Sometimes practice is an uphill struggle!

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After a year of skating and loving going fast ‘n’ furious around London, I thought that the slalom might be a nice way to strenghten my ankles (oh yeah!) and improve my control (steady!)

So on a recent trip to NYC I found some Twister IIs for a very nice price. I got me some cones from Club Blue Room, strapped on the biggest pads I could find and decided to give it a go. After a “kick ass” slalom lesson I thought, I’m ready to see what this lark is all about. I finally got up the courage to remove my security blanket called the heel brake and headed off to my local park at Crystal Palace.

Anyone who may know of this hitherto unknown and secret skating mecca will realize that hardly anyone skates there at all. Not to be daunted by this I set up my cones on that, oh so wonderful smooth “bridge” leading to the sports centre. Then the fun began!

From owners letting their dogs piss up my cones and/or rucksack as I was still doing my run, to kids and adults giving me verbal abuse should I so much as touch a cone was just amazing. So different from Hyde Park.
One teenage girl walked up to me and said “Aren’t you embarrassed doing that?” “No.” I replied, “Why, are you embarrassed to watch?” She walked off in silence.

For me it became a psychological and social experiment to hear what the general public, not used to seeing someone slalom, could come up with next. “You’ve dropped one mate, you’re rubbish!” “I can do that better than you!” “If you could skate like that.” Saying to his 10 year old son, “It’d be a f@cking miracle!” Sweet! This is what I was dealing with here.

I won’t even detail the applause, laughter and delight these morons expressed when I fell over. Someone even stole one of my shiny new orange cones while I had my back turned.

I realized that this activity really should be practiced with other skaters present as, when a family, 4 girls on blades and young brother on Heeleys came to watch, then eventually join in at my invitation, the whole scene changed. The abuse stopped, people paused to watch us, say nice things and even when one of us fell, nothing at all nasty was said, just “Ohhhhhh!”

It was as if I was suddenly an instructor teaching this young family how to slalom, the odd tip here, the odd tip there. We had great fun and the morons at large kept their puerile comments to themselves. Strength in numbers, the law of the jungle, etc. etc.

So, if anyone lives in South London and would like to join me at weekends/evenings for slalom practice at Crystal Palace, maybe we can get an informal slalom thing going on at The Park.

P.S. I wasn’t being sarcastic, the surface on “the bridge” is outstanding but only when dry!

Author: Simon.