida.

A world class facility was home to world class budding talent. Young and young at heart took skating information and incorporated it into their muscular circuitry in ways that made them faster, longer-lasting skating creatures.

Saturday afternoon saw skaters going back to the basics. Drills stressing gliding in the base position, falling with the hips, carving pushes with wheels in line with the shin bone, relaxed semi-circular recoveries, and gliding. Skaters then put it all together and blasted down one of the most beautiful home stretches anywhere.

Crosovers grabbed the spotlight on Sunday morning, which was really just secret practice for the double push, which every single skater mastered to an amazing degree. Color-coded chalk templates laid down on the ground helped skaters grasp the concept of underpush followed by regular push before switching legs.

And what a venue for a stage race where each participant had a chance to shine as a team member and an individual. Cosmolita blazed an orbit around the track like some celstial object in the individual time trial and outpaced her nearest challenger by over 5 seconds, then missed out on the draft in the final group race to get honorably beaten to a pulp along with all the other youngsters.

Everybody had a chance to be brilliant in the Florida sunshine at a time of year when low humidity and positive group chemistry always kept energy and desire on the up and up.

The workshop was honored and amazed at being so hugely underwritten by Salomon skates, TWINCAM bearings, Explore wheels, Wigwam socks, Transpack, Raymond Verdaguer designs, and Bobward Flynn.

Baseline	Grouper smush	Slow study
Power puller	Stroke study	Gravity assist
Tight cooperation	Underpush study	Finish blur
Smooth unit	Blue swoosh	You did it!
Hammer Joan	Whipping around	Happy campers

Return to workshop pictures
Return to home