Jacques Allison and his boys Christian and Terry came down to Kimberley from Johannesburg this past Friday to skate the vert ramp and prepare for the free skate clinic that was held on Saturday. Thanks to Boogaloos provided ten sets of pads and helmets for our local skaters for the weekend and many more to come.

During Saturday’s vert clinic, Jacque gave pointers to the skaters on the basic fundamentals of skating the vert ramp: Pumping, kickturning, how to fall properly, etc. Jacque hosted two clinics and taught over 30 skaters the basics of vert skating.

After the skate clinic, we hosted a highest kickturn contest. Only about ten skaters were brave enough to take on the challenge. In the end, Gerhard Botha and Damian Bramley tied with wheels touching coping, leading to a sudden death to determine the winner. After a heated head-to-head match, Gerhard took the win with a bs 5-0 and won R300 store credit at Thando skate shop. Damian took quite a hard slam but was able to skate just as hard the next day!

On Sunday we had two contests: A highest tail tap and longest pump. The highest tail tap was a great way to get the kids comfortable skating the ramp and eventually fakie tail stall on the coping and one day work their way up to dropping in. Gerhard Botha and Christian Potas made their marks but in the end it was Jacques Reynecke that won R300 store credit at Thando, tapping his tail only 8 inches below coping.

A larger number of kids entered the longest pump contest because they thought it would be an easy task, but keeping your momentum on the ramp for so long at a certain height is super tiring and not so easy! Jacque Reynecke pumped for 7 mins and 30 seconds before a gnarly flatbottom slam, but in the end Alec Balie took out Jacque and pumped for 8 minutes straight and won R300 store credit at Thando skate shop.

To keep the momentum of the weekend’s transition skating, the last contest on Sunday was a 15 minute jam-format contest on the quarter pipe section of the street course. Standout skaters include Damian Bramly with his rock & roll on the big quarter, Christian Potas who did a pivot nosegrab and a nollie shuv sex change, and Jacques Reynecke who learned half cab rock & roll during the contest! Our top skaters during the contest were Brad Balie and Gerhard Botha. Brad didn’t rifle out the most tricks but his tricks were some of the most difficult: switch rock & roll and blunt stall nosegrab in, earning him 2nd place and R300 at Thando skate shop. Gerhard Botha had several tricks including a nosepick to disaster and lien to tail from the small to the big quarter, earning him R500 at Thando skate shop.

Overall the weekend was a blast. Jacques was getting proper inverts every try and almost pulled a 540 on the vert. Big props to Jacques and his crew for coming from Johannesburg to host the free skate clinic on the vert ramp and showing everyone a great time! Check out their website for more info: http://vert.co.za