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| Skateline Interview with Naomi Grigg |
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| Slaloming Through Life |
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| World-renowned freestyle slalom skater Naomi
Grigg spent her Easter break in Malaysia and
Singapore from April 2-16, 2006. Skateline
Malaysia had the pleasure of playing host
for the few days she spent in the Peninsula.
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| Naomi, who hailed from Swindon, a town in
Wiltshire, United Kingdom, showed off her
stupendous slalom-ing skills and gave a few
instructional pointers to Malaysian skaters
during our U-Skates, SNS and classes. |
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| In case you’re wondering, slalom is
a skating technique that requires you to navigate,
in a variety of styles and moves, through
a zig-zag path between and around a set of
evenly spaced cones … without knocking
any over. Though requiring utmost precision,
a good slalom skater makes the moves look
fluid and effortless. |
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| Despite Naomi’s busy schedule and jetlag, we managed
to sneak a few minutes with her … before she had
to go for a very late lunch. |
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| Q. |
What brings you to this part
of the world? |
| A. |
I’ve been to Europe and the US to teach
freestyle slalom and to take part in competitions,
but this is the first time I’ve been to Asia.
I came because CJ Lee (a Malaysian skate instructor)
was over here, and I wanted to see the skate scene
in Singapore and Malaysia, especially freestyle
slalom. |
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| Q. |
How did you start skating? |
| A. |
I was 15 years old. I stayed at a boarding school,
and during the holidays, my friends lived far away,
and there wasn’t much to do. So I went to
the local ice rink and started learning tricks on
skates.
Then when I moved away, at age 18, I started inline
skating, doing recreational freestyle. |
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| Q. |
When did you venture into slalom? |
| A. |
That was at end-February 2003. I learned all from
videos. I couldn’t play the videos in slow
motion, so I had to stop, rewind and play hundreds
of times. I was putting in 50 hours a week into
skating, on top of my full-time mechanical engineering
job (she now works as a physics teacher) …
I even lost a boyfriend along the way.
I took up slalom with the express interest of competing
in a competition in France, the French Cup, which
was two months away. I wanted to show the international
community that British skaters existed. I knew I
would come in last, but I just wanted to make a
decent attempt and make it easier for everyone in
the UK to have a go with the sport.
I ended up winning the women’s freestyle competition.
And that changed my life.
After the competition, I thought, “Ok, I’m
going to practise even more now.” I was practicing
to get points, for the judges. The process felt
like giving up my soul. I went for another competition
and came in fourth. After that, I lost all interest
in slalom for a while.
Since then, I vowed never to let competition position
to dictate what I did on skates. I still take part
in competitions to show how you can have fun on
skates … because everyone’s so serious
at competitions.
(Naomi went on to win the UK Freestyle Unisex Slalom
Championship in 2004. She got second place the following
year and fifth place at the Spanish Championships
Women’s Freestyle Slalom.) |
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| Q. |
So you started teaching slalom
after that? |
| A. |
Yes. I spent one year designing an intro to freestyle
course. I was obsessed with finding out easy ways
to pass things on and easy ways for people to learn.
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| Q. |
You certainly paved the way
for slalom to take off in the UK. |
| A. |
In Britain, today, loads of people are doing slalom.
We never used to be part of the international community,
and now we’re competing internationally. We
have two fully trained competition judges and have
hosted international competitions. |
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| Q. |
So how do you find Malaysia
so far? |
| A. |
It’s nice and warm here. The temperature
is perfect. The food is great. I like the char hor
fan and loh bak, but the cincau soya is disgusting! |
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| Q. |
The inline skating industry
in Malaysia is still young. What do you think is
needed to start off slalom here? |
| A. |
Well, you need a visible place for people to slalom.
A stereo helps too. Actually, all you need is one
or two people to practise the sport and do it well.
The community is also very important as people like
to hang out together with other skaters. |
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| For more info on Naomi and freestyle slalom, check out
her website at http://www.skatefreestyle.com/ |
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