Skating Clinic 2010

Skate Clinic 2010

The annual Skate Clinic is back! A new year in 2010 heralds an even greater drive for the skating team to bring Skate Clinic to a higher level to spread the love of the sport. We have once again attracted an overwhelming response from the SMU student body. The SMUX Skating Team and 40 participants brought their interest for skating out of SMU to East Coast Park on 8^th Jan to enjoy skating in a natural terrain. In order to ensure that participants gain the most out of this event, participants were grouped according to their skating skill levels. With the help of SMUX senior and junior skaters, who were tasked with the role of Group Leaders, participants were taught various skating techniques. Even beginner skaters managed to learn the sport fast. Despite an occasional drizzle and a slight shower near the end of the event, the participants and the SMUX Skaters did not allow the rain to dampen their spirits and went on to skate around East Coast Park and also to Bedok jetty. SMUX Skating Team can indeed look forward to more new skaters in the coming weeks since many participants have expressed interest in joining future skating events after having enjoyed Skate Clinic 2010!

Skating Beyond Borders

Skating Beyond Borders is an annual event organized by SMUX Skating Team. This year’s event started on 06 December 09 and lasted for 11 days till 16 December 09. It consisted of an Overseas Community Service Project to Batam and a weekend getaway for the participants in Batam. There were 22 volunteers in total and 4 who joined us during the weekend for recreational activities.

We were attached to a school (Taman Belajar Gembala Baik) through our beneficiary, Yayasan Citramas. The two main objectives of Skating Beyond Borders are to educate the children and improve their study environment. The children, aged 4-6 years, are taught English, Mathematics and Art & Craft. The volunteers also painted the school and cleaned up its surroundings.

Here are some pictures of our volunteers teaching and interacting with the children:

Skating Beyond Borders has achieved its objectives successfully and this is in no part thanks to the help from Yayasan Citramas, the support and guidance from OCS and all the hard work put into this event from the organizing committee and volunteers.

Intro Urban Skate 09

Intro Urban Skating gives SMU students opportunities to experience Urban Skating. Skaters will visit various places around the campus such as Esplanade, the Fullerton and the Merlion. They will be led by senior GL skaters who will look after for safety. The GLs also teach basic skills of Urban Skating. The event also aims to promote skating as a healthy, recreational and most importantly fun sport. It is also to help them build confidence in their skating skills by exposing them to various obstacles of urban settings. Urban Skating is another way to improve proficiency of skaters.

Skate Day ‘09

Skate Day(20-March) is annual SMUX Skating Team event aims to promote skating as a means of transport within SMU campus and at the same time, it also helps to promote a healthy lifestyle. “It’s my day my way” is our marketing campaign message aims to boost awareness and catch interest in skating. Initially, skaters only skate on normal Friday skating session. Skating around the school is not recognized by the school. Skate Day makes skaters eligible traveling around the school on skates everyday(approved by OFM and OSL). Nonetheless, we have to ensure that skaters is proficient is enough to skate around the school without endanger him/herself, public and school properties. Assessment is implemented to test proficiency of every skater. The assessment includes braking, going up and down escalators and stairs and maneuvering (going through obstacles and cones). Skater who fails any of these assessments is not eligible to skate around the school. However, he/she can still skate on Friday skating session at concourse. On Skate Day, all eligible skaters will be skating around in school the whole day. Activities are planned out which include skating tricks and stunts performances and the finale of forming the longest skating chain followed by urban skating.

The Crew Story

Why does the SMUX executive committee call themselves the Crew?

Here, we bring you an excerpt from Shawn Tee, President of the 1st Crew and the story behind it.

SKATE DAY (20th March 2009)

It's MY DAY to SKATE MY WAY.

SKATE DAY like the name suggests is a Day meant for skaters by skaters. This special day is targeted at all skaters who belongs to the SMU community (whether faculty member or student) to take the opportunity to travel anywhere within the SMU compound on skates (example seminar rooms, concourse, campus green etc). Organized by SMUX Skating Team, our chief aim is to promote a healthy lifestyle; at the same time, it helps to raise the profile of SMUX Skating Team and highlight skating is a feasible means of transportation within the school.

S.K.A.T.E Clinic

S.K.A.T.E clinic (Skating Clinic and Slalom Workshop) is a bi-yearly event organized by SMUX Skating Team to lower the level of entry for all SMU undergraduates and to introduce skating as a healthy and recreational sport.

This one-day event, which is conducted by skaters from SMUX Skating Team, aims to coach people who are interested in learning basic skating skills as well as slalom, an advanced skating skill. 87 participants signed up in total, with 72 beginner skaters and 15 slalom skaters. The whole clinic is conducted in a more personal and friendly methods, where beginner skaters are encouraged to register in a team of 4 to promote more interaction and fun within the group.

The clinic consists of two main sections; the first half of the clinic will be the coaching of participants by the instructors, and the second half will be the carnival style of clinic, where participants are to go from station to station to play games in order to score points. The basic skating skills that the participants will learn during clinic include Standing Up, V-Walk, Stride I/II, Heel Brake, Parallel Turn, T-Brake. The slalom skills that participants will learn include Fish, Snake, Criss Cross, Cross Nelson, Crazy, Double Crazy.

To learn and master all the skills in a three hour session during the S.K.A.T.E clinic is not easy. As such, SMUX Skating Team would greatly encourage S.K.A.T.E clinic participants to continue to join the skaters in our usual Friday skating session to practice and ultimately, master all the skills.

Xing Er (23/01/2009)

Skating Finance I/C