You missed the shred event in the great southwest last weekend. It’s unbelievable that a week has flown by since many top ranked freestylers flew into and out of town, and left their shorching routines on the dry grasses of Scottsdale AZ. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect for the sixteen team prelim to get on it’s way. I believe this is the largest freestyle field in many years (at least since I’ve been participating and ran the event). Due to the large number of registered freestylers and a slow start-up, the finals went into the early evening under ballfield lights. Several freestylers actually had to run off the field after playing to grab a flight back to home.

Awards going to the most traveled for participating in just one event include: Paul Kenney (Jacksonville FL) competitor and Jamie Chantilles (New York, NY) non-competitor. Needless to say there were many folks that joined us from Colorado, Northern and Southern CA, Chicago IL, North Carolina and elsewhere that made the trip to participate in this premiere overall event as well!

As the beautiful AZ sunset closed the day, the finals were set for the top 4 teams in each pool to play into the evening. Routines to note were the technically challenging yet flowing routine by Gina Sample and Dave Lewis as well as the routine of Joel Rogers and Bill Wright which was less choreographed but teeming with energy and movement. Rarely is there a tie in FPA events, yet these two teams showed that technical merit and flow/grace have balance in judging these events. Murphy/ Coddington gave Schiller/Richard a run for the coveted hand-crafted wooden freestyle trophies. Chuck and Dave S. played well. Their powerful and exciting endings generated lots of crowd pleasing minutes. They also executed their routine well by only dropping 1 time. But Arthur and Dave M. were too strong in presentation and difficulty to edge out the competiton. Murphy has really come back strong after severe back surgery only one year ago. It’s unbelievable that he attempts the same moves that he had in the past and still can pull them off as if there were no indication of any back problems! The finals were strong for the most part and all routines are available on videotape for a nominal $10 (plus shippng & handling charges). For more info. please forward your address and phone # and check to me so that I might do begin on the mass reproduction of videotapes (approximate mailing dates in Jan.).
Congratulations to all the winners and participants.

Shred on and keep ’em spinning!

Judy Robbins