Sch3lp’s Blog

So last weekend I went to the IFSA Judge Course in Groningen (NL).
Thursday evening I left at about 20:00 and arrived at 23:00 at my host for the weekend’s house. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ron again for the heartful welcome and free stay.
It was going to be hard work to get us all trained for the final exam on sunday afternoon.
In total, we were with 8 people; Ron, Martin, Marlies, Carmen and Ragnild from Groningen, Matthias Saou from Spain, our instructor Francesco from Italy and myself.

Friday at 9:00 the course started, which was given by experienced IFSA Judge Francesco Maselli. At noon we went to the city center to get some bread and stuff and had our lunch in the streets. Cones were placed, we enjoyed ourselves and the crowd was pleased as well We also joined the Friday Fun Skate, and eventually ended up in pub “De Bres” for a couple of beers.

Saturday we continued the course, went to the same spot again at noon, and in the evening we ordered some pizza and had a great Freestyle slalom session in which I learned a lot. By the way, thanks again Francesco for your hints on how to do the Fan Volte & Chicken Leg.

Then on sunday we had some more studying to do and in the afternoon a 3 hour exam, of which we’ll know the results in a few weeks. When the exam (and the stress) was over, everybody went home to eat. Ron took his guests (Matthias and me) out to “Broncos”, a steak house where they serve some pretty damn good spare ribs and where the waitresses are cute. From there, we went straight to the market place of Groningen, where we were supposed to meet up with the rest of the group for hitting the city nightlife.
Today the dutch celebrate their queen (Queens day). I knew about that, but what I didn’t know is that they already start with the celebration the night before, and it’s called Queens Night. So the streets were absolutely packed with joyous people, there was music everywhere, beer stands everywhere, … they just made one giant party out of the city center. Needless to say, we had a great time as well.

And that about concludes my weekend.
I’m tired as hell now, but I’m so glad I did this course. It also completely changed my opinion of the IFSA, and I will do my best to get rid of the incorrect view people have from the IFSA.

The pictures can be found as usual on my web albums, just click here.
I’ll also post a bunch of movies after I encoded them.
Update : The videos have been uploaded to the webalbum as well.